The deadwood journalist producing three football stories an hour, every hour

Arsenal v Chelsea: the most bizarre odds you have ever seen. And the team. By Tony Attwood We have debated of late the way journalists call certain players (players who normally have far more talent and ability in their little fingers than the journalists have in their entire body) “deadwood”.  Our view has been that …

Arsenal v Chelsea: the most bizarre odds you have ever seen. And the team.

More international football in Britain, and we will have to pick up the bill by Sir Hardly Anyone Arsenal and Chelsea play their next pre-season friendly at 1am BST tomorrow, Sunday, at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando. Sports mole  have given us a starting XI for this match of  Ramsdale; Cedric, White, Gabriel, Tavares; …

More international football in Britain, and we will have to pick up the bill

WHY ARE FIFA, UEFA, THE FA AND OTHER BODIES THAT RUN FOOTBALL NOT HELD TO ACCOUNT? By Tony Attwood One of the key issues in football at the moment is that there is a complete disconnect between the authorities such as Fifa, Uefa, the Football Association etc, and the people who go to football matches …

Barcelona sell another 15% of its TV rights, one week after selling 25%

SUPER LEAGUE IS FAR FROM DEAD. IN FACT IT IS JUST STARTING ITS FINAL BATTLE. HOW SPEND-SPEND-SPEND LED TO BARCELONA’S COLLAPSE By Iver Coupleoquid According to Le Figaro, FC Barcelona are now desperately ​​in search of even more cash to allow it to buy players.  For just one week after it sold 10% of its …

It’s time to clear out the deadwood: and I don’t mean the players

Why one particular club is finding it hard to buy or sell this summer. What Arsenal need to do to get to third next season. by Tony Attwood Several readers recently commented on the contemptuous way in which journalists and sub-editors (the people who write the headlines) treat footballers. The particular word that sparked the …

The 12 players to Arsenal the media are talking about this week

We have now reach 106 players who are being tipped by the media to be coming to Arsenal this summer.  Three of these are new names in the past week, and ten of the players mentioned in previous weeks are still being talked about with updated information about their likely arrival. So far Arsenal have …

The players Arsenal do not want hanging around (allegedly)

By Sir Hardly Anyone There is an article in the Telegraph which has this line in its sub-heading: “Moving on unwanted players is proving difficult, especially for teams selling to the continent” Now the article was written by no less than seven different journalists “Sam Wallace, Sam Dean, James Ducker, Matt Law, Chris Bascombe, John …

Orlando City v Arsenal: the Arsenal team, the video and player review

How Arsenal’s 25 man squad is shaping up for next season By Bulldog Drummond Orlando City are part way through their own season and involved in a heavy schedule of games, so can be forgiven for not taking the match too seriously.  Arsenal are of course trying to use as many players as possible to …

Why one particular club is finding it hard to buy or sell this summer.

By Tony Attwood As we all know, after coming second in 2015/16 Arsenal ended their glorious run of consecutive years in the Champions League – a run that exceeded any other club in Europe except Real Madrid. And we also know of course that this run didn’t contain endless Premier League trophies – we won …

What Arsenal need to do to get to third next season.

by Tony Attwood Arsenal sign Zinchenko, and how the 25 is looking To get back to third position the first thing we have to do is not change our manager.  This might seem an odd thing to say, but after a poor start to last season we had ceaseless calls for the manager to be …

The Women’s Euros – Third round games and quarter finals preview

by Andrew Crawshaw Group A Austria 1 v Norway 0 – Manuella Zinsberger in the Austrian goal with another clean sheet.  So far the only goal she has let in was the beautiful lob from her Arsenal teammate Beth Mead in the opening game.  The only goal of this game coming towards the end of …

Arsenal sign Zinchenko, and how the 25 is looking

Super League is far from dead. In fact it is just starting its final battle. By Sir Hardly Anyone Zinchenko has been signed or is about to be signed, according to our old friend R E Ports. He has played mostly as a left-back by Manchester City but he can play in other positions, particularly …

Super League is far from dead. In fact it is just starting its final battle.

