Arsenal’s astonishing transfer window. 2 players being paid not to play.

By Sir Hardly Anyone. Astonishing? well yes.  We need to get rid of two senior players in order just to get down to 25 before we start bringing anyone else in, otherwise we will be left with players we can’t get rid of and will have to pay. Guendouzi has gone, but he is not …

Tackles, fouls and yellow cards: the PL season so far

By Tony Attwood Last season Leicester City raced to near the top of the league and for a long time were looking dead certs for at the very least a top four finish, if not a runners’ up spot.  And then they fell apart and slipped right back down the table.  So, in our normal …

Yesterday was great fun, but the scores alone don’t tell us much

by Tony Attwood In football reporting, every incident becomes a crisis, because every day needs a story.  And yesterday we got two, with the defeats of Liverpool and Manchester United. Such things have happened all the way through football history.   There are famous tales told of Arsenal losing 7-0 away to Newcastle in 1925 just …

Arsenal v Sheffield United: the team…

by Bulldog Drummond As we started to put this little piece together the story emerged that “Blades agree £23.5m deal for Liverpool striker Brewster”.  That is from the BBC. Sheffield United have always been a difficult team for us to beat in the Premier League.  We’ve played them eight times, won two, lost two, and …

Sheffield United visit Arsenal with an attack that hasn’t scored yet.

by Bulldog Drummond The Telegraph seems to have got a clearer picture of things than the Guardian, for speaking of this weekend’s game they say, “The Gunners go into the match at the Emirates on a high after beating Liverpool on penalties in the Carabao Cup on Thursday, whereas the Blades have made an alarming …

Comparative stats for Sheff U, Arsenal and industrial scale rotational fouling

by Tony Attwood Last season we started studying the number of tackles, fouls and yellow cards each club received. And we found some extraordinary figures – figures which marked Leicester City out as the real outsiders in this regard, tackling far more than any other club, and yet getting very few yellow cards.   And yet …

Arsenal v Sheff U. This is not anti-Arsenal bias in the media, this goes way beyond that.

By Tony Attwood Allow me, if I may, to give an example of what I mean by bias.  This comes from Nick Ames speaking of Sheffield United against whom Arsenal play this weekend. “Against Arsenal they will probably be required to go with what they have got, but the same goes for their opponents given …

What does the Europa draw mean for Arsenal?

by Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have been drawn against Rapid Vienna, Molde (not to be confused with Mold which is quite a different place), and Dundalk in the group stage of the Europa League.  Here’s a preliminary look at what these clubs have been up to of late. Rapid Vienna have been playing regularly since August …

Beating Liverpool is far more important than beating Liverpool!

By Tony Attwood Last night’s match confirmed the turnaround in Arsenal’s fortunes, in the club’s approach, in the desire and willingness of the team not to give up, and the inventiveness of the manager in the way he can re-organise the team and galvanise the players. Between August 2015 and October 2019 our record against …

Liverpool! v Arsenal again. The team, plus we sign an exciting youngster

By Bulldog Drummond Liverpool got away with their fairly blatant intimidation tactics in monday’s game with the two very serious fouls only getting yellows, while ensuring that Arsenal realised that they would likely get punished far more aggressively by the referee if they retaliated with fouls of their own.   It is a clever tactic that …

Arsenal have to sell two just to get legal; more if we sign anyone else.

By Tony Attwood We have previously run the fact that Arsenal need to sell before the transfer window just to avoid having players on their books who need to be paid, but who cannot play.  But I’m going through this again because most of the media is simply ignoring this, and talking over and over …

Infantino looks sunk; but if he takes down Fifa as well, what replaces it?

by Tony Attwood A couple of weeks ago Gianni Infantino head of Fifa, a man on trial for corruption in Switzerland, met (not for the first time) with US President Donald Trump. this was when Infantino attended the signing of the agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the White House on …

Which club is trying to emulate Leicester tackling game from last season?

