Operation clean hands, when will it start in England?

By Walter Broeckx It has been a rather interesting year for football in Belgium.   Belgium, as you may recall,  reached third place in the world cup,  but at the same time not all was well in Belgian football. It might not be a story that has moved across the Channel but in 2018 a …

How four clubs commit fouls with impunity, while others constantly get punished

Below is the data analysing the fouls and cards awarded by referees.   The key findings are Manchester City commit over three times the number of fouls as Arsenal for each yellow card they get. Arsenal at home have had 22 yellow cards this season whilst Manchester City have just five  and Tottenham and Liverpool have seven …

Matchweek 21 – All the Games and Officials, and predictions

by Andrew Crawshaw Here courtesy of premierleague.com are the New Year games.  Please note that kickoffs are at 15:00 London time unless noted otherwise:- Tuesday 1 January 12:30 Everton v Leicester City Referee: Martin Atkinson Assistants: Stephen Child, Lee Betts Fourth official: Anthony Taylor Everton v Leicester: the predictions 15:00 Arsenal v Fulham Referee: Graham Scott Assistants: Richard West, Neil Davies Fourth official: …

Peter Hill Wood and the end of the dream of an Arsenal owned by its fans

By Tony Attwood As you will probably have heard Peter Hill-Wood died this week at the age of 82.  He came onto the board in 1962 and became chairman in 1982, serving until he stepped down through ill health in 2013. The Hill-Wood engagement with Arsenal goes back to the time of Sir Samuel Hill-Wood, the …

Why the failure against Liverpool was inevitable, and what Arsenal need now.

by Tony Attwood During the past two seasons there was a fair amount of talk, not to mention poster waving, along with a spot of aircraft flying and marching, concerning the future of Mr Wenger.   Not particularly to deny what he had done for the club in the past, but rather to question what he …

Final score live match report Liverpool – Arsenal : 5-1

By Walter Broeckx Arsenal team at the start: Leno, Lichtsteiner, Mustafi, Sokratis, Maitland-Niles, Torreira, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Ramsey, Iwobi, Aubameyang On the beach: Cech, Koscielny, Elneny, Guendouzi, Willock, Saka, Lacazette A first dangerous attempt from Liverpool after some 6 minutes when Salah tries to flick a shot but the ball goes wide. Arsenal keeping Liverpool mostly out …

Liverpool v Arsenal: the teams and the possibilities

by Bulldog Drummond A win in this game would be an absolute miracle or a reason for the media suddenly to discover the dark forces that exist within the footballing underworld.  Or if they don’t want to admit anything might be odd in the world of football it might be simply “inexplicable”.   At least we …

Liverpool v Arsenal. All change at Liverpool, or more of the same?

By Tony Attwood The regular daily praise of Liverpool FC piece in the press today has taken a new twist, as shown in this comment in the Telegraph… When Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool in 2010, John W. Henry reserved particular praise for one English club. “I admire Arsenal very much,” Henry said, citing Wenger’s …

Liverpool v Arsenal: the injuries and the title winners predictions

  By Bulldog Drummond Here is the injury list for the top of the injury league 1 10 West Ham United 2 7 Tottenham Hotspur 2 7 Arsenal 4 6 Manchester City 4 6 Liverpool 4 6 Watford 7 5 Chelsea However one thing to remember is that clubs do far fewer updates than normal …

Liverpool v Arsenal: the preview

by Bulldog Drummond At the end of last season Untold boldly predicted that this season Manchester City would win the League again, quite simply because they would spend, spend, spend and spend, and do everything they could to ensure that they would stay top. In fact we were wrong, they didn’t go on another mass …

Matchweek 20 – All the Games, All the Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw Here, courtesy of premierleague.com, are this weekend’s matches:- NB All matches start at 15:00 UK time unless otherwise noted Previews will appear shortly in https://Predictions.org.uk – links are added below as the previews are published. Saturday 29 December Brighton v Everton Referee: Andy Madley Assistants: Simon Long, Mick McDonough Fourth official: Andre Marriner …

Reality can be very boring but can be quite useful in football

by Tony Attwood Consider this headline Arsenal ‘willing to pay’ €16m to make transfer happen, decision now rests with player That seems quite straightforward, except that the player is Keylor Navas of Real Madrid.   So let’s see if the “Willing to pay” story hangs together. 1: Do we need another goalkeeper?   In their ultimate …

How is Arsenal doing compared with half way through previous seasons?

