Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
By Tony Attwood Our view is that Mr Arteta introduced a radical new approach last season, after Arsenal finished 2019/20 with an astonishing 86 yellow cards – the highest of any team in the league. This very high number (averaging over two a game) not only influenced the way players played after they had been …
Read More “According to refs, Arsenal’s fouls are twice as bad as Liverpool’s this season!”
By Tony Attwood One of the constant themes of football journalism and blogging is that the fans know more than the manager. It is a theme encapsulated within phrases like “Odegaard has operated as a no.10 this season with Emile Smith Rowe dropping to the bench, but Arteta started both against Burnley to show their …
Read More “What do the first five games tell us about the rest of the season?”
By Tony Attwood We are told that the FA are investigating a spot of argy bargy as it used to be called, at the end of the match at Turf Moor. If you have been there you will know that apart from the addition of seats (which are by and large ignored) little has been …
Read More “Fan problems break out at Burnley, after Arsenal players behave unexpectedly”
By Tony Attwood So now our we are out of a run of league form that is the worst since… oh… let’s check… Actually it was January 2012 Date Match Res Score Competition 2 Jan 2012 Fulham v Arsenal L 2-1 Premier League 15 Jan 2012 Swansea City v Arsenal L 3-2 Premier League 22 …
Read More “Do other big teams ever get three defeats in a row or is it just Arsenal?”
The story so far… Arteta is under attack for swapping keepers. But there’s a good reason to do it Arsenal v Burnley: injuries, home/away stats and crowd influence on refs Arsenal are 44% more likely to have a tackle get a yellow card than Burnley! 3 recent poor Arsenal results against Burnley don’t hide the …
Read More “Burnley v Arsenal: the team – Odegaard or Smith Rowe?”
By Bulldog Drummond Previously… 3 recent poor Arsenal results against Burnley don’t hide the general trend Arsenal are 44% more likely to have a tackle get a yellow card than Burnley! Arsenal v Burnley: injuries, home/away stats and crowd influence on refs So while the press have been making much of Arsenal’s woes – our …
Read More “Burnley v Arsenal: preparing for the game and lamenting the lost striker”
by Bulldog Drummond Burnley’s results are slightly worse than Arsenal’s this season in the sense that they knocked up a 1-1 draw with Leeds and haven’t won any games in the league. Like Arsenal they got through the League Cup away from home although only on penalties, and otherwise the two clubs have both been …
Read More “3 recent poor Arsenal results against Burnley don’t hide the general trend”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal are 44% more likely to have a tackle called as a yellow card offence than Burnley Now before we begin we have to go over something that has cropped up before. That one cannot compare the effect of tackles between clubs and claim that is because of the referees, because some …
Read More “Arsenal are 44% more likely to have a tackle get a yellow card than Burnley! “
By Bulldog Drummond Taking our figures from the Premier League Injuries table the Arsenal situation looks to be improving in terms of the number of injuries sustained. And although I’m sure we would all have preferred to have Arsenal in a Euro competition than out, the bonus for us is that without the midweek travel …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley: injuries, home/away stats and crowd influence on refs”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The media are still attacking the Arsenal manager on a daily basis – the latest being attacks on the idea of dropping Leno and giving Ramsdale a game or two. Of course we don’t know the exact ins and outs of this but a few factors that are generally omitted from …
Read More “Arteta is under attack for swapping keepers. But there’s a good reason to do it”
By Tony Attwood It is now five days since the shocking scenes outside of Arsenal Stadium, where thousands of fans were shouted at by stewards and forced to queue incredibly dangerously on concrete stairways when trying to gain access to the ground. No apology has been made and no explanation has been offered to fans …
Read More “Arsenal refuse to acknowledge that entrance to the Ems was unsafe on Saturday”
Tony Attwood and Christophe Jost If there is one great benefit to Arsene Wenger’s proposal that there should be a world cup every two years it is that it has forced some serious re-thinking. Of course most of the comments that have been made are little more than a simplistic denunciations, saying, “it’s impossible” …
By Tony Attwood One of the key points I have been labouring away with is the fact that last December everything changed for Arsenal and as a result the club which measured by the first third of the season was 15th in the league, in the second two thirds of the season was second, beaten …
Read More “Arsenal training methods questioned? No, it’s just antiquated reporting”
By Tony Attwood One of the great problems with instituting a large number of changes in a squad across one transfer window, is that it then takes the incoming players a long time to adjust to at least some of these factors… a) living in a new country often with a different language b) working …
Read More “How is the drive to cut tackles, fouls and yellow cards going this season?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is not each individual attack on Arsenal and its manager that is particularly frustrating and annoying, especially when it is not backed up by the facts – or indeed based on utter falsehoods. But it is also the overall effect that is so worrying, for the newspapers by and large …
Read More “It’s the anti-Arsenal drip and the false “facts” that are so insidious”
By Tony Attwood The table below relates to the number of tackles, fouls and yellow cards per game in the Premier League , with all clubs except Burnley and Everton having played four league matches. Those two clubs are on three games. The table is in descending order of fouls called by the referee per …
Read More “Fewer fouls than Liverpool but 3 times as many yellow cards as Liverpool!”
