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 Walter Broeckx As you may have heard I have been in the TV studios again. And it was a far more relaxing experience this time than last season. You might recall I then was invited on my own to sit next to the super pundits in Flanders and one “famous” Tottenham supporter. I then …
Read More “Arsenal Belgium in the TV studios and Arsenal getting all the praise in the world”
By Usama and Walter ARSENAL vs. CHELSEA COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 6 DATE: 24th September 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Michael Oliver 1st LINESMAN: Gary Beswick 2nd LINESMAN: Stuart Burt 4th OFFICIAL: Craig Pawson First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …
Read More “Ref Review Arsenal – Chelsea : Another good performance from the ref!”
By Tony Attwood You will almost certainly know (at least if you live in England) that the manager of the England football team is today accused of telling people whom he thought were Far East businessmen that it was possible to “get round” the rules about third-party player ownership. Various issues immediately jump out: one is …
By Tony Attwood Apparently it seems that we have never played Basel before, so we’ve never had a chance to do lots of Fawlty Towers jokes – but I won’t start now. That would be far too silly. But we have played Swiss teams before and have done quite well, winning four times in competitive …
Read More “Arsenal v Basel. Basel’s amazing form, Theo’s comeback, Arsenal’s team.”
By Tony Attwood If we take it for a moment that a little of the more extreme behaviour of referees witnessed over recent years has now been removed from Premier League matches then we truly are going to enter a new age of football. Not an age wherein referee bias is removed, nor an age …
By Tony Attwood It was Opta who cleverly picked up on the fact that Alexis Sanchez had scored 47 goals in his 100 appearances, one fewer than Thierry Henry (48) in his first 100 apps for the club. Which undoubtedly helps understand Mr Wenger’s move to put Alexis at number nine this season. So I …
Read More “Is Alexis Sanchez the new Thierry Henry? Here are the figures.”
Editorial note: No organisation has ever analysed and reviewed the performance of Premier League referees before in this much detail. As I am sure you can understand, the amount of time it takes our team to complete this work is enormous, but all of us feel this is worth it, for the simple reason that …
Read More “The most comprehensive review of referee performance: Match Day #04 with video evidence”
By Walter Broeckx A bright start from Arsenal who immediately took the game in hand and went in search for the attack. Chelsea sitting deep as expected and defending numbers from the start. A new manager but nothing changed at first sight. Alexis winning the ball in the Chelsea half and Arsenal pressing Chelsea and …
Read More “Arsenal – Chelsea: 3-0 for a team without a centre forward”
By Bulldog Drummond When it suits the media and their chums in the aaa they focus on the last match, or maybe the last couple of matches. But with Arsenal having just won four and drawn two of the last six, and with the two draws being away to last year’s champions of England …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: the teams, the predictions, the fair play league thus far”
By Bulldog Drummond, If you have been reading the definitive history of Arsenal in the 1930s you will be used to the Arsenal / Chelsea pattern of the era. Each season Arsenal win the league by beating Chelsea in front of 65,000 and Chelsea just about manage to stay up. As the story of the …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea, groundhog day, oddball referees, injuries and Mr Africa to buy AFC.”
We need to talk about Granit By Tim Charlesworth There is a lot of bizarre hysteria in the Goonersphere at the moment about why Granit Xhaka is not playing (why spend all that money on a bench-warmer etc. etc.). It makes me wonder what team some people have been watching for the last ten …
Read More “We need to talk about Granit. Is he DM or box-to-box?”
by Andrew Crawshaw Before I start on the officials for this coming game I want to raise a point about PENALTIES – as you will have noticed so far this season they are being given which is a major change from the past few seasons. Last season we were awarded 2 out of 35. This …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea Sat 24 September 2016 – The Match Officials”
By Tony Attwood This is the team that Arsenal put out last weekend against Hull City. Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Cazorla, Coquelin, Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi, Alexis. On the beach: Ospina, Holding, Gibbs, Elneny, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lucas. And the team against Forest Martinez, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Gabriel, Gibbs, Elneny, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Reine-Adelaide, Akpom, Lucas On the …
Read More “How the transformation of Arsenal applies to both the first XI and the back up team”
By Walter Broeckx I have been talking about the video ref for many years now. Tony has given me the chance to talk about it for many years and on many occasions. I have written articles and showed video clips about the tests that have happened under the guidance of the Dutch football federation KNVB. …
Read More “Like it or not, the video ref is alive and kicking : no stopping it now (I hope)”
By Tony Attwood We have often heard in recent years the stories about how Arsenal is a “selling club” unable to hang on to its youngsters, with the proven child traffickers Barcelona endlessly sniffing around trying to buy back players that they have let go to Arsenal, while using the old “Barca DNA” gibberish as …
by the Referee review team In the next round we have drawn Reading. More details on that in a moment, but first following on from the article after our game with PSG in the Champions League, here is a quick review of some of the incidents that occurred in the game against Nottingham Forest (each …
By Usama and Walter HULL CITY vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 5 DATE: 17th September 2016 VENUE: KCOM Stadium (Hull, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Roger East 1st LINESMAN: Darren Cann 2nd LINESMAN: Matthew Wilkes 4th OFFICIAL: Paul Tierney First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …
Read More “Ref Review: Hull – Arsenal. An extraordinary performance by the referee.”
By Tony Attwood So just how much impact has the mad money spending of this summer had on the Premier League thus far? To try and get an early view onto what all the expenditure has done I’ve created a league table with three extra columns in it. The “Last Year” column shows where the …
A year on, and how the tune has changed. By Poul Tree. A year ago we met the Tinies in the 3rd round of the League Cup. Our team was Ospina, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Chambers, Gibbs, Arteta, Flamini, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Campbell, Giroud. This time against Forest the team was Martinez, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Gabriel, Gibbs, Elneny, …
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal team to start: Martinez, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Gabriel, Gibbs, Elneny, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Reine-Adelaide, Akpom, Lucas On the beach: Macey, Bielik, Sheaf, Dasilva, Zelalem, Willock, Mavididi A very mixed team at the start from Arsenal. And with only kids on the bench. A few experienced players like Gabriel, Gibbs, Elneny, Xhaka, The Ox …
By Tony Attwood This morning we came up with our scientific prediction of the team: Oooooospina Debuchy Holding Gabriel Gibbs Elneny The Ox Adelaide Perez Akpom Willock So what has been going on since? The main story about Arsenal seems to be a re-run of last year, that Bellerin is about to leave. The alternative story …
Read More “Forest v Arsenal updates and Bellerin “has Barça DNA in his blood.””
By Usama and Walter ARSENAL vs. SOUTHAMPTON COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 4 DATE: 10th September 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Robert Madley 1st LINESMAN: Marc Perry 2nd LINESMAN: Edward Smart 4th OFFICIAL: Simon Hooper First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …
By Tony Attwood When the transfer doorway creaked closed once again we published a table of the players in the 25 and the leading youth players who could also play. In the old days this was irrelevant with league cup matches when groups of youngsters some of us had hardly heard of appeared on the …
Read More “Nottingham Forest v Arsenal – the scientifically selected Arsenal line up.”
By Walter Broeckx and Usama As in the Southampton match the keeper of Southampton was booked for time wasting Usama took the trouble to have a look at how the time wasting was going on when Forster had to take goal kicks. We didn’t examine the time wasted on throw ins as that would take …
By Tony Attwood A lot of people got very exercised about the Arsenal need to buy another striker or three during the summer. We bought one, and in this weekend’s game he came on, on the 88th minute. Last season Giroud was our top scorer with 16 goals. So far in the league he …
