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Part 2 of our series on refereeing. (If you have not seen the previous article it might be a good idea to have a read through, to see where these statistics are going).

By Walter Broeckx, the ref detective

When I was doing my ref review and thinking back at the season so far I came up with a rather worrying thought.

In fact it all started after some 55 minutes in the Chelsea game. We had just scored our third goal and ref Clattenburg so far had a very acceptable game. Okay he missed the penalty on Van Persie but this was not enough to raise questions. But then the further the game went the more I got a feeling that this was not the same ref as in the first 55 minutes.

It felt a bit that at the start of the game people and the ref had been thinking: “oh, Chelsea will batter Arsenal once again and Drogba will have his usual goals and at the end of the day Arsenal will be finished and it will be back to business as usual”.

But then suddenly the script changed and before we all realized it we had a 3-0 advantage. And then like I said the ref changed almost completely as if he was thinking: oh my god, this wasn’t written in the script like that. I must do something or at least try to do something. And he tried. But it was too late.

So this was the moment I started having some bad feelings. A feeling that I couldn’t place yet, until I started doing the review of the table of the games so far.

You must remember that only since the Fulham game people, (apart from us believers over here), started to see that we could be in with a chance for the title. When you go on top after some 15 games played you are always in with a chance. Before that we were considered as certainly not good enough.

So let’s start with the full season so far (same table as in my previous article)

	cards	penalty	goals	other	total
Total	1267	1141	2005	621	1340
%	57,59	51,86	91,14	28,23	60,91

And until that moment in the season we had the following total results until the Carling cup game against Wigan

	cards	penalty	goals	other	total
Total included CC Wigan	1070	1091	1664	484	1156
%	59,44	60,61	92,44	26,89	64,22

And now comes the interesting part: starting from the Fulham game we get the following results from that moment on

	cards	penalty	goals	other	total
After CC Wigan	197	50	341	137	184
%	49,25	12,5	85,25	34,25	46

And just look with me and see what I have seen:

Cards: suddenly the standard has dropped a lot and more cards are wrongly given.

Penalty decisions are just plain crazy. From every 10 calls a ref has to make only about 1 (one) is correct!!!!

Goals: they also go down but not that crazy as the penalty decisions.

The other category is slightly better but in fact this is down to the excellent game Clattenburg had for 55 minutes against Chelsea. If I only take the last half hour (when he was trying to tilt the game) this figure would have been just 27 %. The same low average as before.

But the overall score has gone down to an unacceptable 46%! It has gone down from 64% in the games before to 46% since we really are in the title fight!!!! This is as good as meaning that even a blind man with a guide dog could have done better.

Let’s put it in another way. The first graphic is the first 18 games

So in those first 18 games we had 3 refs who had a score of below 50. So a chance of having a real bad ref every 6th game. An average I could live with.

And then we have the graphics for the last 4 games after we have turned in to a title candidate

And now when you look at this statistic you see that we have 4 games after each other that we have a ref that has a score of below 50. So in the first 18 games only 3, and now 4 in a row.

I do admit that I only took the points from Clattenburg after the 55th minute. As this was visible, not only for me but for many other people who look at the refs, that he suddenly changed his approach in the game. But even if I take his game as a whole it still means that we had 3 refs under the 50% mark in 4 games. What a change compared to the first 18 games where we also had 3 but in 18 games.

Who can explain this sudden drop in standard of refereeing? Is this just a coincidence? A bad day at the office for all the referees we had? And the fact that it got so painfully visible during the last games is something that many of us will have sensed and will have had the feeling.

But I must say that when last night I checked the numbers I really had something like : ”Oh no, not again”- feeling coming over me. Is this 2007-2008 all over again? Are we seeing another run of XXXX referees who take away all the hard work from the players?

People always talk about the conspiracy theory. As mostly it is a theory based on feelings. And now for the first time I actually think that with my weekly ref review I can indicate that it could be more than just a theory. We will see in the next weeks how much it was a coincidence. How much it had to do with the (unlikely) bad form of all our refs in the last weeks.

I noticed the fact that from the moment we got in with a real chance for the title the numbers changed drastically. And most of all: it is backed up by the numbers in my ref review. Numbers I had on my computer but I actually didn’t take notice until I started doing the ref review of the first half of the season in total.

At a moment like this I feel satisfied with all the hard work and long hours I have spent analysing the games over and over and to see that I can point at something for the first time based on numbers and not just on a feeling.

But on the other hand I feel very down as we can have the fear that we are not just playing against 11 men on the pitch. No, we also have to deal with whoever is in charge when it comes to refs. And as a ref I feel very down because the crème de la crème of the refs in the EPL are not doing what they should do: be neutral!

Why, I cannot tell you. This is something that only the people from the inside can tell you. But just like in Italy, the truth one day will come out. A disappointed person who did not get what he was promised will be breaking the omertà in referee land. Or a person who feels disgusted about the system he has been part of. Only one person has to find his honour back to stop it. Maybe a top ref who steps out of football completely will be the whistle-blower. But as most of them keep getting some kind of job within the football world most of them will shut up and remain silent. They buy loyalty, they buy their omertà

Untold untold’s, untold tolds, told untolds, and of course told told’s. We have it all

There is something seriously wrong with the EPL refereeing. Part one of our investigation.

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By Walter Broeckx, the ref review-reviewer

Blaming the ref when your side doesn’t win is part of football. It is what many supporters do. Indeed it is so common that anyone who starts to make such an argument seriously is just laughed at by the media, the football authorities, and the anti-Arsenal groups.

Each of course has its own reason for saying everything is all right. A football league in which there is a suspicion of the refs’ are not doing their job properly is one that falls into disrepute. TV audiences go down, newspaper reports are not believed, and the league’s position in the world begins to slip. The AAA won’t accept any reason for failure to win trophies other than the manager.

So everyone wants to say – no, the refs are ok, it is just some fans making a fuss because they lost.

And yet… there is a worry that something is not right here. In this series of articles we begin to investigate if it could be possible that the sort of corruption that we have seen in other countries could be spreading to England.

We do this by looking at the analyses that are made before and after each game that Arsenal plays, and seeing if that shows any trends.

So we have played 19 games and we are halfway in the season. So let us start with the bare facts and give the points the ref have got during the season so far.

