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 In one sense it is all rather droll. On the one hand Arsenal’s current form is enough to take them to third in the league by the end of the season, and on the other hand the Guardian reports that, “Fifa has decided that Russia can continue their bid to qualify for …
Read More “This is football’s greatest chance to get rid of Fifa and Infantino”
By Tony Attwood Now there’s a headline I am pretty sure you won’t see written anywhere else. But let’s see just how possible it is for Arsenal to finish above Chelsea, based on the games to come and recent results. Here is the league table H O M E A W A Y Pos Team …
Read More “Why Arsenal will finish above Chelsea in third place this season.”
By Tony Attwood Chelsea’s market value is currently being quoted at over two billion dollars, on the basis that an offer has apparently been made to buy the club for this amount. If that deal were to go through then the owner, would make a profit of around 500 million dollars, given that he has …
Read More “Why is the Chelsea owner being treated differently from other Russian oligarchs?”
By Tony Attwood Journalists don’t do statistics, as we know, so they make up stories to knock us with, but they are slowly running out of options. And stats are available – those used here come from the Premier League’s own data. We are the sixth highest-scoring team in the league, and have the fifth-best …
Read More “Revealed: the next tactical change Arsenal will make”
by Tony Attwood This really is the moment that the world of football, and indeed the world of the Olympics, has to choose. Either each rises up and kicks out its leaders who kowtow with the most appalling despots (Fifa with Russia, and the Committee for Arbitration in Sports, and the Olympics movement with China), …
Read More “Gianni Infantino and President Putin: football must decide whose side it is on.”
By Tony Attwood On 3 September Talk Sport ran the headline “Really?” Beneath that they said… Arsene Wenger claims bottom of the table Arsenal are in ‘good shape’ and rules out any potential return to the Emirates The sneering, jeering piece was written by Connor Andrews, a writer on multiple subjects for the Sprout, .and …
Read More “Talk Sport: isn’t it time for an abject apology over your Arsenal prediction?”
by Tony Attwood There is a growing proposition in newspapers and elsewhere that Arsenal don’t really have any advantage over Manchester United because their two “games in hand” are rather difficult – Tottenham and Chelsea away. In fact that suggestion is that Manchester United have the advantage, although quite how that is the case is …
Read More “The idea that Man U have the advantage over Arsenal in the run in, is twaddle”
by Andrew Crawshaw My daughter was at the Bolton v Lincoln City game recently and I managed to find a stream of it and watch the last 10 minutes of the first half and the whole of the second half. Bolton emerged 3 – 1 winners with all goals scored in the second half. Nothing …
By Tony Attwood I have had the good fortune to go to Cup Finals Arsenal have won, and indeed to watch games in which Arsenal won the league, and of course each was a great joyous and memorable occasion. But really that game last night was up there with those matches for the intensity of …
Read More “Arsenal v Wolverhamtpon: I will remember that night for a long time”
By Bulldog Drummond Previously Checking the pundit’s accuracy: How Lawrenson gets Arsenal oh so wrong. Arsenal v Wolverhampton: who is injured and who is going to score the goals? Arsenal v Wolverhampton the history in videos, and the stats When the two clubs met recently they had each played 21 games which made life easier …
Read More “Arsenal v Wolverhampton: the tackling, the team predictions, the result”
By Bulldog Drummond Prelude: The Arsenal History Society has published collections of historic videos for matches against many of our regular rivals. Below Here are the Wolverhampton Wanderers videos. Day by Day the videos – An Arsenal video for (almost) every day of the year in order. Day by Day the stories– a key moment in Arsenal and footballing …
Read More “Arsenal v Wolverhampton the history in videos, and the stats”
By Sir Hardly Anyone As you will recall, I’m sure, we recently played Wolverhampton and so went through all the regular analyses that we do prior to each game, for that first round. So there is only a minimal about to say now. Indeed we seemingly don’t even have any injuries – the only person …
Read More “Arsenal v Wolverhampton: who is injured and who is going to score the goals?”
