0By Sir Hardly Anyone Journalists are well known for liking the occasional tipple, their favourite haunt being The Toppled Bollard in London dockside.  Or put it another way journalists are famous for being heavy drinkers, and football journalists the heaviest of them all. But the content gatherers are supposed to make some effort to get …

Read More “Too much in the Bollard leads to Sun scribbler’s journalistic errors…”

By Bulldog Drummond Looking at the various stats being thrown around the most commonly mentioned is that Arsenal have lost each of their last three League home games and the last time it was four consecutive home league defeats was in 1959, when Burnley also turned up on the list.   In fact the run started …

Read More “Arsenal’s team v Burnley, and our last worst run – and what happened next”

By Bulldog Drummond Burnley’s record in their last 10 games is indeed poor: one win three draws, six defeats.  If Arsenal fail to win this game we most certainly are in difficulty. Date Game Res Score Competition 26 Sep 2020 Burnley v Southampton L 0-1 Premier League 30 Sep 2020 Burnley v Manchester City L …

Read More “Burnley visit Arsenal this evening. Will our run against them continue?”

By Bulldog Drummond It’s become quite clear what Arsenal need to do, and it doesn’t have anything to do with mucking about with agents and money laundering (see How the media provides a cover for money laundering in football.)  It has to do with tactics. At the time of writing this here’s the foot of …

Read More “And so we play Burnley on Sunday at 7.15pm. Tactics, statistics and injuries”

by Tony Attwood It has for many years been rumoured that the transfer market is in the hands not of the clubs but of a small number of people who euphemistically are known as agents.  It is a topic we have covered before, noting reports that suggest that these agents not only present their players …

Read More “How the media provides a cover for money laundering in football.”

By Tony Attwood Remember Everton?  They got Carlo Ancelotti on 21 December 2019 on a four and a half year deal.  One day after Arsenal got Arteta.  Ancelotti had managed Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, PSG, Chelsea, Milan and Juventus.  Arteta had managed no one. This season Ancelotti made a flying start: Date Match Result Score Competition …

Read More “How Arsenal could use the referees to reach the PL’s top 4”

  By Tony Attwood It doesn’t matter how many times the UK media is told about a Fifa scandal, they won’t cover it.  Whether it is the fact that Qatar’s stadia have been built by slave labour, or the fact that Fifa President Gianni Infantino is being taken before the courts on yet another scandal, …

Read More “Three years after the events, Infantino in yet another Fifa corruption case”

By Bulldog Drummond Since we beat Dunalk in the Europa League they’ve had these results… Date Competition Home team Score Away Team Res 01/11/20 League St Patrick’s Athletic 1 – 1 Dundalk D 05/11/20 Europa Rapid Wien 4 – 3 Dundalk L 09/11/20 League Dundalk 0 – 2 Sligo Rovers L 20/11/20 Cup Bohemians 1 …

Read More “Dundalk v Arsenal and a possible statistical error”

By Tony Attwood In essence there are two approaches that clubs can make when they find themselves in the sort of situation Arsenal currently are in. One approach is to do what they have done before.  For example in Arsenal’s situation this means getting rid of the manager, bringing in a completely new support team, …

Read More “How Arsenal could easily recover from their poor league position”

By Tony Attwood Here is the new data after last weekend’s games.  Figures in black are particularly low for that parameter, figures in red a particularly high. Club Tackles Fouls Tackles per foul Yellow cards Fouls per yellow Penalties for Penalties against Lge pos Arsenal 132 112 1.18 16 7.00 1 0 15 Aston Villa …

Read More “The stats that show exactly what Arsenal must do to rise up the league”

By Andrew Crawshaw Last Thursday I had an e-mail from Arsenal Women asking me to register my membership number with them as a preliminary to being able to apply for a ticket for the WSL game on Sunday between Arsenal and Birmingham. I clicked onto the link provided and entered a few details and got …

Read More “Watching Arsenal Women in Person; all for £2.50!”

By Tony Attwood Did someone put pressure on the Observer to publish its misleading story about away results this season? As you may have noticed, last weekend the UK Sunday newspaper “The Observer” published an article purporting to tell readers that the enhanced away advantage they may have heard about which arose during the period …

Read More “What made the Observer newspaper publish its false away wins story?”

