by Andrew Crawshaw Here, courtesy of premierleague.com are the full details of this weekend’s fixtures. nb kickoff times 15:00 unless noted otherwise:- Saturday 2 February 12:30 Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle Referee: Andre Marriner Assistants: Simon Long, Sian Massey-Ellis Fourth official: Lee Probert Brighton v Watford Referee: Simon Hooper Assistants: Daniel Cook, Darren Eaton Fourth official: Roger East Burnley v Southampton Referee: Anthony Taylor …
Read More “Matchweek 25 – All the games and officials”
by Andrew Crawshaw This article continues from the under 18s update. After a strong start to the season, injuries, red cards and players being called up for first team duties had a massive impact on Freddie Ljungberg’s youngsters. A win and two draws in October were followed by a dreadful November and December which saw …
Read More “The Junior Teams January Review – Part 2; the U23s”
By Tony Attwood It was nearly ten years ago that Chelsea were banned from signing any more youth players – a ban that was eventually overturned on appeal. But now Chelsea are once again waiting to see how an enquiry by Fifa into their transfer dealings in the youth market will pan out. But this …
Read More “The problem with the wild west youth policies”
By Tony Attwood Without playing Arsenal have moved up to fourth in the league – the much sought after “not a trophy” position. Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Liverpool 24 19 4 1 55 14 41 61 2 Manchester City 24 18 2 4 63 19 44 56 3 Tottenham …
Read More “Denis Suárez joins Arsenal as we get to the “not a trophy” position.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone So far this transfer window the grand net spend or profit of the bigger clubs are Arsenal – nothing Chelsea – £49.1m net spend – Christian Pulisic who was immediately loaned out. Liverpool – £17m net profit Man City – £15m net profit Man U – nothing Tottenham – £11m profit. So …
Read More “Transfer updates: who has spent and who we are getting today and tomorrow”
by Andrew Crawshaw Below is a table showing matches undertaken by each referee for the ‘top 6’ clubs (I have also included Everton as they have had the most referees this season) Total games Percent featuring top 6 Top 6 games Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool Man C Man U Spurs Everton Anthony Taylor 20 65% 13 …
Read More “The curious case of the uneven effect of referee activity in the PL.”
By Walter Broeckx Seven changes to the starting line up. Some understandable… some not so. No Maitland-Niles to be seen and Lichtsteiner starting…. But who am I. I hope that Emery proves me and a lot of us wrong at the end of the match. The inclusion of Monreal is more understandable. Özil starts and …
Read More “Final score and live match report Arsenal – Cardiff City : 2-1”
By Bulldog Drummond So what of today? We obviously don’t have Sokratis for several games, and although Koscielny seems just to have bruised his jaw rather than had it broken, I suspect he won’t be risked even if he feels fit. Meanwhile it may be just me but I am finding one or two of …
Read More “Arsenal v Cardiff: the team and the track record”
by Andrew Crawshaw Here, courtesy of premierleague.com, are the matches for this mid-week round which is Matchweek 24. Kickoff times are 19:45 unless noted otherwise. Predictions for some of the games will appear on the Predictions websites. The Arsenal v Cardiff predictions are already online. Tuesday 29 January Arsenal v Cardiff City Referee: Mike Dean Assistants: Darren Cann, …
Read More “Matchweek 24 – All the Games, All the Officials”
Caution and Liverpool Part 2 – Some Details By Gordon Haverland This article continues from the previous post The curious effect of referee actions on the top six clubs this season. Treatments There are two kinds of treatments, the ones where a physio does not come on to the field to bring the player off …
Read More “The curious case of the uneven effect of referee activity in the PL. Part 2”
By Gordon Haverland and Tony Attwood Is there really any evidence that Premier League matches are being rigged via referees? That is a question that we are often asked, and we have often replied that yes there is some evidence, but it is not definitive. However we also note how the PGMO which runs …
Read More “The curious effect of referee actions on the top six clubs this season.”
By Tony Attwood If the question above were posed as “What SHOULD Arsenal do now” rather than as it is written, the answer would undoubtedly be very complicated. But Arsenal commentators on football don’t do complicated – they like simple, easy solutions. And therein lies another problem. For the problem with simple solutions to complex …
Read More “Out of three of the four competitions already, what does Arsenal do now?”
