Untold Arsenal on live TV (in italics).

By Walter Broeckx [Please note this article is written in italics for reasons that may or may not become clear later.  Please do not adjust your computer.] Saturday 24 February 1979. The day that changed my life. The day I really started supporting Arsenal. And to make myself aware that it would be a tough …

Time for Arsenal to spring back to life

By Walter Broeckx Form is temporary, class is permanent. I think we all have seen these words being used about football teams. And it seems that these words are truer than ever. It is clear to see that for the moment the form isn’t there with far too many players. There is with many players …

Jilted John, the lightbulb moment & the football risk assessment (Part1)

Jilted John, the lightbulb moment, & the football risk assessment (Part1) By Proud Kev I recently replaced a lightbulb in my office. The one I fitted was round old fashioned bayonet fitting type which gave off a lovely, bright 100 watt glow. I found it in an unopened box in my garage at home.  It was …

Manchester United – Arsenal 3-2

By Walter Broeckx Arsenal made a few changes. Some forced other not. Theo Walcott comes on for the injured Oxlade-Chamberlain. At the back Gabriel comes in for Mertesacker who sat in the bench. Up front we had Welbeck who came on and Giroud dropped to the bench. Also on the bench we had Iwobi and …

If we had lost the last 134 games at Old Traff would that make us more or less likely to lose this one?

. By Bulldog Drummond It’s been a few days of the media falling over themselves in an attempt to examine Arsenal’s accounts.   Typical was the statement in the Telegraph that “Despite the large reserves [£159m], the club did make a relatively small loss of £3.4 million for the six month financial period until Nov …

The February Under 18 Report plus a Youth Cup update.

by Andrew Crawshaw At the end of January, the U18s needed six points from nine to ensure that they featured in the top division for the second half of the season, four points or fewer would see them in the second division – still an improvement on last season but disappointing. Sat 6 Feb saw …

Welcome to the Pawson-Dean Disaster. Man U v Arsenal, 28 Feb 2016 – The Match Officials.

by Andrew Crawshaw First the up to date Table of Shame following the Leicester review Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 1 33 Red Cards 1 11 Penalties 3 26 Goals 0 9 Total 5 79 Possible Cost in Points 0 17 To be honest the final performance figure from Mr …

Fifa survives, Infantino wins. Arsenal make a loss.

By Tony Attwood Gianni Infantino has moved from being the General Secretary of Uefa, a position he has held since October 2009, to being President of the most corrupt sports organisation that the world has ever seen: Fifa. He was associated with Financial Fair Play, and has seen the expansion of Euro 2016 to 24 teams …

Transfans who say, “If Flamini plays another game for Arsenal, I’m supporting Leicester”.

By Tony Attwood As people interested in football, we have a choice.  We can Support our club no matter what Support the club but grumble about the way things are currently going Get angry and say I’m not supporting this club if they don’t change their ways Get angry and go and support another club …

We could look back in the future and see that today was the day Fifa was destroyed.

By Tony Attwood Go back a couple of years and, while everyone who wanted to understand, fully understood the corruption that existed in Fifa, Uefa and world football, virtually no one wanted to do much about it.  The height of such rebellion as there was, came with the English FA gallantly saying that they would …

The strange cases of Lord Copper, Dr Carneiro, Mr Abranomvich, and the high court judge.

By Tony Attwood One of the things about the very, very, very, very (repeat 200 times) rich is that they get surrounded by employees who benefit from their largesse. As a result, people tend to say yes a lot, and as the excruciatingly rich person starts doing bonkers things, the yes men say yes.  And …

More evidence that transfers and large squads are not the route to success

By Tony Attwood The news that Alex Oxlade Chamberlain is possibly facing a long lay off after his injury against Barcelona, raises once again the issue of injuries, and it was both frustrating and amusing (in different ways) to see a correspondent this morning rant about everything including our multiple injuries.   As we’ve shown …

Warping reality: How the media reworking of the real world evolved after the game

