Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
By Tony Attwood “It is not just Tottenham that struggle to compete with the big sides away from home. We need many things – we need to win trophies, we need to build the new stadium, we need to build a good squad, we need to play young players.” Thus sayeth the Tottenham manager in …
by Tony Attwood Mauricio Pochettino announced after the match that it was referee Mike Dean who did it all, with two mistakes. Although, as Walter pointed out in his post-match review, only one of the goals could have been offside, Mr P wanted to go further and say that the free kick involved in the othergoal …
Read More “Arsenal didn’t beat Tottenham, it was the referee’s fault, according to Mr Pochettino.”
By Walter Broeckx Team at the start Cech – Koscielny – Mustafi – Monreal – Bellerin – Kolasinac – Xhaka – Ramsey – Özil – Alexis – Lacazette A firt shot at goal from Arsenal when Alexis intercepted a ball high up the Tottenham half and he gave it to Lacazette. Lacacazette tried to create …
Read More “The little bit late match report Arsenal – Tottenham 2-0”
By Tony Attwood Having had the exhilaration of being at the Emirates this afternoon, followed by the push and shove to get on the Underground, the walk back to the car and then the tedium of the drive home (85 miles up the M1 in case you are interested) broken only slightly by the tedium …
Read More “Arsenal 2 Tottenham Hotspur 0. Even the tiny details of commentary can be misleading”
By Bulldog Drummond It is interesting that with the first team seemingly fixed on three at the back, with two full backs helping them, the under 18 side is playing with a back four in a 4-2-3-1 formation – or at least that is how it seemed as they were beating Norwich 3-0. However there …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: The teams, and the need to kill off under performing players”
By Tony Attwood It is now six Premier League games since we beat Tottenham, a pretty shocking run. In fact as far as I can see it is the worse run that Arsenal has ever had in either the PL or the 1st division in terms of playing Tottenham. Of course the figures are a …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: the tragedy of a journalist’s pathetic lack of knowledge”
by Andrew Crawshaw So we now know the punishment for Arsène Wenger for his (correct) disparaging remarks on the quality of refereeing in the EPL. A visit by the referee who is probably most hated among Arsenal fans – Mike Dean. Referee – Mike Dean Age 49 from Meryside Assistant Referee 1 – Ian Hussin …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham Saturday 18 November 2017 – The Match Officials”
By Darren Stinsman Arsenal go into a crunch North London derby on Saturday lunchtime knowing that defeat would leave them seven points behind their bitter rivals. Tottenham are in fine form at the moment and will be full of confidence following their recent 3-1 victory over European champions Real Madrid at Wembley. Arsenal were in …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: return of the triumvirate, the battle of the midfield.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Sincere apologies for the lack of posts through some of today. We suffered another attack, and it took a while to recover. This time it was different – the site was still visible and comments could be posted but we were unable to put up new posts for a while. If …
Read More “Apologies for our down time and here’s some tittle tattle”
Sorry for the delay in bringing you this report – we had a technical problem yesterday. by Andrew Crawshaw Sunday Nov 12 was dry, bright and very cold. Fortunately for me my journey from South London to Borehamwood was clear of upgrade works giving me a simple journey involving only one change of train. It …
Read More “WSL1 Arsenal v Sunderland Nov 12 2017 – The Untold Match Report”
By Bulldog Drummond It seems many of us have different definitions of fairly ordinary words. “Objectivity” I take to mean working hard to take out any sort of bias. “Perspective” I think means in the context used, “a point of view”. Which is how one person can say to another, “You’re approaching the problem from a completely different perspective.” It is …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham. Objectivity and perspective, not quite the same thing”
By Bulldog Drummond I don’t have any difficulty in admitting that Tottenham have been doing well of late, not do I try to deny the utterly obvious. That, for example, last season for the first time in a number of years (quite a large number of years in fact) Tottenham came above Arsenal in the …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: a little bit of perspective”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Yes it was in June 2015 that we first pronounced upon the fact that Nabil Fekir was about to sign for Arsenal, and we knew that because the bloggettas were full of it and full of it and full of it again. He turned up again in the following month, but …
by Tony Attwood Some time back, I criticised a book called The Numbers Game – which purported to reduce all football to a valid statistical analysis – and I was reminded of it again when another book appeared doing the same sort of thing: claiming it had analysed every aspect of the game and was …
By Tony Attwood Arsenal, as we well know, is left in disarray, tatters or chaos (sometime all three) when a player who was “on the radar”, “according to reports” says (allegedly) that he has no intention of going to London, not even for a shopping trip. The club is also in chaos when thousands of …
Read More “Chelsea’s technical director goes but Arsenal remain the masters of football chaos.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone OK here we go. Some stories that you have heard, plus a new name. How exciting! 1: According to Ozil, Arsenal is still the club he wants to play for. “Massive boost for Wenger: Highly-rated star confirms he wants to play for Arsenal”. That’s pretty much doing the rounds these days. 2: Arsene …
By Tony Attwood I notice Jonathan Liew has seemingly moved from the Telegraph newspaper to become Chief Sports Writer of the Independent web site. A change of publication, but not it seems a change of style, for today he has published this: “Henry Norris, the former Arsenal chairman, is perhaps best known as the man who hired …
Read More “How to knock the Arsenal without bothering to check a single fact”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. What, one may ponder, is the difference between fake news and headline writing? Indeed I think it is fair to say that in the public house lounge bars in the leafy shires, they speak of little else. Let us therefore ponder! Fake 1: Ozil’s future (Red London and the Metro) It …
by Tony Attwood Headlines from German and French language papers about the current football crisis in Germany give a warning of the path that they might be tempted to follow The German Football League calls for a new order of referee structure in Germany after the recent chaos. An independent organization of refereeing should solve …
By Tony Attwood One of the problems with being in the fake news business, is that you not only have to keep inventing it, each piece of fake news has to outdo the previous bit. Thus we have the headline from ArsenalShorts which reads Wenger confirms 54 goal striker will play for Arsenal next season …
Read More “Fake news index: striker next season, striker we should have kept, horrific loans”
By Sifarzone Expected Goals are all the rage today and it is certainly a great addition to the toolbox we use in analyzing and understanding football. It gives an understanding to the match beyond just the ultimate results, goals. It values long term-performance over short-term results, since long-term performance will eventually return as results. …
Read More “Dear ESPN: Expected Goals do not account for refereeing errors”
By Tony Attwood The time will come when Arsenal need a new manager. I don’t know when, but it will happen. Three options are available: a promotion from within, bringing in a famous managerial name from elsewhere, or finding a person who (like Mr Wenger when he joined) will be unknown to most supporters, unless …
Read More “Who will Arsenal’s next manager be and what we can learn from Moyes?”
By Tony Attwood Oh this is so difficult for the British media. With the commentary that the refereeing of the Manchester City game against Arsenal was not all that it might have been, they went as far as they dared without having their licences from the PL revoked. Now they have scuttled away from …
Read More “How the evolving referee scandal in Germany is causing the English media problems”
By Tony Attwood A couple of changes were made to this article at 9am on 7 Nov after it was initially published I recently wrote a little piece How fake news came to dominate the reporting of football in all English media which traced the history of fake news in the media back 100 years. I’ve …
Read More “How fake news was used to manipulate the Man C story to avoid considering the issues”
By Tony Attwood We first knew something was up when Alan Green, the BBC commentator, suddenly started laying off referees. He’d never suggested there was anything wrong in terms of bias, but constantly reported that they were making mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. Lots and lots and… well you get the …
Read More “Our one hope: the media is suddenly realising there is something wrong with refereeing”