Game	ref	cards	penalty	goals	other	total
Liverpool – Arsenal	Atkinson	66		100		83
Arsenal – Blackpool	Jones	50	100	100		83
Blackburn – Arsenal	Foy	50		100	17	56
Arsenal – Bolton	Atwell	50	75	100	50	68
Sunderland – Arsenal	Dowd	57	66	100	30	50
CC Tottenham – Arsenal	Lee Probert	71	100	80	0	75
Arsenal – WBA	Oliver	87	100	100	50	88
Chelsea – Arsenal	Dean	28	50	50	14	30
Arsenal – Birmingham	Atkinson	50	100	100	60	68
Man City – Arsenal	Clattenburg	100	100	100	50	93
Newcastle – Arsenal CC	Mariner	60	100	100	0	62
Arsenal – West Ham	Jones	66	50	100	16	50
Arsenal – Newcastle	Dean	83		100	0	60
Wolverhampton – Arsenal	Halsey	60		100	54	61
Everton – Arsenal	Webb	33	100	66	33	46
Arsenal – Tottenham	Dowd	50	33	85	50	59
Aston Villa – Arsenal	Clattenburg	67	50	83	0	66
CC Arsenal Wigan	Atkinson	42	67	100	60	58
Arsenal – Fulham	Foy	0		66	55	40
Man Utd – Arsenal	Webb	60	0	100	0	40
Arsenal – Stoke
Arsenal – Chelsea	Clattenburg	71	50	100	72	75
Wigan – Arsenal	Probert	66	0	75	10	29

Just look for your favourite ref, if you have one, to see how he has done.

And this gives us a total for all the games so far of

	cards	penalty	goals	other	total
Total	1267	1141	2005	621	1340
%	57,59	51,86	91,14	28,23	60,91

Now we can argue for hours about the cards that should have been given but I just leave it with the remark that only around 6 out of 10 cards are given correct in the EPL. We had one ref who did the perfect job with handing out the cards and this was Clattenburg in our game at City. And the worst ref is Dean, closely followed by ref Webb.

But look at the penalties: also only half of the penalties are correct. This is far below the standard we should expect. And you do have refs who miss all the calls when it comes to penalties. Webb at United, Probert at Wigan: they messed it up completely. They couldn’t get one decision right. In fact no ref managed to get all the penalty decisions right in all the games I took in my reviews.

So the question arises, shouldn’t we start using some kind of challenge on this? When a penalty is given there is almost always time for the 4th ref to have a look at the replays. And if like on Wigan it is clear to see that it is a blatant dive he should correct the ref on the field and they should give a foul against the diving player and a yellow card. And many of the fields in the EPL have big TV screens they should expose the divers immediately so that the crowd can see why the decision has been reverted.

I sure could image some players not wanting to dive and being exposed as the divers they are. I really think it would stop a lot of players from diving.

And we still have to deal with the fact that 1 goal out of 10 is not correct. We had 6 (six) goals given against us that were wrong and we had one goal given that should have been disallowed so far. This is far too much to my liking. Also here I would like to ask for a review right away after a goal. And when there is something wrong they should show it on the big screen so again the crowd knows what was wrong with the goal. It will make the game more fair for the players as they know that disputable goals will be less in numbers. And for a player on the field it is very important to know that all is going according to the rules.

And in the category “others” this is poor refereeing. Not dealing with dangerous tackles, time wasting, not giving blatant fouls, you know the rubbish that we see week in week out where refs do not what the rule book is telling them to do. The score in this category is so low it is shocking. Because missing an offside is possible. Failing to see a dive from a player can happen. Not giving a card, well this is more or less part of the technical area of the ref and is in fact less acceptable.

But missing dangerous tackles is something that is bad for the ref AND the players. It means that you are not able to give the players the protection you must give them. As a ref you are there to see that all the players at the end of the game are still healthy and not with broken legs in hospital. We don’t need to blame the refs for every injury as accidents can and will always happen on a football field. But when you start allowing dangerous tackles it is just a matter of time before you can call over the ambulance to bring a player to the hospital.

So in fact this low figure means that the refs don’t recognise these fouls enough and this is bad for football in the EPL. As has been said many times when the English teams have to play in another country with rules that are more strict than in the EPL they start with a handicap and don’t realise that the things they are allowed to each game is suddenly forbidden when playing another country.

The overall score is just 60 and this is rather poor. 90 % is an excellent game. Anything above 80 is a good game. Everything above 70 is a reasonable game. And when you enter the 60% zone things are getting poor.

So after 19 games and the Carling cup games having an overall result of just 61% is very bad. These are professional refs most of the time and they cannot get a score of at least 70% in their games. In fact the only ref that had more than one game with us and managed to get a score of +70 is Clattenburg. A ref with good potential but who, when I look at the last half our against Chelsea, can change his game during a game and this is a bad thing for a ref.

And the most known refs in the EPL apart from Clattenburg like Webb and Dean are big failures in their games so far. Webb managed an average score of 43% and this is supposed to be the best ref in the world remember. And Dean is just slightly less worse with a score of 45%. And these two are mostly the refs in our big games.

So overall a bad report on the refs so far this season.Not fit to wear the Ref shirt one could say.

But there is more to come on the refs and what comes up next are both interesting things and scary things. Frightening things. Sad things.

This is not a good story, and it is only just the start of it. More in the next article.

Untold untold’s, untold tolds, told untolds, and of course told told’s. We have it all

The untold ref review: Poorbert Athletic – Arsenal

Nzogbia going to the olympic games in London 2012 in the discipline Art diving

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By Walter Broeckx, your un-enigmatic ref

Lee Probert was the ref in Wigan today and let’s not waste any time and have a look at his game.

OTHER/CARD: A cross goes to the second post and the Wigan striker tries to score with his hand. The ref doesn’t give anything. No foul and more or all: no yellow card? An attempt to score with your hand is ALWAYS A YELLOW CARD! How is this possible? 0/1 and 0/1

OTHER: Foul on Squillaci and the ref gives nothing. Koscileny stood his ground to prevent worse. 0/1

Sorry I cannot give you longer video clips but this is due to some program restriction.

OTHER/PENALTY/CARD/GOAL: Counter from Wigan. Nzogbia goes past Koscielny who for a moment stuck out his leg but retracted it. Nzogbia goes past Koscielny and then throws himself to the ground. The ref who was never impressed with any tumble from an Arsenal player gives a penalty. All the replays clearly show that this was a schwalbe (or a dive as you call it) and nothing else. The fact that Wigan score from this wrong penalty is making things worse. The ref should have booked Nzogbia for his dive. So I only can give him for his situation a 0/1, 0/1, 0/1 and 0/1.