By Tony Attwood My point is staying with the story of the crowd chaos before the Norwich match (see On the basis of the Norwich game Arsenal stadium should be closed as unsafe) is not just to highlight this but to suggest that the safety team at Arsenal learned nothing from the events of 2017 …
Read More “The ten things Arsenal must do before the next game to assure us of safety”
by Tony Attwood It is possible, although perhaps rather unlikely, that you know of Tim Sparv, the Finnish midfielder. He spent three years in the youth academy of Southampton and was a member of Southampton’s youth team that reached the final of the FA Youth Cup in 2005, playing in a team that also included …
Read More “Players don’t often write interesting articles about football, but…”
By Tony Attwood It is not surprising that we have started to get a few comments made attempting to denounce or undermine the thesis developed on these pages that there is something amiss with the refereeing of Premier League games. The tactic normally used is one in which just one element of our argument about …
Read More “The seven reasons why professional refereeing in England should be investigated now”
By Tony Attwood I’ve been going to Arsenal since the 1960s but I have never experienced events as worrying and dangerous as I experienced while trying to gain access to the stadium yesterday for the game against Norwich. In essence, one entrance to the environs of the ground up a slope with the underground car …
Read More “On the basis of the Norwich game Arsenal stadium should be closed as unsafe”
By Bulldog Drummond In previous articles we have covered Home and away form and injuries and the explored the approach of each club to this season. There’s a piece on the danger Arsenal must be aware of in this game, and of course with our regular interest in the tackle, foul, yellow situation, Expect …
Read More “Arsenal v Norwich: We’re off to a 3pm saturday kickoff! Here are the teams”
By Bulldog Drummond. Previously: Arsenal v Norwich: exploring the approach of each club to this season Arsenal v Norwich: the danger Arsenal must be aware of in this game. Expect a foul to be given against Arsenal before Norwich kick off this weekend Here is our home and away form for last season for Arsenal …
Read More “Arsenal v Norwich. Home and away form and injuries”
By Bulldog Drummond It is difficult to get much from the statistics of this season since both clubs are doing a fine impersonation of a British entry in the European Song Contest and getting no points. And there is a curious link between the two clubs – just take a look at the Norwich form …
Read More “Arsenal v Norwich: exploring the approach of each club to this season”
Will Ben White Live Up to his Price Tag? Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta looked to bolster his defensive options in the transfer window. The Spaniard quickly moved for English defender Ben White, one of his first signings of the summer. White arrived from Premier League rivals Brighton for £50 million in July. The defender followed …
By Tony Attwood We know Fifa is looking to set up its own club competition in Africa as a prelude to taking over the Champions League. Now we can return to the way it works when anyone dares to challenge its approach. Stefan Keller was the special prosecutor of the Swiss public prosecutor’s office in …
Read More “Fifa is now attempting to make itself above all national and international law”
