Six days to go and the Arsenal transfer machine is about to explode into life.

By Sir Hardly Anyone You have to be sorry for the bloggetta writers, day after day after whatnot pumping out the same dross telling us that player after player has already been signed, is on his way, has been seen in the estate agents with his mother etc etc. Only to find none of it …

When TV, radio and the newspapers invent a football story with no basis in fact, what’s happening?

By Tony Attwood Over the years I have become very interested in the way that the media do and don’t report certain issues in football.   Perhaps the most famous was the Rangers tax case in which one web site constantly hacked away at the story while the Scottish media ignored it totally and the …

Destroying the game: how the stand off between Sky and fans over fixture changes can be resolved

By Tony Attwood I am as appalled as anyone over the way Sky has had the power to change the timing of the Leicester game, not least because I know how much difficulty this has meant for Walter and the members of Arsenal Belgium.  And not just because I count these guys as my friends, …

Death by ankle tap: A most curious moment in the history of Arsenal

By Tony Attwood I recall during my student days when I was an active member of the students’ union, taking part in one of our regular political debates when one fellow student rose up and commented that what I had just said was in contradiction to something I had said at another meeting a couple …

Arsenal – Chelsea 0-1: 10 man Arsenal can’t turn it around.

By Walter Broeckx One change at the start and that was Mesut Özil back in the team and Oxlade-Chamberlain went back to the bench. At that bench we saw for the first time after a few months Alexis next to Mohamed Elneny. Team at the start: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Ramsey, Flamini, Campbell, Ozil, …

Arsenal v Chelsea the teams. Arsenal are bottom of the league (for indiscipline)

Bulldog Drummond continues his review of the Arsenal v Chelsea game The most important thing of course is that we score against Chelsea.   Because if we don’t it will six league games without scoring against them – equalling our worst record ever in the PL, which is six games without a goal between 1997 …

Arsenal v Chelsea. Who are the specialists in failure?

by Bulldog Drummond The Specialist in Failure League A win for Arsenal would leave Arsenal top of the league A defeat for Arsenal could leave us as low as third… two points behind the leaders. A win for Chelsea would leave them 13th or 14th. A defeat for Chelsea would leave them 14th, 15th or …

Arsenal Chelsea, Sunday 24 January 2016 – The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw Here is the Table of Shame updated following the Liverpool game. Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 1 24 Red Cards 1 10 Penalties 2 16 Goals 0 8 Total 4 58 Possible Cost in Points 0 13 I count the not given penalty to Arsenal in Min …

It’s the bloody TV companies that run and ruin football

By Walter Broeckx Recently Tony has written a few articles about who is running football. Today I will be writing who is ruining football. As you may know I am the president of Arsenal Belgium, the official supporters club of Arsenal in Belgium. And when we had a look at the fixture list a few …

Ref Review: Stoke – Arsenal: who is that voice whispering in my ear….?

By Usama & Walter STOKE CTIY vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 22 DATE: 17th January 2016 VENUE: Britannia Stadium (Stoke-on-Trent, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Craig Pawson 1st LINESMAN: David Bryan 2nd LINESMAN: Simon Long 4th OFFICIAL: Mike Dean First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

The one Arsenal transfer story that refuses to go away

By Tony Attwood and Sir Hardly Anyone The Telegraph has just published a poll of readers on the issue of how many players Arsenal need to buy in the next 10 days.   The answers None (The squad is fine as it is)  6%  (that includes your two humble writers of this piece) 1-3 (Minor …

Would you be happy if you heard your son or daughter was working for an international sports body?

. By Tony Attwood In two recent articles on who controls football in England I came up with a list of ten suggestions… first article in this little series on who controls football in England I came up with my top five entities that actually run football in England and then followed that up with …

Fifa are said to be looking at illegal Premier League transfers of children. But what are the rules

. By Tony Attwood Back in September 2009 the headline ran, “FIFA and UEFA plan to ban transfers on players under 18 after Chelsea’s punishment over Gael Kakuta” “Players under the age of 18 could soon be banned from switching clubs,” shouted another headline. Then Chelsea were suspended from signing any new players until 2011 after …

Ref Review : Liverpool – Arsenal and the push in the back

By Usama & Walter LIVERPOOL vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 21 DATE: 13th January 2016 VENUE: Anfield (Liverpool, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Mike Jones 1st LINESMAN: Gary Beswick 2nd LINESMAN: Andy Garratt 4th OFFICIAL: Robert Madley   First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

Chelsea and Tottenham and the stadium saga. Will they do better than Arsenal?

By Tony Attwood It was the fact that between the Invincibles Season and the 2014 FA Cup victory Arsenal didn’t win any of the major trophies, which became the central rallying call for the aaa. Their argument was very much that this was not good enough for Arsenal, and that a different manager with different …

The strange case of Adebayor, the miracle football and the missing motivation

By Tony Attwood There is a somewhat strange article on Football365 today under the headline “Sign him: If Adebayor cares, Adebayor scores” by Sarah Winterburn who I think used to work for Sky Sports and now seems to have moved. She does that thing of listing all the stuff she says everyone else is talking about, but in …

Ref Review : Arsenal – Newcastle

Please note: if you find this or any of the ref reviews spreads over into the right hand column, and is hidden by the data there, on most computers you can click Ctrl – (ie Control minus) and the zoom will reduce by 10%.  The reverse process is Ctrl + ARSENAL vs. NEWCASTLE UNITED COMPETITION: …

Supposing the world reported in the media had nothing at all to do with the actual world around you…

By Tony Attwood North Korea is apparently a fairly awful place where the populace is reduced to near starvation as the family that runs the show spends money on itself, its army, its propaganda and nuclear weapons. How do I know this?  Because I read it in the papers and I saw it on TV. …

How a gap in the story can give a totally misleading vision: the youngsters who don’t make it at Arsenal.

By Tony Attwood The big issues concerning transfers don’t  just relate to getting the player to transfer,  doing the deal with the agent, doing the deal with the other club etc etc, but also what happens thereafter.  You don’t see many articles that discuss issues like a) Will the player settle into the team? b) …

Stoke – Arsenal: not losing and keeping your best players fit was the task

By Walter Broeckx Sorry for not being able to do my usual match report for the match at Stoke. But I couldn’t have bettered the excellent report Tony put on line after the match. I usually watch my matches with the sound as low as possible. Not completely muted but in such a way so …

The second deal of the transfer window is just on done

By Sir Hardly Anyone The world of the bloggettas are getting frantic.  The first deal is done and dusted, but where is the second deal?   (And just in case you don’t want to wade through all the nonsense, the really naughty one is at the end). Arsenal Set To Complete Second Signing For This …

Stoke v Arsenal. A full, comprehensive, all-inclusive and detailed report on the match.

As Walter can’t do the regular report, I thought I might have a go. Tony Kick boo cheat jeer boo shout abuse kick push cheat boo kick shout jeer push kick complain kick jeer shout push abuse complain kick boo cheat jeer boo shout abuse kick push cheat boo kick shout jeer push kick complain …

The Rugby Team v Arsenal. Will we survive with legs intact?

Over 6 million page views in the past year. If you are interested in the development of Untold, there’s a bit more on the home page. And other announcement before we get going: there will be no post match report for the Stoke game as Arsenal Belgium are holding their AGM after the match, and …

Who controls football in England? Part 2 of our series looks at the League, FA, Fifa, Uefa and advertisers

……… Over 6 million page views in the past year – see the home page for more info. By Tony Attwood In the first article in this little series on who controls football in England I came up with my top five entities that actually run football in England… TV stations Newspapers and radio stations …