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 I think I have mentioned the book 1984 before. As Tony has done many times. It is not the best book I have ever read. But it is a very intriguing book. One that makes you want to look further than what the mass media are shoving down our throat. And one …
Read More “1984: It is forbidden to talk about….referees – part 1”
By Tony Attwood Is it all over for Alexis Sanchez? He scored 12 goals in 24 Premier League games – but none in the last six. Why’s that? It is worth looking at because there are early signs in the pubs outside the offices of our national daily papers that Sanchez has had it, he’s …
Read More “The evolution of Alexis and the evolution of the team”
By Tony Attwood “That facts that nowadays the manager clearly hasn’t got a clue about how to set up a team tactically, that his ability to motivate his players is conspicuously lacking and that his Midas touch has gone into reverse, when it comes to developing talent, count for nothing when you consider his stellar …
Read More “Beware this story about Arsenal support is boring and you’ve probably heard it before.”
Arsenal fans at home and away.by pararealist. . Arsenal fans are a strange bunch. . First there are the away fans. . They sing their hearts out for the team and give vocal support whatever is happening on the field. . Then there are the home fans. . Now, the home fans expect to be entertained …
By Tony Attwood One of the things the children who run the mass media and lead their little camp of followers never quite understand is the essence of support. It is emotional, tied to one’s tribe. But us fans also tend to know our statistics. And some of us have actually read a book or …
Read More “Arsenal’s win ratio, two assists from Ozil, and the trick of body language”
By Walter Broeckx A few changes compared to our last match. Gabriel comes in the team and Mertesacker drops to the bend and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain comes in the place of Danny Welbeck. Cazorla will be the captain for this match today. So the team was : Ospina, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Cazorla, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, …
By Bulldog Drummond And so it goes. The world as two groups of people. Those who understand the notions of context and history, and those who think that the only thing that matters is what has just happened. I’m reminded of a few acquaintances who I had earlier in my life, who on hearing some …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton. Teams and recent stats compared. (And Chelsea)”
By Tony Attwood I must confess at once that I didn’t write that headline – although I wish I had. It came from News biscuit – a wonderful satirical site, and one I’d recommend to anyone with an off centre sense of humour. The point of their piece is that Representatives of Europe’s biggest …
By Tony Attwood So what are the children chattering about today? Well, the Telegraph, having run the story a day or two back that the Arsenal board were fed up with Mr Wenger have now dropped that one and instead gone with the fact that the transfer budget for this summer will be £50 million. …
Read More “More Arsenal purchases this summer, and how Chelsea are getting such high transfer fees”
Arsenal v Everton – 01 March 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Following Walter’s review of the refereeing of the Tottenham game Ref Review Tottenham – Arsenal here is the updated Table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 15 Red Cards 3 14 Penalties 3 14 …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton – 01 March 2015 – The Match Officials”
By Walter Broeckx In November 2014 I wrote a short series of articles to the effect that the PL was not that superior league that we all think it is. . They can be found here, there and everywhere if you want to read them first. I linked this to the year of 2009 with …
Read More “PL decline seems to continue, media helps to keep our heads in the sand”
By Tony Attwood The highest win rate a club has had in the Premier League, across a complete season is I think, 68%. In January and February prior to the Monaco match, Arsenal achieved a win rate of 80%. Including the Monaco match the ratio for the League, FA Cup and the single Champions League …
Read More “Arsenal: the lines are now clearly drawn. Time to sort out the children.”
In case you have not come across this series before, we have reviewed hundreds of matches over the past few years – both matches involving Arsenal and those not. At the end of the seasons we’ve also compared the way referees have handled different teams. Ref for this match was Martin Atkinson A few interesting …
What’s happened this year to our junior teams? Part 2 – U18 team By Andrew Crawshaw In Part 1 I looked at the fortunes of our U21 team, (What has happened this year to our Junior Teams?) in this part I will first try and place the U18 setup into the context of the Youth …
By Tony Attwood Last Friday I attended a modern jive dance in Cambridgeshire, despite having an Achilles injury, that should been keeping me off the dance floor for as long as it takes to repair itself. I went because being at home night after night writing about Arsenal and Bob Dylan is OK but ultimately …
By Walter Broeckx The Arsenal team that started this match against Monaco was Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Cazorla, Sanchez, Ozil, Welbeck, Giroud. On the bench we had Szczesny, Gabriel, Monreal, Chambers, Rosicky, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott. Arsenal started rather well with an early chance for Welbeck who turned good but his shot sailed over the …
Read More “Oh lady Luck, where have you gone to? Missed chances cost us dear”
By Walter Broeckx Yesterday the story was on Arsenal.com about the first time Wenger visited Arsenal. The article can be found clicking on this link For those who don’t want to click I will tell you that Wenger visited Arsenal at Highbury for the first time in 1989. On 2 January to be exact. As he …
Read More “Wenger, Monaco and Arsenal : a strange love story”
FA Youth Cup – Arsenal v Crewe Alexandra Meadow Park, Borehamwood Thursday 19th February Match Report by Andrew Crawshaw Crewe Alexandra FC are currently in 18th place in League 1 (third tier of professional football); the club was formed in 1877 and named after Princess Alexandra, they were founding members of the second division in …
By Tony Attwood When an organisation is battered into a corner the best way out is subterfuge, to make it look as if you are doing something when doing nothing, to suggest x is the issue when it is y and above all to stop people talking about z. The generic terms are “putting up …
Read More “What does an organisation do when its been rumbled?”
By Tony Attwood Many who push out the mantra that coming fourth is not a trophy forget what happened after George Graham won his two league titles. Following the wonder 1991 triumph of just one defeat through the whole season, Arsenal found themselves in 10th in 1993. Worse we scored the lowest number of goals …
Read More “Monaco look like a latter day George Graham team”
Don McMahon A number of Gooners have asked about how referees get promoted to the top of their profession so I am humbly submitting my experience and will happily accept any corrections our readers can bring to my attention. I will be speaking in general for both genders and North America officials but worldwide for …
By Tony Attwood REDaction, the Arsenal supporters grouping that focuses on the atmosphere at home and away matches has published the results of a survey of over 2,000 Arsenal fans in relation to issues such as kick-off times, ticket prices, and access to live football for younger fans. Of those surveyed (and of course such surveys can’t …
Read More “RedAction and other fans’ groups choose to ignore the older supporter”
By Walter Broeckx 1. Sanchez grew up at Tocopilla a small town north of the capital Santiago de Chile. The name Tocopilla means in fact ‘The Devils corner’. Devilish because the little town is divided in two parts in between a big power plant and a saltpeper factory so not the most healthy environment to …
In the last article we looked at how Mourinho is playing games with the media, the FA and PGMO. All this – and indeed the whole threat of Type III match fixing (in which club owners seek to persuade refs to hinder the progress of other clubs, rather than fix the results of their …
Read More “Other countries are more open than the PL and the PGMO”
By Tony Attwood Today we publish two reports. This introduction s about how José Mourinho is waging his own battle against refereeing decisions. The next is about how the English model of utter secrecy in terms of referee inaccuracy is not the only one possible. About how other countries have come into the open and allowed everyone …
Read More “Why is PGMO giving Mourinho the arena to make all these complaints?”
