Make way, make way, we are in a rush

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 …

Five easy ways to improve the beautiful game

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 …

Arsenal – Burnley, the slow match report

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 …

Sky recognise time wasting at last

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 …

Where did we get to?

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 …

Burnley. A cake making town frequented by the first king of the Saxons.

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 …

Arsenal v Burnley 01 November 2014 – The Match Officials

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 …

Football is changing… Fouls and Cards awarded by the referee.

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 …

The culture of keeping everyone quiet, and paying for the FA’s after dinner drinks

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: …

Why did Liverpool sign Mario Balotelli?

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 …

When happens if you say that you want to become a referee?

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 …

Guilty Barcelona praised to the heavens by part of the media

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 …

Football betrayed: why journalists and broadcasters laugh at us.

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 …

What’s wrong with Tottenham? Trying to find out from a Tottenham fan.

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 …

How much does each point cost? Here comes the miracle man

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 …

Injuries and failures to sign. And guess what, it’s Liverpool and Chelsea

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 …

England still fixated on the evil influence of Johnny Foreigner

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 …

Untold Referee Review: Sunderland – Arsenal

Referee : Kevin Friend The full commentary follows the chart below. Someone before the match predicted we would drop points (wrong prediction) and then would moan about the referee (yes we will moan a bit) but the two together: not. We won and even in the match report that came online minutes after kick off …

My boss was right : Alexis is awesome

By Walter Broeckx My boss was right. Ah, aren’t  they always right you might say. Well let us leave that in the middle. Because my boss has made some mistakes in his life. Like when he decided to support a team like Barcelona. That surely can only be seen as a big mistake. But apart …

Spending money on transfers doesn’t relate to success

By Tony Attwood Below is a table that shows the league position of clubs as per Sunday morning, against the net profit or loss in transfer fees over the summer.  The last column shows the net expenditure (a minus figure) or net profit (+) on the summer’s sales. What it shows is that spending lots of …

Sunderland – Arsenal : Working class hero…. Alexis Sanchez

By Walter Broeckx The starting team was Szczesny, Chambers, Per, Monreal, Gibbs, Arteta, Flamini, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Cazorla, Alexis, Welbeck. On the bench we had Mrtinez, Bellerin, Ramsey, Rosicky, Walcott and Podolski. For those who expected an easy match I can just point at the time we lost heavy in recent seasons. The matches after that we …

Sunderland away. It’s time for the After Eights.

Sunderland v Arsenal by Bulldog Drummond So, what do Sunderland do after letting in eight and giving the away fans a refund?  Pull back in defence and follow the Hull style of time wasting I would imagine.  In which case I wonder if the Sunderland supporters will follow Hull fans by arguing that slowing down …

Sunderland v Arsenal 25 October 2014 – The Match Officials

Sunderland v Arsenal 25 October 2014 – The Match Officials   by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly here is the current Wrong Important Decisions table including the Hull game   Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 4 Red Cards 3 5 Penalties 1 5 Goals 0 2 Total 4 16 Possible Cost …