OTHER: The ref refuses to give fouls in favour of Arsenal. This is getting rather ridiculous right now. You can miss one foul, even two but keep missing them in such a consistent way , you have to do it. 0/1

GOAL: Nothing wrong with our first goal 1/1

GOAL: And again nothing wrong with our second goal 1/1

And we go in at half time and the ref has the “honour” to be the first ref since I started this review this season who can go in the dressing room with a score of O % and that is a zero, apart from the two goals we scored.

Let us see if he can improve in the second half.

OTHER: Again the ref gives almost no fouls for Arsenal. This is getting more than ridiculous now. You have to see it to believe it. 0/1

OTHER: This is getting boring but the ref keeps on giving all the advantage to Wigan. This is playing against 12 man. I leave the linesman out for now as they didn’t do much wrong that I could see. 0/1

OTHER/CARD: How, how, how, merry Christmas the ref has seen a foul on Chamakh. But even the dead blind cat from my neighbours had seen this one. And he even gives a card. The ref saves himself from a total embarrassment. 1/1 and 1/1 (followed by a cynical applause)

OTHER/OTHER/CARD: Wilshere comes in between the ball and Nzogbia. Nzogbia brings him down and the ref….gives a foul against Wilshere. Wilshere is not happy about this and is saying something against Nzogbia, who doesn’t like it and gives a headbut against Wilshere. The ref didn’t see it. Oh, what a surprise. What did he see in this game?? But here comes the rescue brigade in the person of Mike Dean (of all persons…) who has seen it and explains this to the ref. Who then sends Nzogbia off. If it wouldn’t have been for Dean Nzogbia would have stayed on the field. 0/1, 0/1 and 1/1 (thanks to Dean this 1)

GOAL: Nothing against the rules with this goal. Hey a good point for the ref. 1/1

PENALTY: Walcott is being tripped by the defender who did not play the ball, he even didn’t came close to the ball. But he clearly caught Walcott on his left foot. This was a clear penalty. But well you can imagine by now how the ref reacts: he gives nothing. 0/1

PENALTY: Nasri fires a free kick and the last defender in the wall jumps up with his hand and smashes the ball away. Now we have seen this given against us this season, and I even agreed with the decision against Cesc in that game. But wait a minute. This is another ref. And this ref hasn’t given us nothing this evening. So he just does what he has done very consistent all evening: give us nothing. But to be honest I had giving up on this ref long before this. 0/1

So what is the final score from this person in his orange shirt on the field:

CARDS: 2/3 (thanks to Mike Dean!)

PENALTY: 0/3

GOAL: 3/4

OTHER: 1/10

Total score: 6/20 (30%) (including Dean)

Total score from Probert himself 5/20 (25%) ( without Dean)

Well we have seen good performances and bad performances before this season but this really, really was one of the worst refs I have seen this season.

And he gets the lowest score I ever had to give in a ref review. I never have seen a ref who was so biased. Even Clattenburg in our last half our against Chelsea was doing a great job as an unbiased ref compared to this. And to think that even Dean saved his skin and I even had to give praise to Dean.

But he was very consistent the ref. He was worthless during the whole game. I really should stop from now on to call him a ref in fact. Because he can be given all kinds of names but please don’t call him a ref. I really don’t want to be called with the same name as this person in orange. Call him a clown in the comment section. Call him what you want but this was a bad night for him and for refs in general. I feel ashamed to wear the same shirt he does.

Or maybe he was happy with the things he has done? Maybe he came on the field with the intent to help Wigan as much as possible? Well he sure done a great job then. But he made a total embarrassment of what a ref should be. He could have worn a Wigan shirt right from the start of the game and then we would have known it from before the game started. Now we had to find out during the game.

Poor, poor, poor, is the only word I can think of Mr. Poorbert. Last night I joked a bit saying that Poorbert was voted Wigan man of the match. He certainly deserved it from their point of view.

And finally is there something wrong with the refs? When we were considered as too weak to have a chance for the title, the refs did a rather good and more neutral job when dealing with most situations. Some better than others, but this was more down to let us say the preferences of certain refs like Webb and others we know who will try to do it all to stop us. But since we been top in the league the level of points from the refs have been dropping considerably.

Also in the Chelsea game when we against all odds (pundit odds of course) took a 3-0 lead the ref suddenly changed his game and tried to help Chelsea in any way he could. (Read my ref review and notice my note after our third goal) This was very visible as I pointed out in my ref review. But now when we could go top of the league joining United and City the ref continued his game plan where Clattenburg had to stop in the Chelsea game. He just gave us absolutely nothing. Is this by accident? Is this some kind of plan?

I really do have some kind of 2007-2008 feeling over this. The season they stole the refs stole the title from us. So FA and EPL and PGMO I will be watching this in the next weeks. I don’t ask refs to give us anything more than we deserve. Just a neutral game is good enough for me and this was not what I have been seeing the last weeks.

Untold untold’s, untold tolds, told untolds, and of course told told’s. We have it all

Phil predicted at 2-0 win against Chelsea. Here’s what he says about the mighty Wigan.

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By Phil Gregory

With renewed confidence for our title tilt after a comfortable win over Chelsea, it’s off to Wigan after a mere day’s rest for the Arsenal. The Christmas fixture list is crazy at the best of times, but a single day between games is just plain daft. It is clear as day that we will be forced to rotate our squad just to avoid inevitable muscle injuries: it is simply not possible for a top sportsman to perform and remain fit with such a short amount of rest.

No doubt Wenger will be annoyed at how the fixtures have fallen, by playing a day earlier than us Wigan have had twice as much time to rest between the games than we have had. The same unfortunately applies to Birmingham for the following match too, though after last night we’ll forgive them the misdeed.

There’s nothing we can do about such things, and while it’s not ideal, there are other things going in our favour during this crush of fixtures. With both Wigan and Birmingham being smaller sides than us, with correspondingly smaller squads, we have the ability to rotate a lot more than they do. Even if they’ve had longer out resting, we can bring entirely fresh legs into the team and not suffer too much of a drop in quality.

As for the Chelsea game, not much more can be said. It was an outstanding team performance, with the only real concern being the brief wobble we had when Chelsea pulled one back. We dominated the midfield and were shown to be unperturbed by a few hard challenges from Chelsea. Once their traditional physical approach had proven to be futile, Chelsea didn’t seem to have much else to offer, looking flat in midfield and lacking potency up front.

