FA Cup 5th Round – Arsenal v Middlesbrough The Match Officials

FA Cup 5th Round – Arsenal v Middlesbrough The Match Officials Here is a complete list of the officials for all of the FA Cup games over this (extended) weekend. We are game 2. 1 Crystal Palace FC v Liverpool FC Saturday 14 Feb (5.30pm) Referee Robert Madley Assistant Referees John Brooks & Harry Lennard …

Overplaying players ? Really? Or is it over kicking?

By Walter Broeckx Wenger is a useless prick who overplays Alexis and this is the ultimate proof that he is no good, is past it, and should be sacked. This is a bit of a simplification of what the aaa is saying at the moment. Alexis is out and its all Wenger’s fault. Period. FACT! …

Football Betrayed: Guardian use the same trick as the trolls

By Tony Attwood The Observer, which is in the same newspaper group as the Guardian, publishes a weekly column, Said and Done which makes fun of Fifa, football  managers, players and the ladies who hang around with players by running sequences of events – what they said and what they did. A typical piece from …

FA Cup matches and comparisons with poker

A view from Brighton on the last game. As we approach the fifth round of the FA Cup, we’re turning back to the last round for a moment to look at an issue we missed in the build up to that match – the owner of Brighton. Brighton has been stuck in the lower reaches of …

Cup runs and refs: the facts and some thoughts

By Walter Broeckx Let us have a look at our cup runs since Riley took over as h Season Result Ref 2013/14 Won No Dean 2012/13 Lost to Blackburn Dean 2011/12 Lost at Sunderland Webb 2010/11 Lost at MU Foy 2009/10 Lost at Stoke Atkinson 2008/09 Lost semi v Chelsea Atkinson League Cup Season Result Ref …

This week: Sánchez, Ramsey, finances, Mu-Mu, nursery clubs

By Tony Attwood Alexis Sánchez seems to be ok despite the attack on his legs by M Upson, once of Arsenal, in the Leicester game.  He might still be rested on sunday against Middlesbrough but there’s no long term injury. Aaron Ramsey however has yet another hamstring injury.  He could be out for anything to …

Mike Jones & Co: a fine example of how Type III match fixing looks

By Tony Attwood Have Arsenal sunk lower than we thought?”  That was the screaming healing in the Daily Telegraph yesterday.  To be fair the article below it suggested nothing of the kind. In fact it didn’t suggest much at all.  But it show just how close the Telegraph, once a serious newspaper, has slipped as …

Handball or not? Analyzing the decision.

By Walter Broeckx In our match against Leicester we had an incident where Alexis tried to make a pass and a Leicester defender handled the ball and the ref gave no penalty. Let us have a closer look on this particular incident with the laws of the game in hand, the instructions towards referees and …

Arsenal – Leicester 2-1, the bad stream and equal bad referee match

By Walter Broeckx For the match against Leicester we had the following team at the start : Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Rosicky, Walcott, Cazorla, Ozil, Alexis On the substitutes bench we had : Szczesny, Gibbs, Gabriel, Flamini, Ramsey, Welbeck, Giroud So that is three changes to the side that started last weekend. Alexis …

Arsenal v Leicester City 10 February 2015 – The Match Officials

Arsenal v Leicester City 10 February 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Here is the wrong Important Decisions Table updated following Walter’s review of the Aston Villa game.  Overall this was the best refereeing performance Arsenal have seen this year getting Mr Taylor an 85% overall weighting – mind that is the standard …

A tight race is on, good home form will be required

By Walter Broeckx If there is one good thing about this midweek fixtures then it is the fact that they are the ideal way to get rid of the disappointing result from the weekend. We had a bad day and several key players were below par. It can happen but it was rather painful to …

When absolute tragedy overwhelms what do the press say?

by Tony Attwood Yesterday around 50 people died attempting to enter a football match in Egypt.   But you’ll be hard pressed to find much detail in the media this morning – even on the endlessly updated websites of the mainsteam press. With football, it seems, in England at least, we have shut off our …

Right, transfer window over, lets start the Arsenal bashing

By Tony Attwood “I totally respect the Premier League as a successful business that generates an enormous amount of income and brings some of the best players in the world to these shores,” said the shadow sports minister in the UK, Clive Efford, recently. “But the way the finances are sucked in perpetuates a culture …

Yet more money is about to pour into football. So what will happen?