By Tony Attwood These are early days, but then again, early days can bring us a good warning of what is going to happen. Last season we saw Leicester develop – and for half a season get away with – a system of constant tackling without getting yellow cards.  Then the system collapsed and their …

Message from the referee: clearly heard and understood – no reds today

by Tony Attwood By giving yellow cards rather than red cards to two nasty fouls in the early part of the game last night referee Craig Pawson was giving all the players on the pitch notice that such fouls were within the remits of yellow cards and did not deserve a red.  Or at least …

Liverpool v Arsenal. The various predicted teams from around the media.

by Bulldog Drummond Of course we play Liverpool twice this week – once now and once in the League Cup.  Presumably the teams on both sides will be different each time. The Guardian offers us Leno Holding Luiz Gabriel Bellerin Ceballos Xhaka Maitland-Niles Willian Lacazette Aubameyang There list of possible substitutes is not necessarily that …

Liverpool v Arsenal: what can we expect?

by Bulldog Drummond The Guardian is running the headline “Arsenal ready to compromise under Arteta to get result at Liverpool” which contains the thought that “Mikel Arteta has admitted he and Arsenal have to compromise on some of their footballing principles to get results against the Premier League’s bigger clubs.” And yet  despite the word …

Arsenal are over achieving, and are due for a fall.

By Tony Attwood Two stories in the media caught my attention today.   One is the reporting of Understat’s xG table which apparently shows that in the 22 league games played under Mr Arteta, Arsenal has gained (the implication is “luckily got”) nine points more than the data would expect.   The newspaper didn’t quite go back …

Arsenal’s 25 players list is over-full – we must lose some before we can buy

By Tony Attwood Each year as the transfer window meanders its merry way towards its conclusion I make various ill-advised attempts to work out how we are going to squeeze the players we have and the players we want into the 25 positions that there are available. And each year (it has become something of …

Infantino speaks at Fifa’s 70th Congress, but don’t tell the UK media

By Sir Hardly Anyone You may be excused if you didn’t know, but Fifa has just held its 70th congress.  The Fifa Congress is the supreme legislative body in football but the UK media won’t report on it because… well, its a bit dodgy and because FA pours money into Fifa via its membership fees, …

Women’s FA Cup 2019/20 Quarter Final – Arsenal v Spurs Team and other News

by Andrew Crawshaw As Tony pointed out in his article yesterday the much-delayed Women’s FA Cup resumes today with the four Quarter Final matches. Arsenal v Spurs – Saturday 17:15 Everton v Chelsea – Sunday 13:00 Brighton v Birmingham – Sunday 14:00 Leicester v Man City – Sunday 14:00 Here is a reminder of our …

Why Premier League spending should be much more carefully controlled

By Tony Attwood Chelsea have so far in this transfer window had a net spend of £152.4m according to the Guardian.   Supposing Mr Abramovich was suddenly taken out by a Russian mafia agent, and his funding of the club dried up overnight, would the rest of the Premier League feel moved to offer financial support …

Watch Arsenal on TV, and there’s no match fee to pay

by Tony Attwood The 2019/20 Women’s FA Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur will be broadcast live on BBC Two and the BBC iPlayer with a kick off at 17:15 BST on saturday.  An early version of this article suggested Friday – a typical slip by me.  Sorry. This game should have taken place …

Athletic: if you a commenting on the law, please look at the law

By Tony Attwood We have had seven domestic cup ties without defeat.  In our last 11 games of last season we won eight, lost one drew two.   This season it is four straight wins (five if you include the FL Trophy victory).  But let’s leave that one out.  We are currently on six straight wins, …

Arsenal stroll past Leicester … Watching it for a tenner.

Logging on to the website Carabao.live was a lot easier than logging in to Now TV which was a nightmare. Here is the team Leno Holding Luiz Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Willock,  Saka Pepe Nelson Nketiah   Subs Runarsson, Bellerin, Saliba, Ceballos, Xhaka, Willian, Lacazette No team information on the actual TV site however, which is …

Leicester v Arsenal: the predicted teams and the end of football as we know it

by Bulldog Drummond Today’s Leicester v Arsenal league cup match will not be televised live in the UK, but you can watch via the carabaocup.live website.    The fee to watch on line is £10.   Let’s hope their system works better than the utterly appalling NowTV service with its recent fiasco.  We couldn’t get a …