By Tony Attwood Just how easy is it to be a pundit? Mark Lawrenson has, for many years, earned to corn by punditing (or would that be punditting with the double t – I’m not too sure) on the BBC each week, predicting the scores. You can see one of his recent efforts here. What …
Read More “Checking the pundit’s accuracy: How Lawrenson gets Arsenal oh so wrong.”
By Tony Attwood Much of the chatter about Arsenal has settled down a bit, perhaps with the media realising that in the light of the reality of league tables taken over time, the media has been looking rather stupid. But still, there is the relentless push to say that Arsenal must have a new …
Read More “Do Arsenal need a new striker? Do Uefa need a new Gazprom?”
By Tony Attwood Many of us have for many years been worried about CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport), the Supreme Court of all the sports, because of its bizarre history of rulings. There has been a feeling for a long time that CAS is remote, and of course, as the final arbiter, it …
Read More “The movement to overthrow the Court of Arbitration for Sport is growing”
By Sir Hardly Anyone There is a growing concern among our friends in the Toppled Bollard public house – favoured watering hole of the journalistic elite, that there is not enough antagonism and divisiveness in football at the moment. Indeed, ever anxious to stoke up more nastiness, aggression, and ultimately violence Football.London, the website of …
Read More “How the media promotes violence among football supporters”
By Tony Attwood It is a story that has often been pushed around: Arsenal are in trouble because they have such a small squad. Give me Sport for example on 1 February this year led with the headline Arsenal’s squad depth is seriously concerning, continuing with the sarcastic note that “Perhaps the only saving …
Read More “Is Arsenal on the brink of trouble with such a tiny squad?”
by Tony Attwood Of late the Belgian league has been troubled by match-fixing allegations dating back to the 2013-2014 season. According to various news sources in Belgium, Roland Duchâtelet, former president of Standard Liege, as well as two players of the club, have filed a complaint against Anderlecht and RC Genk. Now Roland Duchâtelet is …
Read More “Why don’t we ever talk about something not being right with the Premier League?”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal’s next two games were supposed to be against Wolverhampton at home on Thursday and Chelsea away on Sunday but with Chelsea in the League Cup final that game has been re-arranged. So Wolverhampton is all we have to worry about this week! (Apologies, I hadn’t realised that when the article first …
Read More “Are Arsenal really challenging for a top four finish?”
By Tony Attwood There really is little left in the universe for the raging anti-Arsenal Mirror and their pals on Football.London, the Express, the Sunday People, the Star and over 100 local daily newspapers to write about. So instead they are making up tales about “Arsenal are running provisional checks on Spain midfielder Fabian Ruiz …
Read More “Arsenal: Today’s fantasies, inventions and mindless gibberish”
By Tony Attwood In the last article I noted the “last six matches” table which shows that taking just the last six league games into account for all the clubs in the Premier League we are second only to Liverpool, and (if I may stress this) ABOVE MANCHESTER CITY ON GOAL DIFFERENCE. Now I capitalise …
Read More “Arsenal: thank goodness there are no fans on the board”
By Tony Attwood And so on one of the more bizarre days of recent years (for me if no one else) I watched Arsenal have their expected victory against a team playing in the way the pundits used to call “dogged” Arsenal did as expected and won. Even the media seemed to find it so …
Read More “Arsenal and Status Quo: the top four is most certainly on”
by Bulldog Drummond. It is always interesting when this day comes around in the season to look and see where we were before – for this of course is the day when the opening matches of the campaign are reversed. As a result we played Brentford away in the first match of the season at …
Read More “Arsenal v Brentford: who will play, and the videos of two past encounters”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal v Brentford: injuries, tackles, fouls, yellows Arsenal v Brentford… Against each other and the all important recent form… Do Arsenal really urgently need a striker as the media says? As for Brentford the BBC tell us, “The Bees could lose five consecutive away league matches for the first time in 11 …
Read More “Arsenal v Brentford: Brentford’s chance of survival and a comparison of player values”
By Bulldog Drummond Previously: Arsenal v Brentford… Against each other and the all important recent form… In the Guardian today we have the following commentary… “Aside from the quality that has been added since, Arsenal seem to have developed a grittiness that has served them well in recent weeks.” Grittiness indeed – that seems like …
Read More “Arsenal v Brentford: injuries, tackles, fouls, yellows”