It has to be top marks for Wenger for that game, really. There were a couple of surprises in the team selection, with Djourou and Theo coming in and doing superbly. Walcott was a big part of the second-half goals, but also did a great job defending from the front and pinning Cole back. When you compared the bench we had to Chelsea’s, you sensed that if we could deal with the eleven they had out on the pitch, they wouldn’t have much ability to change things up, and so it proved.

Big wins such as those count the same as any other win, so it is vital we follow it up with three points from the DW Stadium. Wigan are one of five sides that are in with a real chance of getting relegated in my eyes (the bottom five, bar Villa instead of Birmingham), so we’ll be in for a battle. There are ghosts to exorcise after the capitulation at the DW last season; the less said about that game the better.

Given the expected rotation of the side, predicting the line-up will likely prove to be a bit of a wild goose chase. However:

Fabianski

Sagna Djourou Koscielny Clichy

Song Denilson

Rosicky

Nasri Chamakh Arshavin

I’m expecting the back five to remain the same as the Chelsea game. Eboue in for Sagna is our usual defensive rotation, but given the changes further forward I imagine Wenger will want to keep the defensive unit constant if at all possible. Similarly, I don’t see both Wilshere and Song being rested, with Denilson coming in for the former.
Rosicky replaces the suspended Fabregas, who looked back to his best on Monday night.

I’ve also gone for Arshavin in for Walcott here, which mightn’t be the most popular of decisions given how he played against Chelsea. However, Theo came in and performed well in a specific set-up, looking to pin back Cole and/or exploit the space behind him. Wigan will surely play a deep line against us, and lacking space to run in behind, Theo might under-perform. Arshavin’s ability to produce searching passes, as well as his general link-up play will be much more important for us.

Van Persie, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of player that in a perfect world I’d want starting this game, given his creativity. Chamakh would work well coming off the bench to get on the end of crosses if we needed a plan B. Given the lack of a rest between these two fixtures,I simply don’t want any gambles with Van Persie’s fitness to be taken.

Nasri stays in despite covering a lot of ground on Monday. The Frenchman can be indefatigable and given how he’s been playing I think Wenger will want him on the pitch.

Wigan aren’t a side that should be troubling us, but given the turnaround last season we have to be cautious. There’s always a risk that you can be surprised during the Christmas fixtures, with the lack of time between games causing some players to turn in sub-par performances. With the Mancs dropping points last night, a scrappy 1-0 to the Arsenal will do me fine for tonight.

There was no injury news on Arsenal.com at the time of writing, so I’m hoping no news is good news and the squad is more or less the same that beat Chelsea.

Untold untold’s, untold tolds, told untolds, and of course told told’s. We have it all

The Untold ref review – Arsenal – Chelsea

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By Walter Broeckx, the happy ref.

For the third time we had Clattenburg this year and the last one hardly a month ago. A very bad situation for the ref. In fact it is shameful for the FA to always have to send the same refs over and over again to the same teams in the same season.

But let us just see how he did.

OTHER: Kalou makes a tackle in the first minute. The ref gives the foul but not a card. I can understand him not giving a card but he could have spoken to the player. In fact as a ref you should accept such an incident to stamp your authority on the game. I thought he was a bit mild on not lecturing him to be honest. But he gave the foul so: 1/1.

OTHER/CARD: Terry pulls back Van Persie when there was a chance of Arsenal attack. Clattenburg has a word with Terry. As this was the first lecture he gave it is understandable he didn’t give a card. 1/1 and 1/1

PENALTY: After a free kick Djourou goes down but the ref gives nothing. And I think he was right on this. Both players (Djourou and Terry) were pushing a bit but nothing to give really.

OTHER/OTHER: Cole goes in hard on Walcott but the ref gives no foul. It was a case of Cole hitting Walcott’ leg so it should have been a foul. As he gave nothing Song made a foul on Malouda which the ref gave. One wrong, one good. 0/1 and 1/1

PENALTY: Malouda hits Van Persie on his leg when Robin is on the line of the penalty area. Malouda also is on the line of the penalty area with the leg that he uses to touch Van Persie. It was a foul, it was on the line and the line is part of the penalty area: this was a penalty. 0/1

Let’s tick the boxes in the big circle from left to right: Is there contact? Yes. Is the defender in the penalty area? Yes he is. Is the attacker in the penalty area? Yes he is. The line from the penalty area is part of the penalty area. So 3 times yes = penalty.

OTHER: A quick word of praise for the linesman. They got all their offside decisions spot on and also are doing a good job in helping the ref when they signal fouls. And I even include in this when they give fouls against us. When I can give praise, I will do it. 1/1

OTHER/CARD: Sagna plays the ball to Walcott and Cole has a go at Walcott. The player that tried to stop the pass from Sagna came in late and I think this was going through the refs mind when he gave the card to Cole. In a way Cole got the card for the fact that there were 2 consecutive fouls. A good act from the ref. 1/1 and 1/1

OTHER/OTHER: Theo is blocked and no foul given. Van Persie blocks a player and a fouls is given. A little bit inconsistent ref. 0/1 and 1/1

OTHER/CARD: Van Persie comes in from behind and picks up a deserved yellow card. 1/1 and 1/1

OTHER/CARD: Kalou comes in with an outstretched leg flying high in the air and catches Clichy. The ref gives the foul (did you take notice Mr. Webb?) and the ref gives a yellow card. 1/1 and 1/1

PENALTY/OTHER/GOAL: Cesc tries to run on to the ball from Wilshere and is brought down. The ball comes to the feet of Song who was running the same line as Cesc and Song scores. The ref could have given a penalty and in the replay it was clear to see that he gave the advantage signal when Song got to the ball. So at the end of the day by Song scoring he got the advantage right. But we will never know if he would have given the penalty if Song had not scored. It would be my first question if I would have met him after the game. 1/1, 1/1 and 1/1

And in we go at half time. Bring on the hot coffee, tea or whatever hot drink they have in the Emirates.

OTHER/CARD: A late challenge from Ramires on Wilshere. Foul is given but deserved a yellow card. 1/1 and 0/1.

OTHER/GOAL: Walcott looks to be in an offside position but he was not thanks to the right back who played him on. And even then the pass was given by Essien so it never could have been offside. So another great decision from the linesman and also Cesc was onside when Theo played the ball to him. So a very good goal. 1/1 and 1/1

GOAL: Another great goal this time and well taken. 1/1

And then things suddenly changed.

