by Tony Attwood Imagine that there were a set of statistics that indicated that for years and years referees had been unduly under the influence of alcohol when refereeing Premier League matches. After years of hiding the figures the situation would now be incredibly difficult – because if those figures did come out then questions …

Read More “The scandalous figures the football authorities are desperate to hide”

By Tony Attwood As you can read from the comments made by readers following yesterday’s final article, that most readers who commented were not impressed by the referee.  And of course nor was I.  But I would still like to stick to my theme that Mr Arteta and co must learn that this is how …

Read More “Awful refereeing and a fine win. It was almost like the old days”

By bulldog Drummond Of course we can always make something positive out of a big of a negative feel that is in the air, and so in the spirit of uplift it can be said that Arsenal have won four of their last five Premier League games, conceding just one goal in the process.  Indeed …

Read More “Southampton v Arsenal in the league: the team news”

By Bulldog Drummond The issue of referee bias is one that has concerned Untold Arsenal from the moment we started, and we have been lucky to have a large number of friends of the site who have contributed to the debate. Everyone of course can have their own view on this, but after the publication …

Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: Arsenal’s major problem approaching the league game”

By Bulldog Drummond The points that were made in this column before the FA Cup match concerning refereeing still stand for the league match… The commentary written was “Southampton are a curious team: one might even think they have an “understanding” with the referees.   They tackle more than any other club in the league, and …

Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: learning the lessons not learned last weekend”

By Tony Attwood The Guardian has now said that “Arsenal have won the race to sign the Real Madrid midfielder Martin Ødegaard on loan, beating off competition from Real Sociedad and Ajax to secure the services of the 22-year-old attacking midfielder.” It is said that Arsenal will pay the salary of the player but not …

Read More “Martin Ødegaard signed, Pepe, Willian, Sokratis, Torreira going?”

By Sir Hardly Anyone Some reports on the internet over the weekend have the Martin Ødegaard transfer from Real Madrid as signed and sealed.  Others don’t even mention him. Sadly that is the way it is going this winter window, and you can be sure that if he doesn’t come the matter will either be …

Read More “Martin Ødegaard to Arsenal? Some are acting as if it is already done”

By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you’ll know that since Brexit happened we’ve been making two points: a) That the rules for Premier League clubs over transfers have now changed totally. b) That the English media either seems totally ignorant of the fact, or the journalists are seeking to hide the changes …

Read More “Are Arsenal’s transfer dealing really that much worse than most clubs?”

By Bulldog Drummond There were two problems with the movement that forced Mr Wenger out of Arsenal. One was that, so certain were those who wanted him out that all Arsenal’s problems were due to Mr Wenger, and that any manager other than Mr Wenger would be an improvement, no one bothered to think of …

Read More “What is wrong with Arsenal and what we do about it now”

By Bulldog Drummond And so, Southampton.  How do we normally do when we face them? Normally we win: 51 wins, 28 draws, 21 defeats, although there have been occasional moments when things have not gone totally according to plans… For example between 2014 and 2016 we played Southampton eight times, six in the League and …

Read More “Arsenal, Southampton, and all those cup wins.”

By Bulldog Drummond This week Arsenal have broken totally new ground in terms of injuries as listed by PremierInjuries.com For while Pablo Mari Villar is “Ruled out” and Dani Veballos is due a “late fitness test”, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is listed but has no condition and an unnamed source has said, “”As far as I know, …

Read More “Southampton v Arsenal. Arsenal hit new territory with injury problem”

By Bulldog Drummond Southampton: how to tackle more, but give away fewer fouls And so we approach another match, and thus the statistical data that we have been evolving through this season is once more brought into play. Here we take the activities within a game which are not revealed by the ordinary league table, …

Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: the stats that no one else will publish”

By Tony Attwood QAnon and football?  Surely not! Certainly bloggers and journalists would hope you don’t see a connection, and yet… QAnon uses multiple sites to tell us how to see the political world – in their case to see it as a world run by conspirators.  It suggests that by following its view we …

Read More “How QAnon has taken over football reporting in England”

By Sir Hardly Anyone According to the Daily Mail Arsenal have opened talks with Real Madrid over loan deal for Martin Ødegaard – although that is not how the Mail spells it.  But then they never have been very good in terms of foreign. And unfortunately although it is an article of a little over …

Read More “The clamour for another creative midfielder at Arsenal – but why ditch Smith Rowe?”

