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 in Oz We all know about Hector Bellerin who has made a breakthrough into the squad this year. Also coming through (but currently injured for about six weeks) is Isaac Hayden, along with Gedion Zelamem, Serge Gnabry (who of course made his break through last season before being injured) plus Chuba …
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal losing a 3-0 advantage against Anderlecht was painful. And if it was painful for you out there you should take a moment to consider how painful it must have been for Arsenal supporters in Belgium. That was a real kick in that part of the body where you don’t want to …
Read More “Premier League, still the best or are we being lied to? Part 1”
By Tony Attwood in the land of OZ. There were two articles on the Telegraph web site as I emerged this morning, hopefully one step nearer shaking off the wretched jet lag. One is the inevitable daily attack on Arsenal: “Arsene Wenger’s six-point programme to follow to get Arsenal back on the right road this …
Read More “Critics of Mr Wenger: here is your chance to show you are right”
Referee : Craig Pawson A new ref, a new opponent so for our referee previewer it was new territory as it was for me as a reviewer. So what can we say about the ref his performance. Let us go over the match in a chronological order. Only 2 small fouls in the first 15 …
by Don McMahon Following Arsenal’s rather late capitulation to Anderlecht and in anticipation of the negative bloggers bound to assault UA with their gloom and doom scenarios I felt it salient to provide some upbeat and encouraging observations about being positive in all things Arsenal. Now some will surely argue that wearing rose-coloured glasses won’t …
By Tony Attwood Travelling to Australia is exciting, is a pain, is a back ache, is lost sleep, is wondering if they are going to let me into the country with my supply of herbal tea bags (they did) and for me most of all is one long long hug with my youngest daughter on …
Read More “Seeing the world upside down: Emirates disappoints, Fifa is as normal”
By Walter Broeckx As I wasn’t at home for the match and had other obligations right after the match I couldn’t get to write this earlier. And when I came on to the site I had to get rid of the usual rubbish posted by people who had been waiting for a few weeks to …
By Walter Broeckx Last Saturday with our first group trip to London with the Arsenal Belgium supporters club we had an amazing day. Arsenal winning 3-0 helped of course. But apart from that it was fun. We had a nice group of supporters and for a handful of them it was their first match in …
As Tony and I made our way back from the Emirates last night we made our usual dissection of the game, our players, the officials and the opposition. I think we came to the general conclusion that Burnley were well organized but never posed a threat, the win was welcome, and Alexis is awesome. It …
By Walter Broeckx After last weekend publishing the fastest match report in history I now will be the writer of the slowest match report. As most of you know I was in the Emirates this time in person and with coming home only very late at night and having to do a match as a …
By Tony Attwood Setting aside my packing for the trip to Australis tomorrow I have just watched the recording of Sky’s Saturday Night Football of the game. And would you believe it, they slipped in a mention of time wasting. Not in any detail, and with no film illustration, but the co-commentator said, “and there’s …
By Tony Attwood Saturday was one of the Untold Reunions, with Walter and his wonderful gang from Belgium, meeting Andrew (our ref previewer), Drew (who for reasons best known to himself writes under a nom-de-plume), and me (who doesn’t) in north London for luncheon, before going to the match. Our Flemish friends won’t have got …
Bulldog Drummond wanders through the undergrowth In the world of advertising, more and more placement of adverts is done by semi-autonomous robotic systems that buy space based on the algorithms that have been programmed in to them. In the world of writing football match previews more and more of the writing is done by emi-autonomous …
Read More “Burnley. A cake making town frequented by the first king of the Saxons.”
Arsenal v Burnley 01 November 2014 – The Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Firstly, here is the ongoing table of wrong Important Decisions for the season – still no signs of anything “evening out in the end”; four in Arsenal’s favour, 17 against. Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 4 …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley 01 November 2014 – The Match Officials”
Fouls and Cards Awarded by the Referee by Andrew Crawshaw Some of our readers have noted that there seem to be some anomalies this season between the number of fouls committed by teams in the Premier league and the numbers of cards issued. I have looked at the official web site of the Premier …
Read More “Football is changing… Fouls and Cards awarded by the referee.”
By Tony Attwood There is an episode of the Simpsons in which Lisa Simpson questions the validity of a school trip to the local slaughterhouse and meat processing factory, asking “why do we have to eat meat?” Suddenly the scene moves to Principal Skinner’s office where a red light is flashing above the slogan “Danger: …
Read More “The culture of keeping everyone quiet, and paying for the FA’s after dinner drinks”
By Walter Broeckx There is something in the air. Don’t you smell it? Well I do. All the way from where I sit writing this article. I sure smell it. It is the smell of anticipation in the air. The smell of: finally! Yes! It is the smell of the green, green grass of home. …
By Tony Attwood That question was asked yesterday at the head of an article in the Telegraph, the full title of which was, “Why did Liverpool sign striker Mario Balotelli when he is so unsuited to Brendan Rodgers’ playing style? The article is fairly long and detailed, but it is only at the end that …
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD by Don McMahon Here’s a question: what happens when you say that you want to become a referee? It’s actually not quite what you might think. For what actually happens is that you find you need a certain amount of strength to overcome the first hurdle. Which is the amazement …
Read More “When happens if you say that you want to become a referee?”
By Tony Attwood When Talksport gets excited it can be a good time to take cover. And excited they are today in their latest web statement. They say… “In a timely report the Football Observatory of the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) have explored just which clubs from Europe’s top five leagues currently boast …
Read More “Guilty Barcelona praised to the heavens by part of the media”
By Tony Attwood The notion that the size of Tottenham’s pitch might be the cause of their heartache might or might not be true – I really don’t know. But I thought the importance that their manager gave to it and to the psychological fitness of their players was interesting, and something that I’d …
Read More “Football betrayed: why journalists and broadcasters laugh at us.”
By Tony Attwood I was in a furniture shop in Market Harborough – a charming town in south Leicestershire – last weekend, and wandering around found this gigantic hearth rug covered in Tottenham emblems. Away from the games and the shouting I do try and have a moderately civilised life, so I went over to …
Read More “What’s wrong with Tottenham? Trying to find out from a Tottenham fan.”
By Walter Broeckx with many thanks to Mike one of our readers I might sound a bit pretentious to say that our articles are really worth reading. As a regular writer myself I think they do of course. But in my country praising yourself is not really something you do. So apart from my articles …
Read More “How much does each point cost? Here comes the miracle man”
By Tony Attwood It has been going on so long I wondered if we would have a season of it. All the players Arsenal could have signed if only the board had not been so lazy, the owner and the manager so tight, and the reputation of the club so low because of years of …
Read More “Injuries and failures to sign. And guess what, it’s Liverpool and Chelsea”
By Tony Attwood Nationalism can always work people up. It is emotional – perhaps especially so for an island kingdom that claims to have invented football but only won an international football competition when allowed to play all its games at Wembley. So does it matter how many players in England are “home grown”? Does …
Read More “England still fixated on the evil influence of Johnny Foreigner”