By Tony Attwood The AAA – the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal – is a movement made up of numerous sub-groups who are brought together by the thought that constant criticism of the club, its players and its manager, is a way to make things better.  They are directly supported by much of the media and many independent …

Read More “And so the anti-Arsenal Arsenal claim their finest hour: “we’ll take Arsenal down”…”

by Tony Attwood The Observer newspaper yesterday published one of the most atrociously misleading pieces of PGMO propaganda yet seen. The article published on 6 December 2020 is headlined: Sing when you’re winning? Home support doesn’t really help football teams The evidence offered in the article shows nothing of the kind, and it is obviously …

Read More “Newspaper’s misleading data claims there is nothing wrong with PL refereeing”

By Bulldog Drummond Just to say, before we get into the Tottenham game, its Arsenal Women v Birmingham at 2pm.  It is live on the FA Player.   Our preview of that match is here As for the men’s game, the Evening Standard has clearly taken heed of our bit of fun concerning the notion of …

Read More “Tottenham H v Arsenal: the confirmed predictions, and women’s game live”

By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal, according to the media, don’t have a chance.  Not now, not in the future.  No one realises that Arsenal’s away form and Tottenham’s home form are virtually the same.  It is all doom and gloom. “Gilberto Silva claims things ‘would be different’ at Arsenal if Wenger hadn’t sold £18m man” announces …

Read More “The knives are out against Arsenal as the media goes beserk in its attacks”

By Tony Attwood I’m delighted to say that Andrew, who covers Arsenal Women’s matches for Untold Arsenal has got a ticket to attend the Arsenal Women match against Birmingham City tomorrow, and thus be among the 900 people watching the match. If you have not got a ticket and fancy going you need to visit …

Read More “Arsenal Women v Birmingham City Women: we’ll be there”

By Bulldog Drummond This is the season where statistics have been turned upside down, and the fact that the journalists, commentators and writers fail to deal with this topic (in the mistaken belief that the football going public don’t understand maths or don’t like statistics) leaves the field open to us. As we showed this …

Read More “Tottenham v Arsenal – so maybe all is not lost… (injuries and recent games)”

By Bulldog Drummond Tottenham fans will be relishing the game against Arsenal, as a chance to reduce by one their historic deficit in matches between the two clubs (Tottenham have won 65 while Arsenal have won 82). But there are a couple of other numbers that show some interesting pointers ahead of this match – …

Read More “Tottenham v Arsenal: unexpected statistics point to an unexpected result”

by Tony Attwood There is little that is more amusing than a confused commentator – one who spends all the game acting as if he is the arbiter of truth, the interpreter of the game, the know-all of all-things-football, and who then suggests that he thinks maybe away teams have been doing a bit better …

Read More “Slightly confused BT Sprout thinks away teams might be doing better”

By Tony Attwood “They came, they sanitised, they socially distanced,” says the Guardian while the Daily Mail goes with “‘The Europa League group phase doesn’t motivate some of the players’: Jose Mourinho accuses his Tottenham side of not taking European games seriously after conceding late equaliser at LASK” The Mail does have an Arsenal headline, …

Read More “Arsenal make it through the night, and rather jolly it was too”

By Bulldog Drummond This being a Europa League game we don’t have too many statistics around to help us, but we have found this little lot from Uefa… Rapid Vienna Assists: 6 Saves: 10 Fouls Committed 68 Fouls received 37 Yellow cards: 11 Fouls per yellow card: 6.18 Arsenal Assists: 10 Saves: 8 Fouls committed: …

Read More “Arsenal v Rapid. The team and some interesting comparative stats”

By Bulldog Drummond It’s all left to play for in Group B of the Europa League… well, not quite.  Arsenal need a single point from their last two games to win the group and Molde FK and Rapid Wien (not Wine as I saw in one outlet) are fighting it out tooth and nail, hand …

Read More “Arsenal v Rapid Vienna: how the opposition are doing, and injuries”

by Tony Attwood I received a note at the end of last week pointing out that Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, who have been under investigation by Swiss authorities for some time, are now suddenly facing a more serious charge of fraud.  This comes  after Swiss federal prosecutors intensified a five-year investigation into the pair’s …

Read More “Extraordinary story on Blatter in the Athletic which whitewashes current case”

By Tony Attwood This season we have been looking at some statistics that seem never to become headline news in the media, but which, when we look at them really give us pause for thought. Below are all the details we have looked at.  And our prime conclusions now are that Liverpool, Leicester, Man City …

Read More “The four PL clubs that are getting very special treatment from referees.”