Arsenal v Tottenham: a truly revolutionary approach from the press

By Tony Attwood Why Arsenal should be happy Mike Dean is refereeing the north London derby That is the headline above an article in the Daily Telegraph.  It is not a piece that I wholly agree with and I think some of the ways in which the statistics are handled are misleading, but the fact …

Totts amazing fouling record. Matchweek 14; all the Games and Officials & the star of the show.

by Andrew Crawshaw Courtesy of premierleague.com here are the match officials for this coming weekend’s fixtures:- Kick-offs are 15:00 GMT unless stated otherwise. Friday 30 November 20:00 Cardiff City v Wolves Referee: Andre Marriner Assistants: Scott Ledger, Simon Long Fourth official: Martin Atkinson Saturday 1 December Crystal Palace v Burnley Referee: Lee Probert Assistants: Andy Garratt, Adrian Holmes Fourth official: Mike Dean Huddersfield Town …

Live match report and final score : FC Vorskla – Arsenal : 0-3

By Walter Broeckx Lots of youngsters starting and on the beach today. Starting line up: Cech, Lichtsteiner, Jenkinson, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Guendouzi, Elneny, Willock, Ramsey, Smith Rowe, Nketiah. On the beach: Martinez, Osei-Tutu, Medley, Gilmour, Saka, Mkhitaryan, John-Jules A free kick for a non existing foul against Maitland Niles in the opening minutes gifts Vorksla  a …

Tonight’s game, Arsenal nutters, injury update, and where is our backup stadium?

By Bulldog Drummond There seems to be little more to be said on the game tonight.   It goes ahead, the alternative stadium appears to be ready, all the Uefa bits and pieces are adorning the ground and so that’s that.   And yes, we found the Uefa rules that insist that all clubs nominate an alternative …

Arsenal: If there is a game in the Ukraine who will play? And if not, why not?

By Bulldog Drummond We have a certain lack of certainty today over such issues as a) will the game be played at all b) who will play in the Arsenal team. Yesterday we had a brief look at the regulations that Uefa were using to impose a move of the match from the normal venue …

Vorskla say the game v Arsenal might not happen. So what then?

by Bulldog Drummond So the latest is that Uefa have told Vorskla to use their backup stadium, but Vorskla say they might not be able to get things ready as this short notice.   So what happens? Untold, always handy with a rule book brings you the bits others don’t have. There was less than 18 …

Arsenal to refuse to go to Ukraine? Translating today’s Arsenal stories into English

By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw Having a spot of spare time while sitting in a traffic jam I thought I would take a look at the biggest stories around and give you a quick translation into English from the journaleese nonsense language that they are normally written in. It is, as they say, all …

Vorskla Poltava v Arsenal: ice, martial law, moved venue and team news

by Bulldog Drummond PLEASE NOTE that since this article was written the match has been moved.   There is a note in the comments and we’ll have more on this in the next article. According to the almighty Uefa there is nothing to worry about.   Martial law, temperatures of below minus 10 – these are of …

Arsenal v Brighton Women – Match Report, still top of the league

by Andrew Crawshaw Arsenal started with all of our fit senior outfield players Sari van Veenendaal Lisa Evans, Leah Williamson, Louise Quinn, Emma Mitchell c Leah Walti Dominique Bloodworth, Danielle van de Donk Katie McCabe, Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead Subs – Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, and three U18s – Ava Kuyken, Ruby Grant and Paige Bailey-Gayle Brighton …

Unbeaten runs, goal scorers and how Tottenham are three quarters of an hour behind

By Tony Attwood Arsenal, as we know, have just gone 17 games unbeaten – not just the longest in the Premier League at the moment but the longest in Europe’s main leagues.  If things work out ok in the Ukraine – assuming we can fly in and out ok, that could well be increased before …

Arsenal’s away form, Keys and Gray, child abuse in football, and the case of Man City.

By Tony Attwood As you may have noticed from passing comments I am now in Canary Islands, on a dance holiday, and reminding myself what it is like for many Arsenal supporters being outside England. In this case I am dependent on TV from the truly awful BeinSports which has the disagraced Richard Keys (now …

Rating the headlines after Arsenal’s win over Bournemouth. Reality loses.