By Walter Broeckx Not much changes compared to the team that won from Chelsea. Cech as expected in goal and Maitland-Niles playing in the place of the unlucky Bellerin. Iwobi starting in the place of Guendouzi. Arsenal team at the start: Cech, Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Torreira, Xhaka, Ramsey, Iwobi, Aubameyang, Lacazette On the beach: …
Read More “Live match report FA Cup Arsenal – Manchester United : 1-3”
by Andrew Crawshaw Here, courtesy of the FA website are the matches and officials for the 16 matches in the FA Cup Fourth Round:- Friday 25 January Bristol City v Bolton Wanderers 7.45pm, Friday 25 January Referee: Stuart Attwell Assistant Referees: Richard West & Lee Venamore Fourth Official: Craig Hicks Arsenal v Manchester United 7.55pm, …
Read More “The FA Cup Fourth Round – All the Games and Match Officials including VAR”
By Bulldog Drummond I imagine that Petr Cech will play in goal, as that seems to be the arrangement and the player has to stay match fit as he is the backup for the rest of the season. In defence we could use the back four approach although obviously we don’t have Hector Bellerin for the rest …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester United, FA Cup. The team”
By Bulldog Drummond As you will remember Arsenal are constantly being criticised in the media. And yet for a team which is being heavily criticised, especially for its defence, Arsenal’s home form remains unquestionably good… Home games only Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Manchester City 12 11 0 1 40 …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester United: FA Cup 4th round; the form.”
by Bulldog Drummond These two clubs – Arsenal and Manchester United – utterly dominate the FA Cup between them. Indeed the total number of finals that they have played in (20 each) dwarf other clubs as the table below shows. Club Wins Total final appearances Arsenal 13 20 Manchester United 12 20 Liverpool 7 …
Read More “The battle of the two evenly match Cup giants: Arsenal v Manchester United”
By Tony Attwood The Deloitte Money League which records the position of clubs from a financial point of view shows, for the first time, six English clubs in the world’s top ten football clubs, thanks to Wembley. Wembley is not a club of course but a source of additional revenue for Tottenham Hotspur. For with …
Read More “With the emphasis on profit against investment Arsenal finances slip”
by Robert Johnson Last season, Arsenal were looking like strong contenders for the Europa League. They drew the first leg of the semi-final against Athletico Madrid at the Emirates. However, their Europa League hopes were ended when Diego Costa scored the solo goal in the second leg of the semi-final. After beating Arsenal, Diego Simeone’s …
Read More “Who will win the Europa League?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. There is a rambling article in the Daily Express website that contains this statement…”Arsenal currently sit fifth in the Premier League table but have once again struggled at the back this season.” Now I think a lot of people would go along with that, probably without even thinking about it too …
Read More “Arsenal have a worse defence than Newcastle. But strangely the media don’t notice”
By Tony Attwood First an apology for the delay in publishing through yesterday and this morning. Like many blogs, we’re run by volunteers, and we simply ran out of people yesterday and this AM. Hopefully getting ourselves back together now. And so what did we miss – well obviously Bellerin. So now we have three …
Read More “Replacing Bellerin, yet more transfers, and another goalkeeper.”
By Tony Attwood “Unai Emery is not at fault for Arsenal shambles – blame the board, Wenger and Ozil instead” So says a recent Jamie Carragher article. It is one of those pieces in which there’s not much point going beyond the headline, because he’s made his point, and you know he’ll just be reinforcing …
Read More “Before we get to the blame, shouldn’t we decide what makes a crisis?”
by Andrew Crawshaw Our U18s are currently managed by Ken Gillard. The U18s are currently second in their league, the U18 Premier League South having played 13 of their 22 games. We are 2 points behind Spurs and 3 ahead of Chelsea. Aston Villa are fourth by a big margin so it looks to be …
Read More “The Arsenal Junior Teams January Update – Part 1 the U18s”
by Tony Attwood Because of the need to get back to the station for the return journey home, I left the stadium yesterday immediately upon the final whistle and so missed what turned out to be an interesting event. But fortunately my pal Steve who sits next to me in the East Stand did stay, …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: cheering Giroud and this impressive home form”
By Bulldog Drummond If we look back across the last three seasons we can see that Chelsea has been a tough, but not impossible opponent for us… 02 Aug 2015 Arsenal v Chelsea W 1-0 Community Shield 19 Sep 2015 Chelsea v Arsenal L 2-0 Premier League 24 Jan 2016 Arsenal v Chelsea L 0-1 …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea; recent results and the line up.”
