Kick them them till they bleed: the refs new approach shows results

By Walter Broeckx The kicking of Arsenal players that we have seen happening over the last weeks is starting to show some results. If we look at the injury league table we now have 11 players out. Now one of them is Diaby so I will not count him as I will not count Oxlade-Chamberlain …

Arsenal v Cardiff: 1/1/14 – the Match Officials. Are we making an impression?

Arsenal v Cardiff 01 January 2014 – the Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Referee – Jonathan Moss Assistants – S Long, S Child Fourth Official – P Gibbs This is the first time either team have seen Mr Moss this year and seems to be a first appearance for Mr Gibbs so a warm welcome …

Come on Olivier, let’s do a Montpellier

By Walter Broeckx Are we seeing the French Ligue 2011-2012 being redone in the PL this season? When I looked in to the stats of Olivier Giroud I asked myself this question. I have written about the career of Giroud when he came to Arsenal before. And I then pointed at the fact that in …

Who Arsenal will sign and sell this January

By Tony Attwood All clubs do slumps at some time during the season.  The only occasion I can think of when there was not a real slump was the Unbeaten season, but even then I remember away fans getting incredibly angry at the match at Leicester on 6 December 2003, and the frustration of the …

Newcastle – Arsenal, a flash back in time….

By Walter Broeckx This was May 19th all over. A tight game between two teams that look tired at times. Is this Christmas period congestion of fixtures really a good way to produce good football? I don’t think. By the way players have to be replaced after injuries it sure isn’t a healthy situation to …

Away to Alain Le Pardieu de Newcastle; watching paint

One year to the day after Arsenal 7 Newcastle 3 we meet them again.   There’s a link to last year’s fun and games at the end. Matters Everyone’s Favourite Pundit Some say that listening to Michael Owen is similar to watching paint dry. I was one of these until quite recently, where awkwardly I …

Probert: “I wouldn’t have him in charge of a kindergarden game let alone one in the premier league”

Newcastle v Arsenal 29 December 2013 – The match officials Referee – Lee Probert Assistants – I Hussin and M Scholes Fourth Official – A Marriner Second time this year for Mr Probert – he was in charge for our 4-1 win over Norwich on 19 October.  Here is Walter’s post match report. The fastest …

Untold’s submission to the FA enquiry: “sort out the coaching, sort out the FA”

In September Football Association chairman Greg Dyke announced a commission to ascertain why so few English footballers make it to the top level. As we did with the Parliamentary commission of enquiry into football, wherein Phil Gregory wrote Untold’s reply, Untold has now made its submission to the FA. This time I wrote it, and …

Arsenal fear the worst, RVP wants a move

Media Review By Tony Attwood Arsenal fear the worst screams the Daily Telegraph today, over the news that our “top scorer” is likely to be out for months and months.   Well, four weeks anyway. I’ll come back to that in a moment, because no sooner had I focussed on that headline from today’s papers than …

Ref Review 2012/13: The bias that teams get from the refs by playing at home

By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article.  __________________________ On this site we have published all kinds of reports over the season 2012-2013. We have dealt with the different teams. We have looked  closely at …

Liverpool manager takes up Untold’s call: there is something profoundly rotten with the refereeing system

By Tony Attwood According to the Daily Telegraph, Brendan Rodgers, “is to ask the Premier League why ‘a referee from Greater Manchester’ was in charge of Thursday’s fixture [v Man City] which ended in a controversial defeat for the visitors.” This is a very welcome step forwards, because it continues to force the issue of …

Tactics review – Swansea away

This article continues our occasional review of the tactics employed by Arsenal this season. By Arvind This is the game against Swansea at the Liberty. A super interesting game when I watched it slowly. It’s a classic template of how we’re doing what teams used to do to us a few years ago. It’s just …

It was almost one of those days till Poldi came along

By Walter Broeckx After 46 minutes you started to get the feeling: it was one of those days. We didn’t play super football. But we were much better than West Ham for most of the game.  And we had enough chances in the first half to put us in front.  More than enough in fact.  …

West Ham behind the curtains, the methods of Allerdyce, Arsenal rotating

D-Sanchez-Cabello My dear friends, Merry Boxing Day and all that… Now I hope, that unlike myself your enjoyment of the festive season does not hinge entirely on Arsenal’s success. Which, of course is a truly absurd way to live… a bit like clinging to a leisurely morphine addiction. Sometimes you enjoy it, but other times …

Boxing Day ref preview. Phil Dowd we (and the guys in the press box) are watching you

West Ham v Arsenal 26/12/2013 – The Match Officials Andrew Crawshaw Referee Phil Dowd Assistants – D Cann, L Betts Fourth Official – C Breakspear   At last this year new officials – welcome to C Breakspear as fourth official.  OK he is unlikely to play a great part in proceedings apart from having to …

13 things you didn’t know you didn’t know about football

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is the only premiership manager to have been given a Latin name (Odobenus rosmarus) by the Royal Geographical Society. In the season 1925-6 Portsmouth played all their home matches under water after Fratton Park was blown into Fareham Lake. Nottingham Forest were founded by Robin Hood and originally played in …

How to fix a Premier League football match

By Tony Attwood The standard approach to match fixing as reported by the TV stations and press is one that relates to spot betting – which is to say betting on a particular event.  The attraction of it is that you only need to fix one player to do whatever the deed is you are …

At last the English media recognise there’s something seriously wrong with the referees

By Tony Attwood And so, after years of pointing out that there is something seriously wrong with refereeing in the Premier League, the English papers have started to admit that there might be a problem. Not all of them, and most are hedging their bets talking of referee mistakes, and the views of “Arsenal supporters”, …

Dean useless as usual, Mourinho still the master in killing football pleasure

By Walter Broeckx Just before the game started I saw a comment after the match preview article from a Chelsea supporter and he said: “What have you been smoking, the comments are worse than the article, Dean will let Chelsea players go out to injure? Its a game between two good teams why can’t you …

Chelsea Preview | Importance of the First Goal | Mourinho…

I thought a while ago that Mourinho’s return to Chelsea hinged on him changing his style. An Oligarch reemploying a man he’d spent 20 million to get rid of seemed odd, and suggested that something had changed. In an interview the other day, Mourinho alluded to an inability (for whatever reason) to resort to his …

The Twelve Days of Arsenal

The Twelve Days of Arsenal – Don McMahon In keeping with the season’s festive and joyous appreciation of all things Arsenal, I would like to present all UA and true Gooners worldwide with my revised version of an old seasonal favourite, direct from the home of Football. My apologies to our Gooner fans of other …

Ref Review 2012/13: extrapolating Important decisions

By Walter Broeckx and Tony Attwood (Note: the gathering of data and interpretation of it is by Walter.  The commentary on sampling techniques is by Tony) This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article.  __________________________ On this site …

Arsenal v Chelsea: Dean v Arsenal – the story continues.

Arsenal v Chelsea 23rd December 2013 – The match officials Dean v Arsenal – the story continues. by Andrew Crawshaw —– Yes it’s official…  Referee – Mike Dean Assistants – J Collin, J Brooks Fourth Official –  J Moss The dark lord returns and, after his somewhat benevolent visit for Stoke which we won 3-1 …

AB follows AVB into the dole queue at Xmas

Untold Non Lower League: Northampton Town 1-4 Wycombe Wanderers Attendance: 4,353 Weather: atrocious Result: Another managerial casualty Flags and optimism at the start Tony and I had intended to watch Poole Town (Tony’s local club when his parents moved out of London during his teenage years) travel to Corby Town today, but a waterlogged pitched …