OTHER/OTHER: Wilshere blocked: no foul/Cesc blocked someone: foul given??? Strange ref. What happened? 0/1 and 1/1

OTHER/GOAL: For the slightest of touches the ref gives a free kick to Chelsea. Okay one can blow a foul but if for the rest of the game you have let some things go then this looked rather strange. But Chelsea score from the resulting free kick. Nothing wrong with the goal itself but what a soft free kick. Certainly if you look at other situations in the game e.g. the not given penalty on Van Persie. 0/1 and 1/1.

OTHER/CARD: Late tackle from Lampard on Song and Lampard gets what he deserves : a yellow card. 1/1 and 1/1

OTHER/CARD: Cesc gets a yellow card for a little pull a Chelsea player. He put a hand on his shoulder. A foul but what a very soft yellow card if you ask me. 1/1 and 0/1

OTHER: Chelsea players don’t foul. Well so it looks in the eyes of the ref for the moment. Only when they make 3 fouls in the same move the ref gives a foul to Arsenal. 0/1

OTHER: Every time a Chelsea player goes down in the same area from where the first goal came the ref gives a free kick to Chelsea. Is this some kind of coincidence???? It sure doesn’t feel that way to me. Every dangerous attack from Chelsea comes from a not given foul from the ref. 0/1

OTHER/OTHER : Ramires catches Cesc on his ankle and the ref let play continue. This was a foul ref. Oh and seconds later he gives Chelsea another free kick and guess what… yes on the same spot from where Drogba scored last year and gave the assist to the Chelsea goal. 0/1 but it was a foul for Chelsea I have to admit so 1/1

GOAL: A Chelsea goal is being disallowed for offside. Another correct decision from the linesman. I didn’t get to see any replay from the linesman position but if I can trust them for the rest of their game this was correct and it looked that way. 1/1

And so the games comes to an end. A lot of things and a lot to count if you ask me. So now let us see how many points he got.

CARDS: 5/7

PENALTY: 1/2

GOAL: 5/5

OTHER: 16/22

Total score: 27/36 (75%)

We all have seen games of two halves in which a team has an excellent game in the first half and then mess up in the second half. I had this feeling from Clattenburg in this game. I think he did rather good in the first half apart from the missed penalty on Van Persie but this can happen. But in the second half when it got to 3-0 he suddenly changed drastically. I had the impression we could do nothing good any more and Chelsea could do nothing wrong. I think it would be interesting to see a statistic on to see how many fouls he gave to us up to then and then how the fouls were given when after we had made it 3-0.

But despite this he still got a good 75% and this still is a good number. He certainly was helped a lot by his excellent assistants who did everything right I felt. So a good team work and this is important also for the ref.

I still think he is one of the better refs in the EPL but I didn’t feel completely satisfied with his game today. Certainly the difference in punishing some pushes was a bit strange. But as we have won we are in a good mood and we can forgive him. But I sure would like to see this changing a bit in the future. He lost a lot of points in the last half hour.

And a total score of 78 % in 3 games doesn’t look bad at all. This shows he can be an excellent ref if he keeps himself focused during the whole 90 minutes.

Untold untold’s

When Kevin says we’ll get three, we get three.

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

By Walter Broeckx

But first, The Prologue (by Tony)

Kevin sits two rows in front of me, in the increasingly famous block 99, just above Red Action. At half time we were standing at our seats taking in the glorious goal, debating extraordinary ability of Nasri to twist and turn while taking the ball with him, and commenting on the elegance of Cesc, (even when coming back after a long lay off), when Kevin (to whom I have never spoken before) turns round and says, “I read your blog.”

Never being one to avoid the glories and triumphs of being a world-famous commentator on all things Arsenal, I journeyed down the two rows and shook him by the hand, as warmly as one could in a temperature only marginally above freezing point. (That’s the freezing point of water you understand, not liquid nitrogen. But I digress).

Anyway said Kevin asked me how I thought it would end, and I was nervous, I have to admit. Of course I had seen how we had started taking the game to them, and the way the trio of Jack, Nasri and Cesc had taken control, but the spookiness of Chelsea weighed on my mind, and I must admit that for once I didn’t come up with my normal “we’ll get six”. But Kevin was sure. “We’ll get three” he said, and we did.

So there it is. Kevin, if you are reading this, a prediction slot on Untold awaits you if you feel like it. OK you actually said “3-0″, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

And about that book I was mentioning. It is called “Making the Arsenal”, it is brilliant, and you can get it from Amazon or direct from the publisher (although the publisher offices don’t start sending out copies again until Jan 4).

So that’s the big news from the stadium. Now over to Walter…

————-

Well, well, well. Oh my, oh my, oh my. The impossible has happened. Well that is if you believe all that is said by the pundits before our game against Chelsea.

We were not good enough. Remember? It will have been said only a few hours ago. Now some will pretend they have never said it of course. And they hope the public will forget what they have said before the game.

And let us not forget the part of the fans who tell us that we are not good enough. The ones that have been telling for ages that Song was not good enough. That he should be sold in January. And the ones that were blaming Song for joining the attack. The ones that were blaming Wenger a few weeks ago for allowing Song to go forward and join the attack. You know Wenger? The manager that has lost it some time ago?

Well, well, well. How annoying that it was Wenger who allowed Song to go forward a bit and that it was that same Song who scored that very important first goal in any big game. Oh and apart from going forward and score Song was also excellent in his defensive duty.

And then let us take a look at Walcott. You know the man that for many fans will never live up to the expectations. And when he started like a rocket in the first games this season, they shut up a bit? But when he found it difficult to get back to that level after coming back from an injury they were at him again. Telling Wenger to get rid of him. Well it was that same Walcott that sealed the game with some steals, an assist and another steal and a well taken goal. How lucky we can count ourselves that Wenger stuck with him today and in the past. And remember the boy is only 21 years old.

And now we are at it. How about our captain. Or El Capitan. We should have cashed in on him this summer, as the expression goes. Well, how lucky that this stubborn French manager of ours did not let him go. His first real game back and man does he look ready for it. He is up for it and he wants to lead by example. And still not everything worked out but you can see that when he gets more game time he will be that great player we all know he is. How lucky we kept him in London. Thanks Arsène for sticking up your fingers to Barceloanus.

An finally let us talk about project youth. You know that project that was declared dead and buried after each game we lost by the you know who. And then look at that still only 18 year old Jack the lad. HE is the first of our project youth. And just look at his game today. I cannot remember an 18 year old playing with such a maturity in such a top game. In such an important game. He gave the assist for the first goal in a very crowded area and for the rest of the game. Well he ran, he ran, he ran even more. And when he stopped for a while he just ran further and more and further and more.