By Sir Hardly Anyone According to Football London Arsenal are “in the market” for a new goalkeeper this month with “Alex Runarsson available for a loan move away from the club.” That appears to be something of what we professional analysts call a “cock up” of the first order, with our second and third choice …

Read More “Who are Arsenal buying, and how will they fit into the “25”?”

by Tony Attwood In the table below which does not include last night’s games, the top two teams in each column are shown in bold. Looking at the table we can see that Arsenal are committing comparatively few tackles because they are being penalised so regularly with fouls.  Almost 80% of Arsenal tackles are rewarded …

Read More “Premier League full stats table: Arsenal move towards abandoning tackling”

By Tony Attwood Perhaps because they were too busy talking Liverpool and Manchester United, perhaps because they didn’t know, or perhaps because PGMO told them not to mention it, but Sky Sports yesterday failed to discuss something rather curious and very concerning about Arsenal v Newcastle United last night. And that is that this was …

Read More “The statistics that prove referees have been unfairly targeting Arsenal”

by Tony Attwood We can’t get too carried away, but six without defeat is good in any season, especially when it is five wins and one draw. Sky sports really looked out of touch with their audience by broadcasting some sort of row between their studio team until just ten minutes before kick off, a …

Read More “A bad night for the media, a lovely night for Arsenal”

By Iver Neverbeen Connedlikethisbefore Back in the top ten Team P W D L F GA GD Pts 1 Manchester United 18 11 4 3 34 24 10 37 2 Manchester City 17 10 5 2 29 13 16 35 3 Leicester City 18 11 2 5 33 21 12 35 4 Liverpool 18 9 …

Read More “Just paid £10 to watch Arsenal on Now TV and its Man U and Liverpool”

by Bulldog Drummond The issues of the day are that Pablo Mari won’t play, and Martinelli might play, but possibly as a sub (to be used if the Newcastle defence is being resolute). As for Tierney (pictured left, but you knew that without me saying) he is allegedly not as badly injured as previously feared …

Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle: the Arsenal team for this evening”

By Bulldog Drummond The current injury rankings are not looking too bad, with us sitting happily in the lower reaches of the injury table once again.  Here’s the totals of players out, by club… Southampton: 9 Brighton and Hove Albion: 9 Crystal Palace: 8 Newcastle United: 7 Sheffield United: 6 Fulham: 6 Liverpool: 6 West …

Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle: injuries and being beaten at home 4 times in a season”

By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal come into this game on the back of a decent run… just one goal against in five matches. Date Match Res Score Competition 26 Dec 2020 Arsenal v Chelsea W 3-1 Premier League 29 Dec 2020 Brighton and Hove Albion v Arsenal W 0-1 Premier League 02 Jan 2021 West Bromwich …

Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle. Can we beat the statistics?”

By Tony Attwood We are told that Richard Garlick, the Premier League’s director of football, will become the club’s director of football operations later this year. Mr Garlick is a sports law specialist, and qualified solicitor, who worked at West Brom for eight years from 2010.  So the question is, what did they do in …

Read More “Bloated squad? Arsenal decide to add more garlick”

By Bulldog Drummond On the left is a pic of Lacazette, for the very simple reason that we need goals and he is currently our top goal scorer with nine.  Aubameyang has six. Third come Nicolas Pépé with five, along with Eddie Nketiah. Lacazette also has the best conversion rate with 29%. Anyway, we all …

Read More “A football prediction system that works??? Let’s try with Arsenal Newcastle”

By Tony Attwood This season the Premier League has ventured into new territory by exploring the notion of having a significant growth in the number of players in squads who are deliberately left out of their clubs’ 25 player list.  We are all familiar with Ozil and Sokratis, but there have been others: Phil Jones, …

Read More “Bernstein on the governance of football; it doesn’t quite ring true”