Five things that have gone wrong for Arsenal this season

by Tony Attwood Arsenal could have done so much better this season, but thankfully there is still some of the season left so they might well have time to sort this out and make things right. Here are just five of the failures of Arsenal thus far… They have 1: Continued to hold press conferences …

The managerial musical chairs. Where does it get anyone?

By Tony Attwood Paul Heckingbottom signed a new rolling contract with Barnsley last Friday.  Leeds United sacked their manager Thomas Christiansen last Sunday. Paul Heckingbottom’s new contract had a release clause in it.  Leeds offered him a job, he accepted it and so on Tuesday Heckingbottom has gone to Leeds, four days after signing a new …

Transfer window moved, 10 big rumours, Nketiah & Willock go beserk and bonkers awards

By Sir Hardly Anyone For the last two years we’ve done a review through the summer of the wild and wacky transfer gibberish that passes for news in many of our national newspapers and on the bloggettas. Each of the last two summers have had just over 100 players rumoured to join Arsenal, and of …

Wenger protest, Chairman booed, anti-Spurs comments, Wilshere going, Big Sam’s instructions, Aubameyang warned.

By Sir Hardly Anyone. Apparently there was an anti-Wenger protest at the Arsenal on Saturday evening… but very people turned up because of the rain.  At least that is what one of the bloggettas says, with pictures of a few guys hanging around Arsenal tube station. Which is a bit odd because I used the …

Premier League is now only second to Germany in lack of competitiveness

By Tony Attwood It was rather sad in a way to hear Alan Greene on Radio 5 doing the Liverpool Tottenham match and being utterly restrained in what he said about the refereeing in the game.  Even if he thought all the decisions near the end of the match were completely right, in the good …

The new squad: who has left, who is in the 25, and what happened to the youngsters.

by Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood (all mistakes are Tony’s fault – two earlier problems have now been fixed). We now have a list of all the players aged over 21 (by the League’s definition of qualifying dates).  As you’ll know of course, only 25 such players can be listed – but all registered players …

Arsenal/Everton: bonkers officials and a prediction we got right

By Tony Attwood Here’s a little stat that amused me yesterday evening.  As the media had told us a thousand times over this, was the 500th Premier League match as a manager of a famous large man with a dubious character.  He’d been involved in 2006 in allegations of corruption against him and his son.  …

Arsenal v Everton. Three possible line ups, the illnesses, and the future

By Bulldog Drummond It is difficult to get a firm fix on how bad the illness affecting Aubameyang and Wilshere is, or was, which makes the thoughts of predicting the team for the match this evening even more difficult. Everyone being fit I would go with Cech Bellerin Koscielny Mustafi Monreal Ramsey Wilshere Ozil Aubameyang …

Arsenal v Everton: Sat 3 Feb 2018 – The Match Officials: beware bias, rogue penalties and old age.

by Andrew Crawshaw Our officials are :- Referee – Neil Swarbrick  age 52 from Lancashire Assistant Referee 1 – Constantine Hatzidakis  from Kent and FIFA accredited Assistant Referee 2 – Daniel Cook  from Hampshire Fourth Official – Craig Pawson  age 38 from South Yorkshire and FIFA accredited The first thing to say is that with …

Arsenal v Everton: one of the most astonishing runs of all time

By Bulldog Drummond According to Physioroom, Aubameyang is ill, and will have a late fitness test.  Jack Wilshere is also ill and likewise will have a late fitness test, and Danny Welbeck is out with a muscular injury.  Everton are reported to have four injuries: McCarthy – broken leg Baines – muscle strain Stekelenburg – …

Arsenal & the new guys v Everton and Theo. What’s gonna happen?

by Bulldog Drummond Of course it was too good to last, all this anti-everyone else and laying off the Arsenal, and within a few hours of our piece about a change in the way the newspapers see Arsenal we were back to the snarling norm with “Mesut Özil, Yaya Sanogo and Arsène Wenger’s ticking doomsday …

Welcome Henrikh, Welcome Pierre-Emerick. The complete review of our new players.

By Josif Ahead of our first chance to see Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Emiliano Francois Aubameyang for the first time at a home game, we take a look at our two new players, and bid them welcome. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is only 29 but it is safe to say he is the greatest Armenian player of all times. …

Why has the upmarket mainstream media changed its tune over Arsenal?

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw Something odd is going on. The mainstream upmarket media appear, for the moment at least, to have gone soft on Arsenal and are picking on everyone else.  The bloggettas however, oft written by robots as they are, are staying with their long term objective of knocking.  Such is their …

FFP set for a return, Big Sam stumped, Miki/Aub friends, under 23s squad, Zelalem back.

By Tony Attwood In the early days of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play there was a bit of a battle on this site between those of us in favour of FFP’s aims and some Manchester City supporters who argued that FFP was illegal and would be thrown out by the courts. It wasn’t and nothing happened, …

Fast football, why Alexis’ departure could be good news, and football racism. Just another window.

By Tony Attwood It’s not often that I find Amy Lawrence in the Guardian writing an article that I can agree with wholeheartedly, but it has happened today.  Annoyingly hers is not only written in a much better way than I could ever do, but she got there first. The issue is one about movement, …

Which of the top 6 club spent the most, and what did Europe get up to this month?

by Tony Attwood So by and large, and give and take a few that I have probably missed and the odd one or two I have got wrong, this is by and large what happened… First, the buying and selling for the current top six clubs in the league… Club Player in Cost Player out …