By Tony Attwood Last season the media and some fans made a lot of noise about getting rid of Mr Wenger as manager.  Within the noise there were claims that Arsenal were clearly not keeping up with the rest of the league, and demands that at the very least Arsenal should be challenging to win …

Final score and live match report Brighton H&A – Arsenal: 1-1

By Walter Broeckx Some changes in the starting line up to cover for the injury of Monreal and Lichtsteiner coming in at what looks to be a 4 at the back starting line up. Our beach showing we are rather thin now on first team players… Arsenal starting with : Leno, Lichtsteiner, Sokratis, Koscielny, Kolasinac, …

Brighton v Arsenal, the teams, the possibilities, Koscielny

By Bulldog Drummond Looking at Arsenal, as we have noted throughout this season, the away form is key to taking us up the league (not least on the grounds that it would be hard to improve on last season’s home form).   If we can beat Brighton, that will take us to five away wins – …

Brighton v Arsenal; the form guide

By Bulldog Drummond Brighton’s season has been somewhat erratic not helped by having three players sent off in seven days of playing football.  This might well be having an impact on them – the manager telling the players to reign in some of the aggro. Looking at their performances through the season we find these …

First Half of the Season – Referee Analysis – who’s been where and how often

by Andrew Crawshaw Covering the first half of the season here is a list of the games done by each referee and the top of the table for the Assistant Referees. A total of 18 different referees have been used so far but with vastly different workloads. Referee Games Assistants Games Anthony Taylor 17 Simon …

Matchweek 19 – All the Games and Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw This week marks the halfway point of the season.  Maybe we aren’t quite where we would have liked to be but, in all honesty, I don’t think that many of us could reasonably have expected us to be any higher than fifth, given our form from last year. Here, courtesy of premierleague.com …

Brighton v Arsenal: the injury crisis (part 94), kettles of fish and runs.

By Bulldog Drummond If it is Arsenal it must be an injury crisis, so let’s take a peek…. and yes this time they are right we are second in the injury league behind Watford.  Crisis, crisis, crisis.  But is anyone calling for the head of the Watford manager because of their injury crisis?  I can’t …

The great referee con, played on us poor punters over and over again

By Tony Attwood This time it is Keith Hackett who does it, but it could have been any of the commentators who tell us that refereeing is really ok and jolly good and everything is fine and there is nothing sinister about having an organisation so secretive that it makes the masonic lodges look like …

How likely are Arsenal to get into the top four by the end of the season?

By Tony Attwood The prime objective of this season for many supporters was, I think, to see Arsenal get back into the Champions League, where Mr Wenger had kept the club for so many years (a run, as I have mentioned before, which has only ever been exceeded by Real Madrid). I made the comment …

Official reactions to Dyche will show us how the authorities are thinking

by Tony Attwood Sean Dyche made a number of serious accusations against Arsenal players in particular, the  Arsenal team in general, after the match yesterday and complained about the behaviour of the referee in this match and referees in general through commenting on the fact that (he claims) Burnley do not get given penalties. The …

Final score live match report Arsenal – Burnley : 3-1

By Walter Broeckx A few changes as could be expected with the busy schedule we are looking at and some returns in the team. Özil started and also Kolasinac in the starting line up. Up front Lacazette and Aubameyang both starting. Torreira getting some rest and on the bench with Elneny taking his place. A back …

Arsenal v Burnley: the teams now and the last time we lost to Burnley

By Bulldog Drummond The last time we did lose to a bottom three club at home was with a 1-0 loss to West Ham way way way back in April 2007.  And to make this sound even better we have won the last 27 home league matches against sides in the drop zone since a …

Arsenal v Burnley recent games, and the holiday season run in

by Bulldog Drummond. We have beaten Burnley 51 times throughout history, and lost 33 times, with 21 games being draws, and the last ten give no cause for concern.  But that problem of recovering from the first defeat in a while is always lurking around. Here are the recent Burnlian results… Date Game Res Score …