Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties, and the away win figures

by Tony Attwood In its report on Leicester’s win at Tottenham, the Guardian mentions Leicester penalty five times.  On the BBC Radio 4 report this morning the penalty was mentioned four times.  But neither news source mentioned the real oddity of the Leicester penalty.   That is that this was Leicester’s ninth penalty of the season. …

How does stress affect sports performance?

It is not something that we read about very often but the issue of stress is one that is at the heart of playing football at a professional level.   Just as actors, musicians, TV presenters and others may or may not feel nerves upon getting up on the stage or in front of the cameras, …

Burnley’s tackling is three times as dirty as Leicester’s! Really???

by Tony Attwood Untold Updates videos We’re back with our videos – do take a look   Over the weekend I used some of the findings we had on the relationship between fouls and yellow cards; you may recall the data that shows some clubs have to commit many, many more fouls than others to …

Is Burnley v Arsenal fixed even before kick off? Here’s the evidence.

by Bulldog Drummond If you want a game that highlights everything that is wrong with English refereeing in the Premier League, and indeed everything that is wrong with the PL and its referees,  here you have it. Burnley have committed 270 fouls this season, Arsenal 259.  Not that much in it.  Burnley the slightly dirtier …

After 21 games this season: it’s not the defence that is the key problem.

By Tony Attwood There is something of a feeling of elation after the win against Manchester United, as indeed there should be.  For after five games without a win and indeed just one win in 16, a win against a traditional “top six” club was very welcome indeed.  After all it stopped what seemed an …

Top of the table predictions – the gameweek 0 edition

By Phil Gregory Right, so, to follow up on my articles over the summer looking at the various teams competing against the mighty Arsenal at the top of the table, it seems reasonable to put it all together and see where my guess is of the final table. Without further ado… First up, United are …

Liverpool FC – treading water or rising from the ashes?

By Phil Gregory After their ill-advised dalliance with Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s owners saw the light and realised that they needed 21st century coaching and transfer strategies if they are to break back into the big time that is the Premier League mythical “Top Four”. Alas they learnt this lesson after they gave said Scotsman a …

Spurs will be Spurs will be Spurs – but what exactly will that mean next season?

By Phil Gregory While “Sky Sports understands…” may or may not ever be true, it seems Spurs are closing in on their new manager which could well be Andre Villas Boas of Chelsea acclaim. This got me thinking about their squad and chances for next season, particularly with Gareth Bale signing a new contract recently. …

A Van Persie-Giroud partnership? And Podolski?

By Phil Gregory Arsenal.com published an interesting article on our new signing Olivier Giroud. The part that caught my eye was the debate around whether Giroud will be a starter with Robin or not (leaving aside all contract chat for now). In it, Philippe Auclair said “I can imagine a 4-4-1-1 with Robin van Persie playing …

Goals, assists and other stuff

Follow us on Twitter @Untold Arsenal ———————————- “Making the Arsenal” – is available on Amazon, Arsenal on line, the Woolwich Arsenal site and in the Arsenal store. ———————————–   Goals, assists and other stuff By Alek Pan   This is the second statistical analysis of the way in which football (mostly from an Arsenal perspective) …

Possession, pass success or shots? Which most influences Arsenal’s league position?

Follow us on Twitter @UntoldArsenal   Possession, pass success or shots? By Alek Pan   Almost everyone knows that Arsenal is very successful in the areas of possession, pass success and shots on target, but which component is more influential in terms of league position? Which component helps more to be #1 in the league …

Do we need for a defensive coach, or not?

—————————————– The Christmas gift for the fan with (almost) everything —————————————– By Walter Broeckx We know that one of the things that some part of the fans throw at Wenger is the fact that he can’t organise a defence. And that he is stubborn. And then they come up with the fact that he needs …

Ryo, Bartley, Cesc, Nasri, Jagielka, Mata; the new line up and the back up team.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood We’ve been debating the work permit situation of Ryo, and the information seems to be that there is no “mother born in Belgium” loophole, and he does need one (a permit that is).  So Arsenal are now applying for one. It is interesting that we tried to …

All the attributes an Arsenal left back should have

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Arvind There is a lot of great work going on at Untold about various kinds of statistics, that affect Arsenal results – both positively and negatively. Just recently, one article which talked about how Gael Clichy’s statistics were nowhere near as bad as you …

How the transfer market has been utterly screwed this year

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood There is a continual theme that emerges from those people who like to call themselves Arsenal supporters but who criticise virtually everything the club does, and it goes something like this: The club is being run as a money machine, not as …

Is there a link between possession and shots? An Untold Analysis.

By Walter Broeckx To pass the time a bit I go on my search to see if football is something that can be spelled as a+b=c. In trying to find patterns I have looked this time into the shots and possession. The most logical thing would be that the more possession you have the more …

We won the league at….. or did we lose it there

By Walter Broeckx We all love to sing the popular Arsenal song: We won  the league at White Hart Lane….  I bet you are all signing it right now. So am I. But when looking back at the season I wonder if this season we should sing: We lost the league at White Hart Lane. …

Why players from overseas get more cards than UK players

Dirty Internationals by Alek Pan What would you say if you were given evidence that overseas players (ie those from outside the UK) make the EPL harder, dirtier and more unfair than it would otherwise be? Quite probably you would want to look at the evidence twice.  Maybe you would suggest that the person who …

This is how it has to be done sometimes

Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony By Walter Broeckx Yes I think it is Wenger his fault. Every time we lose a game. Oops we didn’t lose the game, we actually won the game.  So every game people come out to tell us how poor we are. People come …

“Arsenal are bad at defending set pieces.”

By Walter Broeckx One of our readers wrote a comment which got me thinking. And I would like to thank him for giving me some inspiration.  And please don’t see this as some kind of attack, as this is certainly not the case. It just was the starting point of doing some research. He said: …

Why we need to be very careful in quoting Arsenal statistics

By Walter Broeckx of Arsenal Worldwide Is every 6-0 the same? It is a question we could ask ourselves on the day, well after a few days in fact, when we won 6-0 and Chelsea also won their first home game with  6-0. A popular score in London for the moment. The pundits are wild …

The Mourinho revolution and the death of football

By Walter Broeckx When I saw Mourinho win against Barcelona and Bayern Munich with his very defensive tactics I feared the worst for football. I feared that we were in for a lot of teams trying to stick to his tactics. Park the bus in front of goal and hope for a counter attack and …

What you can (and absolutely can’t) say to the ref

By Walter Broeckx Warning: this article contains insulting and abusive language. In this article I will try to give an answer on Tony’s question: “can you send a player off for calling the ref a crook and a scoundrel and a shameless bastard?” This is a very difficult question to answer. There is not a …

This world cup is so utterly boring, so here’s something else…

by GF60 How I loathe the the silly season. Even with the World Cup, the thought that the only sides I’m interested in at are those with Gooners playing (preferably they all get minor injuries whilst training and miss out) and the locals, is insufficient to stir the enthusiasm. So a tendency to look back at the …

How would The Invincibles have coped last season?

How would The Invincibles have coped? A Retro-Retrospective. By Dale Higginbottom After the recent poor results around the end of the season and reading the hatred of many so-called Arsenal fans I wanted to bring a little bit of perspective on things and think about how would The Invincibles have coped if faced with similar …