He gave the Chelsea players no rest at all. And to all you out there who have declared project youth the biggest mistake and Wenger’s personal play thing: this is just the first of the production line. And he cost us nothing, nada, niente, noppes, nichts, rien, and whatever language you speak just fill in please. Can you imagine how much he would have cost when he played for another premier league team now? £20M? £30M? £40M? I don’t know but it would be too much for Arsenal to buy him.

So this is the lad that will set the Emirates and England on fire for many, many, many years to come. You could see how he ran his heart out for his team. He was the ultimate Gooner for me today on the field.

So to those congenitally pessimistic people who said we could never win a big game against the other big four you can stay silent for a while. And for all you out there who are against project youth: you can stay silent for a while. And for all you out there who are giving the most horrible names to our manager: just shut it up.

This according to some negativists is a useless team with a useless manager is on the way to great things in the future. And it will be done with players we have grown ourselves and with players we have bought at young age and who will be Arsenal through and through.

And if you think that I get carried away a bit… well yes I am. But this is my right as a supporter of this great club, this still great manager and their players. I know it is only one game won. I know it is only just three points won. But when we would have lost this only one game, when we would have lost this only three points some would have called our team the worst Arsenal team ever, buried our manager with names I cannot repeat and would have declared project youth dead and buried again.

So I guess today is our day. Today is the day for all those fine Arsenal supporters who have stood with their team in(some) bad days. Today is the day for all those who have lived through the difficult periods. Today is the day for all those real and supportive Arsenal supporters who have always kept the faith in this team and this manager. ENJOY IT!! I am and I will enjoy it.

Oh yes and our match commentator over here said that the Emirates was shaking to its foundations after our third goal. Oh, how I wished I could have been there…. Ho, ho, ho what a great Christmas present we have got today.

Untold untold’s

Arsenal v Chelsea. Untold makes a bold prediction. (What a surprise)

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

By Phil Gregory

After the last game was cancelled against Stoke, the snow has thawed sufficiently for our home game against Chelsea to be given the go ahead. (It’s deep snow where I am Phil, and I’m struggling to get the car dug out of the ice. – Tony) After losses away at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge, it falls to our home games to improve our “big game” record. The away game against Chelsea this season was very much a case of what could’ve been given how we started the match, and the players need to take their chances efficiently in this game.

Almunia, Vermaelen and Gibbs are all still out, while recent absentees Diaby and Fabianski are back in the fold. Chelsea are without squad men in Zhirkov and Benayoun, though Bosingwa has been passed fit, and Lampard is expected to start after an injury-hit opening part of the season.

Fabianski

Sagna Squillaci Koscielny Clichy

Song Wilshere

Fabregas

Nasri Van Persie Arshavin

There’s a couple of talking points in amongst the starting line-up. With Fabianski back fit, I expect Szcznesy to make way for the more experienced Pole. While Wojieich has come in and performed well, I can’t see Wenger leaving Fabianski on the bench given the changes we’ve already seen this season in the goalkeeping pecking order.

The back four is largely unchanged, with the continuing absence of Vermaelen a cause for concern. Song and Wilshere will play the deep midfield roles, while Cesc will be looking to kickstart an injury-hit season from his advanced playmaking position. Just in front of him will be Robin Van Persie, who I’ve expected to come in for Chamakh. With Robin back fit, and with a few weeks training now behind him, it seems likely Wenger will unleash the Dutch international and take some of the burden off Chamakh, who has shouldered it admirably thus far. Nasri and Arshavin flank the attack, two players capable of worrying any defence.

Cech

Bosingwa Ivanovic Terry Cole

Mikel

Essien Lampard

Kalou Drogba Anelka

Chelsea are a team with little in the way of options, given the now well known issues over their squad depth, so their team line-up won’t be too tricky to predict. I’m expecting that with Bosingwa back, they’ll try and get Ferreira out of the starting line-up as quickly as humanly possible, and with Lampard back in for Ramires in central midfield.

Chelsea fans will surely have a few concerns. Despite Didier Drogba’s sadly exceptional goalscoring form against us, he’s been struggling for goals since his bout of malaria earlier in the winter. He came off the bench against Tottenham and got a goal but then contrived to miss a penalty that would’ve won Chelsea the game. To my eyes, that makes it very much a case of “as you were” when it comes to the Ivorian’s confidence in front of goal. Anelka is another man short of end product, nearing ten hours since he last found the net.

Shorn of confidence for six or seven games, this run of Chelsea’s cannot be put down to simply being a blip. They have missed some players with injury, but much of the impact of their injuries is simply, down to the lack of the strength of their replacements. Losing a centreback isn’t too much of a big deal if your 3rd choice is capable of slotting in and performing as ours largely have. However injuries do not tell the whole story. Many of Chelsea’s absentees have been present on the pitch, but simply not firing. Their midfield in particular has looked flat and unimaginative without Lampard and with Ramires struggling.

Confidence is a huge factor in football, and as Cesc said after the game against United, it sometimes seems we go into these matches with a self-imposed psychological disadvantage. Such reasoning is often dismissed as simply excuses for having an inferior side, but anyone who has played the game at any level will know just how important mindset is going into a game.

With Lampard short of match practice, we have to be capable of controlling the midfield. It’ll be a congested 3 v 3 battle in the middle of the park, though I feel with higher technical quality we have the ability to take advantage of such a situation. Cesc certainly has the ability to get one over Mikel if he plays as we know he can

The worry for most Arsenal fans surrounds the defence, especially coming up against regular tormentor Drogba. However both the Ivorian and Anelka are struggling for confidence and goals, which leads me to think we can keep a clean sheet against Chelsea. I’m going to go for 2-0 to the Arsenal, with an end to our “big games” hoodoo and a late Christmas present from the players to the fans.

Untold Indexes largely incomprehensible, but interesting none the less

Arsenal history takes the official version, tears it up and starts again. Current article is about how John Dick played 250 games for Woolwich Arsenal and then went on to help Sparta Prague in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Making the Arsenal is, well, just so different from everything else in the history of history that really words fail most people who have ever read it.

Ref Watch: Welcome Mark Clattenburg! (?)

