Tractor digs up ptich, Blatter/Platini in court, Plymouth revolt, Mail removes video By Tony Attwood Given the amount of time the media spends reporting transfers, one might think that spending money on players guarantees success. But it turns out this might not be so. Football Observatory has once again created a directory of the 100 …
Read More “Does spending more and more on transfers actually work in the Premier League?.”
by Tony Attwood In many regards the debate about football carries on as before. The English media utterly refuse to mention the chaos at Wembley for the Euro final last year while resolutely blaming the French for the trouble in Paris. It’s a story following traditional lines. Meanwhile the news that Sepp Blatter and Michel …
Read More “Tractor digs up ptich, Blatter/Platini in court, Plymouth revolt, Mail removes video”
by Tony Attwood What needs to be done to ensure Arsenal get fourth next season? Amateur footballers from across Europe (or indeed the world if they fancy travelling) can rent the “sacred” Barcelona pitch and now play a one hour game on it. The cost is currently set at 300 euros per player which if …
Read More “Desperate finances mean you can play on Barcelona’s pitch. And Neil Young.”
By Tony Attwood The 10 really important topics people never talk about in football. It is all about how one looks at the world. We can read the story of the convicted thief who steals food because his children are starving and blame the government and our social system for their poverty, or we can …
Read More “The authorities and the media blame us fans, but they are the ones who are culpable”
The 10 really important topics people never talk about in football. Do Arsenal really need to spend £££ on a new goalscorer when we have Eddie? by Tony Attwood We know of course that to have got fourth place last season Arsenal needed either 71 points and a goal difference of +30 or more or …
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Do Arsenal really need to spend £££ on a new goalscorer when we have Eddie? By Sir Hardly Anyone 1: Why the results of games owe as much to who is refereeing the game as to the qualities of the two teams. In simple terms, the percentage of home wins that each referee in the …
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By Tony Attwood Plan for Wenger statue finally reaches fruition There is an article on the Mirror’s website today which sets up a series of ideas about Arsenal which are, perhaps not surprisingly, unfounded, or at the very best completely unproven. The whole piece is promoted on its website, under the banner “Today’s headline” as …
Read More “Do Arsenal really need to spend £££ on a new goalscorer when we have Eddie?”
by Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader of Untold Arsenal, you will know that our one great achievement in relation to Arsenal was to propose to the club that a series of statues should be erected at the Arsenal Stadium in order to enhance the notion of “Arsenalisation” as it was called in …
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By Tony Attwood Arsenal on track for third next season by scoring just seven more goals The BBC is currently running an article on its website about Charles Reep: The military accountant who brought data analysis to English game In 1928 Reep was seemingly the first man to analyse what actually happened on the pitch in …
Read More “How football has failed to develop, and how Arsenal are countering the trend”
Which club got the most home bias this past season? By Tony Attwood Although you might well know this off by heart, for ease of reference here is the way the Premier League finished in 2021/22 Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Manchester City 38 29 6 3 99 26 73 …
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By Tony Attwood 85 players tipped to join Arsenal; 30 players leaving this summer according to pundits You will undoubtedly recall that the Heysel Stadium Disaster in 1985 involved Liverpool fans at a match in Europe, and what happened subsequently was to a degree a result of how the terrible events of that evening played …
Read More “The Liverpool ticket affair: the warnings before and Europe’s reaction after”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Two interesting headlines stand this week. First, we are told (and note this was published today, 2 June) “Arsenal should look to make a sensational Premier League transfer next season if Mikel Arteta’s side qualify for the Champions League. Mohammed Salah’s surprising desires should have put the Gunners on red alert.” …
Read More “85 players tipped to join Arsenal; 30 players leaving this summer according to pundits”
by Tony Attwood I have just received the notice reprinted below, telling me it is time to renew my season ticket. And as a season ticket holder keen to ensure that my season ticket does not lapse I interrupted my daily work of writing advertisements, and followed the link outlined in the message. To save …
Read More “Can you renew your Arsenal season ticket? (Because I can’t)”
By Tony Attwood As we have shown, the majority (but not all) of referees covering Premier League matches show a home bias. The reason for this, as described in full here and is proven by detailed independent academic research. The cause is quite clearly shown to be the influence of the crowd on the referee …
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By Tony Attwood One of the great benefits that the French football authorities have in putting forward their notion that 70% of the tickets presented at the Champions League final was fake, is the awareness that English journalists are well, to put it bluntly, not very clever and mostly mathematically illiterate. If 70 percent of …
Read More “How the French could have stopped the problem in Paris”
By Tony Attwood OK I have already written one article about football and the media today, and this is another. And I am running it because this one is about a rarity indeed. Normally, the media generally don’t attack any other aspect of the media, because to do so opens up a debate that they …
Read More “An amazing day: newspaper journalist launches attack on media football coverage”
Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results? By Tony Attwood There is a very interesting little snippet on the Mirror website “Arsenal should learn from their mistakes and allow Mikel Arteta to make summer signing” which proclaims, “Mikel Arteta must push Arsenal to sign Houssem Aouar after failing to land their midfield …
Read More “How the anti-Arsenal stories roll on and on”
By Tony Attwood There is an article by Keith Hackett in the Telegraph today that opens, “I do not think I am alone in expressing happiness that Sunday saw Jonathan Moss’s last game as a referee. It is not before time.” With that I would agree. And indeed with the follow-up statement that “I now …
Read More “One English newspaper is openly critical of PL referees, and it offers a dire warning”
By Tony Attwood When football authorities order the media to delete the video, we really have problems One of my main complaints about the English media’s coverage of football is that it is not only anglophile, but also highly selective, ignoring the notion that there is a different focus elsewhere both on what issues are …
Read More “In football the view from Europe is quite different from the view from England”
By Tony Attwood Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results The headline this morning on the Liverpool.com website reads Liverpool still have three trophies to parade as serious Real Madrid question is for another day Which may come as a little bit of a surprise. We know that for the fifth time …
Read More “When football authorities order the media to delete the video, we really have problems”
Does the media really have an effect on Arsenal results Marquinhos to Arsenal. Is it really true that Arsenal could face a transfer ban? By Sir Hardly Anyone. One of the things we have shown many times over the years is that there is often no direct link between the amount of money spent by …
Read More “What impact did big spending have on results this past season?”
By Tony Attwood My own view, based on two strands of clear evidence and then extrapolating the likely effect it that yes, the media does have an effect on Arsenal’s results. I’ll try and explain how. First, we know that different referees have different levels of bias toward the home teams and against away teams. …
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By Tony Attwood 81 players arriving, 27 leaving: the media’s wild take on Arsenal’s transfers this summer Out of contract players: are Arsenal just being sloppy in retaining players? UK government increases its active involvement in football, but is that good? In one sense the tale of Arsenal facing a transfer ban is of course …
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Out of contract players: are Arsenal just being sloppy in retaining players? By Sir Hardly Anyone The case of Adam Hlozek shows us exactly how the media work these days. Before the last couple of days, there has been no mention anywhere of the forward wanting to come to Arsenal, or of Arsenal being interested …
Read More “81 players arriving, 27 leaving: the media’s wild take on Arsenal’s transfers this summer”
By Sir Hardly Anyone UK government increases its active involvement in football, but is that good? Saka and the world cup: a worrying scenario In the media, there is always a lot of debate about how Arsenal regularly lets players’ contracts run down, and how stupid this is. (And it is interesting that it is …
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