By Tony Attwood How Arsenal’s 25 man squad is shaping up for next season The reason that Super League (which you may recall, included Arsenal for a while) was needed was that Barcelona (and a few other clubs) were in mega-debt and had no way of continuing, unless they could get their hands on not …

How Arsenal’s 25 man squad is shaping up for next season

Are Arsenal in line for a return to the top four? The transfer dealings of the Big 7: how they compare. By Tony Attwood Every summer I try and predict the squad that Arsenal will have for the coming season, while doing what the media generally refuse to do: taking into account the rules of …

Everton 0 Arsenal 2: the video, the report, the prognostications

The women’s euros The women’s Euros: what we learned from the second round of games? The Women’s Euros, what have we learned from the opening round?     Arsenal started out with: Turner; Cedric, Saliba, Gabriel, Tavares; Partey, Xhaka; Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli; Jesus. On the beach… Okonkwo, Bellerin, Mari, Walters, Holding, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Lokonga, Torreira, …

Arsenal’s latest signing announcement and AFC v Everton preview

Are Arsenal in line for a return to the top four? The transfer dealings of the Big 7: how they compare. The 102 players the media say are joining Arsenal this summer By Bulldog Drummond There’s widespread reporting of the notion that Arsenal ‘agree £30m transfer’ for Man City star Oleksandr Zinchenko (Football London).   The …

Is turning up without tickets the new trend in football supporting

By Tony Attwood In a recent article we argued that a lot of the fake stories that circulate at this time of year concerning transfers were deliberately set up by not just by the media trying to fill space and grab readership, but also by the clubs themselves and by players’ agents. One implication of …

The Women’s Euros – second round group games

By Andrew Crawshaw The Women’s Euros – what have we learned from the opening round of fixtures? Group A Austria 2 v Northern Ireland 0 – this match went according to the form-book, Northern Ireland showed plenty of industry, but never really looked to have the touch of class they required to beat Manuella Zinsberger …

Are Arsenal in line for a return to the top four?

By Tony Attwood In the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking, off and on, about how the Premier League has changed over the last ten years.  Most recently we’ve started to ponder the possible move from the traditional “big six” of Manchesters City and United, plus Liverpool, in the north west, with Arsenal, Tottenham …

Transfers: the six sources of information feeding the media

By Sir Hardly Anyone The 102 players the media say are joining Arsenal this summer The media story about summer transfers at Arsenal is not just that the club is interested in over 100 different players, but also that Arsenal is prone to making mistakes.   The media can see it, and the fans can see …

The transfer dealings of the Big 7: how they compare.

The 102 players the media say are joining Arsenal this summer By Sir Hardly Anyone According to data supplied by the Guardian, Arsenal are the top spenders so far in the Premier League having a net spend on £68.7m.   The figures take into account the sale of Mattéo Guendouzi to Marseille, Dinos Mavropanos to Suttgard …

The 102 players the media say are joining Arsenal this summer

By Sir Hardly Anyone As the number of players said to be heading Arsenal’s way now passes the 100 mark the Telegraph suggests that “phone calls stop immediately when interested clubs learn that a potential new signing is not vaccinated.” It’s the first time we’ve seen that published in one of the more serious newspapers, …

How easy is it for Arsenal to reach the top three next season?

Why is the media so certain Arsenal will fail in 2022/23? By Tony Attwood Looking at Arsenal’s development last season, we have focussed on two particular sets of statistics, generally not used by other commentators.  One is what happened to Arsenal after the disastrous first three matches, and the other what happened in the second …

Arsenal’s opposition in the coming season: Newcastle

Why is the media so certain Arsenal will fail in 2022/23? By Tony Attwood Most commentators on next season, speak of Newcastle United’s rise, but because they refuse to use any statistics to analyse the position, feel that Newcastle are not going to rise that far.   Mind you they also don’t comment on the issue …

The Women’s Euros – what have we learned from the opening round of fixtures?

  By Andrew Crawshaw Last night’s match between France and Italy was the last of the first round of group matches.   This afternoon the focus switches to the second round with Austria v Northern Ireland  at St Mary’s kicking off at 17:00 and England v Norway at Brighton’s Falmer Stadium at 20:00. Both matches are …