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

RefWatch – Arsenal v Chelsea (27/12/2010 20:00)

By DogFace

Referee: Mark Clattenburg
Assistant 1: Scott Ledger
Assistant 2: Martin Yerby
4th Official: Lee Probert

Good morning stat-fans. I have dog-flu… Christmas has not been relaxing; it’s a time for children (especially if you have them) and today the smegging outlaws invited themselves over with their kids to trash my house and empty it of food/wine – so, I’m wrecked, it’s 21:49 and it’s off to the match time tomorrow therefore I’m giving myself 45 minutes to write this article before hitting the irish-lemsip and dozing off. Tomorrow (today) we have Mark Clattenburg (again – remember that thing I was saying about the referee pool being too small?). We’ve actually had Marky C ref an Arsenal Vs Chelsea match before back in the 2007/2008 season – we played the Chavs at the bridge on the 23/03/2008 and lost 2 – 1… I recall not being happy at a few decisions pertaining to offside – but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

So let’s have a look at Mark Clattenburg again:

Full name: Mark Clattenburg
Date of birth: 13 March 1975 (1975-03-13) (age 35)
Place of birth: Consett, County Durham, England
EPL Referee Since: 2004/2005
EPL Games to date: 131

Howard Webb told me that this stops you going bald…

Seeing as we’ve had Marky C before I’m just going to brush over his stats… Mark Clattenburg has had 16 games for Arsenal consisting of 10 wins, 1 draw and 5 losses; he has been good for us this season and has a good overall score in Walter’s Ref Review – and we can see this reflected below:

Arsenal are currently in 3rd in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an average of 1.94 PPG… which seems there or there abouts (if you consider Arsenal to be a top 3 team).

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 1st with an average positive swing of 0.90 – which is great news as a +0.90 of a goal is strong.

Arsenal are currently in 8th in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an overall average of 1.69 BPM – again this seems quite normal.

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 14th with an overall average of 6.11 FPB… hmm – we have been punished in the foul and this is not with any kind of consistency – if you look at the FPB lines for (us and our opponents) you can see a distinct crossover – but again, these figures are not always black and white… if Marky C were [this season] calling the match properly then you do see a lot of small and rotational fouls against us to break up play and stifle our game – so it’s not always that we are ‘punished more’ as it were.

From the figures here we have no complaints – on to Mark Clattenburg Vs Chelsea:

Mark Clattenburg has had 13 games for Chelsea consisting of 10 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.

Chelsea are currently in 1st in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an average of 2.46 PPG (WOW!).

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Chelsea come 4th with an average positive swing of 0.48… shit.

Chelsea are currently in 2nd in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an overall average of 1.23 BPM – bollocks.

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Chelsea come 3rd with an overall average of 8.38 FPB – fucksticks!

So, overall, Chelsea can also have absolutely no complaints with the appointment of Mark Clattenburg for this match… in fact – their numbers look great; which is a great shame for us!

Our fourth official for the afternoon is one Lee Probert. He’s only had 2 games for Arsenal consisting of 1 win, 1 draw and 0 losses. Lee has also had 5 games for Chelsea consisting of 4 wins, 1 draw and 0 losses – not much data there, but Chelsea are riding depressingly high in all his figures… apart from their performance against the handicap – i.e. good results but hard fought.

Before I go off and indulge in a Paracetamol/Phenylephrine/Lemonyish flavour/Honey/Whisky binge I’m going to drag out a few figures relating to Mark Clattenburg’s performance against the EPL (a few selected teams) – to give us a bigger picture of any seasonal bias or trends:

What’s interesting here to note is that both Arsenal and Chelsea have sky rocketed against the handicap… Man City who were doing brilliantly under Marky C have crashed (our game against City gave that negative figure this season and I fully expect City to pick that figure up towards the end of the season). Tottenham have struggled out of negative territory to zero – it’s fair to say that, in regards to the season so far – things seem to be taking a rather different and interesting tack. So I’ll be watching Mark Clattenburg’s numbers very closely from now on.

In conclusion – I hope Drogba has an ‘off day’ and we win… a Chelsea fan once told me (mid diatribe about ‘that f&*king Drogba’) that that’s exactly how he used to feel about Thierry Henry – although Henry, I think you’ll agree, had way more class.

Feeling bored? Maybe no one gave you Making the Arsenal

Time to kill? The biggest puzzle on the Arsenal blogs – the Untold Index

Don’t know what to do with yourself? What’s the matter with you?

What on earth has gone wrong with the youth team?

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

by Tony Attwood

The Premier Academy League Table: don’t look at it unless you are feeling strong. We are sixth in the league out of ten, with a goal difference of minus 4. Won six, drawn two, lost seven. The last three games were a 0-3 defeat against West Ham, a 1-4 home defeat to Palace and a 0-3 against Charlton.

And in the midst of this, our old pal Mr Wenger said that he could see about five players in the youth set up who could make it big time with Arsenal.

So what’s going on?

You begin to get a bit of a clue when you look at the Youth Cup, in which we beat Darlington 6-1 in the last round. The team was

Emilio Martinez

Daniel Boateng, George Brislen-Hall, Sead Hajrovic, Ignasi Miquel

Oguzhan Ozyakup, Kyle Ebecilio, Nico Yennaris

Benik Afobe, Chuks Aneke Nigel Neita

Compare and contrast with the team that played and lost their game against Charlton.

Emilio Martinez

Martin Angha, Elton Monteiro, Steven Smith, Samir Bihmoutine,

Kyle Ebecilio, James Edge Jordan Wynter,

Josh Rees, Jeffrey Monakana Nigel Neita,

What has happened here is that there are only four regulars from the youth team in the cup game – the rest are Reserves, plus one youth player who is so far ahead of the game he is actually out on loan with Huddersfield.

Benik Afobe was given permission by Huddersfield to return for this game. Afobe was one of the main attractions last season as the Youth Team won the Premier Academy League for the second year running He scored 20 goals in 25 games, including three in the play off final. He’s been at Arsenal nine years, and signed a professional contract last year and played for the title winning England team in the Under-17s European Championships last summer.

So let me just make this point. Here is a player, qualified to play in the youth league, who has already moved up to the reserves and through them into playing for a League One team (he’s started seven times for Huddersfield, plus come on twice as a sub and has knocked in three goals – all since November 2 when the loan started. He comes home on Jan 8). Huddersfield (as I write this on Boxing Day morning) are third in the league and recently beat the league leaders Brighton.

This player, this League One player, is actually a member of our youth team squad. He’s the shining star, but lurking behind him are a bunch of reserve players all of whom are also of such an age that they can drop back into the youth team for the cup games.

Take Chuks Aneke as another example. He moved into the reserve team last season, and has also played for the England under 17s.