By Sir Hardly Anyone It is commonplace for the blogs to “rate” this, that, something else, and then something other.   So with Tony off sunning himself on an island off the coast of somewhere watching the game in a bar with a bunchette of Bournemouth supporters I thought we’d have a look at what the …

Final score live match report Bournemouth – Arsenal : 1-2

By Walter Broeckx A bit an unexpected starting line up as Lacazette was not fully fit with a little groin injury and then Özil not in the starting line up. It looks  3 man central defenders at the start with Bellerin and Kolasinac as wing backs. Arsenal starting line up :  Leno, Bellerin, Sokratis, Mustafi, …

Bournemouth v Arsenal – the teams

by Bulldog Drummond. So here we are approaching the game while by now Tony should be somewhere in the Atlantic.  Or to be more precise on an island somewhere in the Atlantic. The media appear to be certain Arsenal have blown it simply because of the less than exciting game against Wolverhampton who looked like …

Bournemouth v Arsenal – update on the injuries

By Bulldog Drummond The good news is that for Koscielny everything is going to plan.  The manager recently confirmed this saying,  “First, the idea is to play with the Under 23s, but also I am looking at him and with his good performances and good feelings, he is close.   Maybe Monday he can play with …

Bournemouth v Arsenal: FFP, scorpions and recent results

By Bulldog Drummond Because for most of their life Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic (now renamed AFC Bournemouth even though they still play in Boscombe) has played in the Third Division (south) and the Division III, the number of games between Arsenal and Bournemouth is small. They joined the Football from the Southern League in 1923, …

Bournemouth v Arsenal, predictions based on the home and away form.

by Bulldog Drummond It seems forever since we had a real match to look forward to, but now we do, and we can return to the issue of home and away form. This is not an absolute way of predicting results but it certainly can work – and seems to work as well as, if …

Matchweek 13 – All of the games and Officials plus home and away fouls

by Andrew Crawshaw From premierleague.com here are the officials for this coming weekend Saturday 24 November 15:00 Brighton v Leicester Referee: Chris Kavanagh Assistants: Daniel Cook, Sian Massey-Ellis Fourth official: Roger East Everton v Cardiff Referee: Paul Tierney Assistants: Adrian Holmes, Mark Scholes Fourth official: Kevin Friend Fulham v Southampton Referee: Michael Oliver Assistants: Stuart Burt, Steve Bennett Fourth official: Craig Pawson Man Utd …

Are Arsenal the worst openers this season, the foreigners and the injuries

By Bulldog Drummond. So what’s new? Arsenal do not have the worst starts of any team in Premier League games this season, contrary to some suggestions.  In fact if we take the first 30 minutes as the “start” there are three teams who do worse than us: Man U, Wolverhampton and Leicester. In the middle …

Arsenal Women – Who might step up to replace our injured players?

by Andrew Crawshaw Here is my current list of our injured players Pauline Peyraud-Magnin – Minor hand injury caused her to withdraw from the France squad during the last International break and meant that she could only be on the bench last Sunday – Likely to be on the bench again this week Jessica Samuelsson …

Arsenal’s sponsorship deal with the Emirates was bound to explode one day

by Tony Attwood The problem with accepting sponsorship from a state sponsored entity, when the state is a dictatorship and human rights denier are obvious, and we have touched on them many times before.   Untold tended to call the stadium the Ems (which was the name of a sandwich bar on East Midlands Trains) and …

Arsenal youngsters join three old timers in training but one absentee is noticeable

By Tony Attwood Jordi Osei-Tutu, our 20 year old defender, who first grabbed attention in the pre-season games this past summer but who then got an injury, is back playing, and has been training with the first team. Other youngsters who have been signed up include Charlie Gilmour who has been playing with the under …

The FA is trying to impose a major shift in the Home Grown regulations

By Tony Attwood It is quite hard to remember an interlull that had so much happening on the football front.  We have had the new president of Uefa and some clubs unhappy with Manchester City over the way they were able to spend the money they did, Fifa unhappy with Chelsea and Manchester City and …

Arsenal have run further than any other PL team this season. And this proves that…

By Tony Attwood Well actually I don’t know what the headline proves, other than the fact that even with my devotion to statistics, I too can find stats that don’t actually tell me much. The same set of figures (from the Guardian) tell us that it is the centre backs who do the least running …

Zelalem returns as Arsenal progress and the Man U game that never was (but was paid for)

by Tony Attwood It is certainly not the most well-followed trophy among those that Arsenal are engaged in, but it is there, the fifth competition on the agenda, and having seen one of our games thus far I can confirm for those who do go, it is good fun. For below the Permier League, FA …