. By Tony Attwood If you’ve been following us today, you may recall that this morning I wrote about the fact that yesterday’s match vs Barcelona was dominated in the stadium by the rampant booing and jeering of the referee (who is Turkish), who to those of us inside the stadium, was wandering down his …

Now, who will we blame this time and the answer to the simplistic questions

By Walter Broeckx As usual when Arsenal don’t win the moaners come out. And start the blame game. ”Wenger should have bought….” and “tell me there was no other better striker available to replace Giroud” and the line “every player has their price”. All simple statements of course. For people who live in the simple …

Why do they need the referee? How Thomas Bowdler’s heritage lives on in football journalism

By Tony Attwood A short while ago the press were full of praise for the Liverpool crowd – or at least the members of the crowd who got up and left the ground on the 77th minute, in protest against the proposed rise in the price of entrance to games. Much was made of the …

CL Arsenal – Barcelona 0-2, one moment lack of concentration and we paid the price

By Walter Broeckx Lots of changes at the start but that was to be expected of course. In fact it was the team that was expected at the start of the match. Well the team I expected anyway. Starting XI: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Ramsey, Coquelin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud On the beach: Ospina, …

Barcelona – things to look out for.

Barcelona – things to look out for. By Tim Charlesworth We’re all rather wracked with anxiety about tonight’s game.   I find a nice way to deal with football tension is to think about some aspects of the game to look out for (other than the ‘who scores the most goals’ question).  Matches like this define …

The tactics we can use against Barcelona, and what to wish for if it don’t work.

By Bulldog Drummond We’ve said it before, but it is worth saying again.   Look at the Spanish league table.   The top four go into the Champs League, 5th and 6th go into Europa. And what do you know – Sevilla in fifth are closer to relegation than they are to catching Barcelona. Which …

Do you have faith in Fifa? And Arsenal v Barcelona, player by player.

By Bulldog Drummond. If you have read my match previews from time to time you’ll know that I sometimes quote Whoscored.com – an interesting source of statistics.  Unfortunately today that site doesn’t seem to like my login and thus I’m being barred from seeing some of the more exciting bits of the site.  So instead …

Life As An Arsenal Fan.

By Tai Emeka Obasi Life As An Arsenal Fan. Being an Arsenal fan, I’ve concluded, is never a coincidence. It’s rather a design, which has a lot of bearing in all endeavours of anyone privileged enough to be deeply associated with the London-based outfit. If this assertion may be considered an overstatement prior to Arsene …

Ref Review: Arsenal – Leicester

By Usama & Walter ARSENAL vs. LEICESTER CITY COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 26 DATE: 14th February 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Martin Atkinson 1st LINESMAN: Michael Mullarkey 2nd LINESMAN: Stephen Child 4th OFFICIAL: Roger East First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

The curious problem of Man City’s squad, and Arsenal’s resolute answer

. By Tony Attwood. . There is something curious going on at Manchester City.   The club is, as we all know, rich beyond the dreams of all rich clubs.  It not only has a ground that it got from the taxpayer free of charge in return for a promise from its sponsor to fly …

Creating the football myth, and how American troops are being used against Texas

By Tony Attwood There has been, on the internet, You Tube footage of armed US soliders marching down streets in American cities.  It is presented as evidence that President Obama and his cohort are indeed doing what many have said, and let’s face it, what many actually believe: the administration is about to wage war …

FA Cup Arsenal – Hull: 0-0

By Walter Broeckx Arsenal made a lot of changes,for this match. Most noticeable one was was the first start of Welbeck in 10 months. Ospina started in goal and Cech was given the weekend off as Macey was the keeper on the bench. Team that started: Ospina, Chambers, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Flamini, Elneny, Campbell, Iwobi, …

Over and over and over again. Every year we play Hull City in the Cup.

By Billy “the Dog” McGraw. Mr Wenger has been doing his normal chat to the media which has as always been grossly misinterpreted.  He said that if we had lost in the final to Hull in the season before last he might have considered leaving – which by my book is two steps away from leaving. …