By Tony Attwood On Friday last week the bids for the future rights for football on TV were opened.  And yet result and announcement was there none. Partly this is because the old days of Lord Sugar are over.  The story is that at the time of the first entry of Sky he telephoned Sky …

Match report : Totts v Arsenal

By Walter Broeckx So time for the North London derby. And Arsenal starting this match with the following players : Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Ramsey, Welbeck, Cazorla, Ozil, Giroud. And on the beach we had : Szczesny, Gibbs, Gabriel, Flamini, Rosicky, Walcott, Akpom. To be honest a surprise that Welbeck came in the …

World football in a bit of a tizz; Mr Usmanov steps in.

Its a funny old game. Mr Usmanov, the richest man in Russia and the second biggest shareholder in Arsenal has just loaned the Russian FA nearly £4m so that they can pay that old art collector Fabio Capello (whose collection is said to be worth £10m+) his back wages. Mr U said, “I think the situation …

Alexis demands a transfer as the window isn’t completely slammed shut

By Walter Broeckx The official transfer window was closed last Monday. But to my surprise the constant stream of transfer rumours didn’t stop at all. The levels of insanity in the media have risen to new heights.  The one that made me laugh out loud was that Alexis was going away this summer because…. Cazorla won the last …

Tottenham v Royal Arsenal: the match officials

Spurs v Arsenal 07 February 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly following Walter’s reviews of Mssrs. Moss (Arsenal v Stoke) and Dean (City v Arsenal) here is the updated Table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 14 Red Cards 3 13 Penalties 3 14 Goals …

Ref Review : Arsenal – Aston Villa. Arsenal commit two fouls in 45 minutes.

Ref for this match: Anthony Taylor First remark I want to make is that apart from a few minor incidents it seemed that Aston Villa wanted to play a fair match of football. This resulted in the fact that the first time the ref had to make a real decision…it was to approve a goal …

Few people who criticise Zonal Marking actually understand what it means

EXPLANATION OF ZONAL MARKING SYSTEM. By Bob Macdonald I am  qualified Uefa grade ‘A’ coach, and have vast experience both coaching and managing at a fairly high level. My observations are in fact no more than  that, and I would be the last person to suggest I know more than the next person. However I …

Chelsea complain, Man U complain. But hush, don’t talk about refs.

On the anniversary of one of the most bizarre referee performances of all time, I thought I’d look at whether the media has changed its stance of late. . By Tony Attwood . A lot of the problem about the debate concerning referees is the very curious way the media follow it up. . For …

Arsenal – Aston Villa, the match report: Outside of the boot, cutting inside and other language of the street

By Walter Broeckx So Arsenal starting with the following players in this match against Aston Taylor:  Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Ramsey, Cazorla, Özil, Walcott, Giroud.  On the cold beach we had Szczesny, Gibbs, Gabriel, Rosicky, Flamini, Chambers and Akpom. In the stands we had my wife, myself and the rest of a 30 man …

The value of each squad, the transfer fee oddities and multiple loans.

By Tony Attwood To some people all Arsenal did in the transfer window was bought Krystian Bielik and Gabriel Paulista.  Maybe – but what is the result? According to TransferMarket.co.uk it means we have a squad that is worth £343.02m. Some players have increased in value since we bought them (Ospina is now worth £6.16m …

All the dodgy doings you might have missed on deadline day

By Tony Attwood I’ll come to the dodgy and indeed the very very dodgy in a moment, but first, a headline from the Daily Telegraph.  “Arsene Wenger failed to land a single player before the window shut – despite links to a host of stars across Europe.” Yes, well, considering that Mr Wenger had already …