What this shows is that the production line that we have spoken about for so long is now well and truly running. In fact it is running so fast that it is impossible to hold players back in the youth team. That might be the right league for them when it comes to age, but they are simply too good for this league, and so have to move up to the reserves, or even the loan squad.

It is tough on the youth team of course, because their best players are being moved up so fast so that the players don’t become stale or irritated by it all being too easy for them. And although the youth league table looks depressing at the moment compared to the normal high standards, all is not lost – it is something of a warped table because the club at the foot of the table is doing so badly.

There is also the problem of the various rules prohibiting the recruitment of players from outside the local area in their youth days. But on the positive side, it also shows that the fast track approach that brought us Jack Wilshere was not a one off. There is a whole raft of players making their way up quickly.

It is also interesting to contrast this four tier approach (first team 25, on loan squad – usually around 15), reserve squad, youth squad, with that adopted by the noisy neighbours (not Leyton, the other lot). Arry came in and abolished the reserve team because it did not have this progression of youngsters in it. As I have mentioned before, I watched Bentley and a host of fellows of a similar ilk play our reserves side made up of the usual 16, 17 and 18 year olds. Such a situation was of course hardly good for morale among the Lesser Tinies, and ever since then Arry has used his son as a mouthpiece, spouting off about how pointless the reserve league is since no one will ever put in a tackle etc etc.

In fact a revolution is going on, which is leaving the little clubs like our neighbours behind – a revolution that involves finding 17 and 18 year olds who can play for the first team.

But it is a revolution that also has a problem. As the production line of players who joined the club at nine rolls on and on, we will quickly have a situation in which the reserves will be full of 16 year olds, and there will be another bunch of quality players taking us back to the top of the youth league.

What then? The number of players we can put out on loan is limitless, but we also need another Arsenal team as a place for our young stars to play. This can only be a team playing in League One or maybe Scotland’s second division, or something like that – as is done in Germany and Spain. But of course we’re governed by people whose ability to look forwards without looking back is legendary. However there is nothing that I know about in the rules that says we can’t have a second youth team. (If we get one, remember you read it here first. If we don’t, well, it was Boxing Day, and last night was rather late etc etc, and I will deny ever thinking of it.)

Meanwhile Kyle Bartley, Pedro Botelho, Francis Coquelin, Tom Cruise, Henri Lansbury, and Sanchez Watt are all out on loan, and lurking elsewhere is the likes of Gilles Sunu. Then there’s Ryo Miyaichi who has just been signed from Japan. True Nordveit has gone, having impressed naive viewers like me (just shows what I know) but the word on the Young Guns blog is that we don’t need him because of the genius that is Bartley. And we are still awaiting a decision on Wellington Silva’s appeal.

Maybe its not quite a disaster after all.

Feeling bored on Boxing Day? Maybe no one gave you Making the Arsenal

Feeling bored on Boxing Day. The biggest puzzle on the Arsenal blogs – the Untold Index

Feeling bored on Boxing Day. What’s the matter with you?

Untold’s Xmas works outing. Wild happenings. Men! Women! Horses! Drinking! Hairdryers! Billy the Dog!

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

In the day before Christmas each year, the worldwide staff at Untold Arsenal come home to the editorial hub and join with the local hacks and associates from the Toppled Bollard – famed drinking den run by Billy the Dog McGraw – for a fun day out at Towcester races on the other side of our beloved county of Northamptonshire.

This year over 200 Bollardière (as the quaffing partners of our favoured watering hole are known) mixed with the crème of the race going fraternity for a solid day’s racing, laughter, repartee, wining and dining.

There was something of a slow start when upon arrival that the “racing” as it is quaintly known, was off due to the “snow”. Oh how we laughed! Of course Billy quickly showed them the error of their ways and in no time the course officials had licked the “track” dry, and we were ready for the first race, as they quaintly call it.

All went well until the third trot around the arena when one of those jolly little fellows who sit on horseback (jockey I think is the technical term) had a slight altercation with Billy over the delicate issue of whether the little chap had deliberately failed to win a race in which Billy had some sort of financial interest.

Now Billy has an excellent intellect and a keen mind, and he also knows more about dealing with obdurate Tottenham supporters than any man I know. Indeed at 15 stone and 6 feet 2 inches he is not a man to mix it with. However I am delighted to report that on hearing the diminutive chap’s protestations of innocence Billy merely looked down before turning to gather up as many of the company who were still coherent. Deep and dark conversations ensued.

When the same horse racing fellow appeared bouncing up and down on top of a horse (for that is what they do) at the start of the next race, a roar went up from the Bollardière. Suddenly a string of sausages flew out from the crowd and hit the jockey on the nose, quickly followed by half a turkey. At the turn (as the bend in the track is called in racing circles) a box of Christmas Crackers landed on his jaw. As the jockey glanced up three mince pies hit in him the side of the face.

These events took their toll and the horse dropped back down the field. When a Christmas pudding settled on the jockey’s cheek and a bottle of sherry caught him on the chin, the animal (who I must say remained oblivious to the whole proceeding) was “reigned in” by said little chap on top, and eventually came in a sorry seventh in the proceedings.

The little fellow, I could tell, was annoyed. He dismounted (again I use the technical term) and walked up to what I believe are called the stewards and announced he was putting in an appeal. He had, he said, been well and truly hampered.

Happy Christmas from everyone involved with Untold, to all involved with Untold. Editing the show is great fun and a great pleasure. Thank you everyone (except of course that little toad who earlier this year called me a Tottenham supporter in disguise. Billy is, even as I post this, on the way round.

Tony Attwood

Someone given you a book token? Try spending it on this

Arsenal and the winter transfer misery

By Walter Broeckx

On all radio stations you hear songs with words like: ‘It’s Christmas time’ and all deejays are pretending to be father Christmas and are shouting ‘Hohoho’ between every Christmas song they are playing. We hear the word peace every five minutes and with the snow so much present we are heading for that white Christmas we are supposed to dream of.

We all are wishing each other happiness in the new year that is coming very close now and I just will join in already and wish the readers and participants of this blog all the best for the new year: staying healthy and enjoying the Arsenal. That’s all it takes to have a good new year for me. And that is what I wish to all of you.

But behind the date of 1 January is already the start of a new period that I hate: the winter transfer period. Ever since the start of December we could see little reports in the media about player A who could come or should come. Player B who could leave or should leave. Player C who is unhappy and want to leave and player D who is happy and doesn’t want to leave but will have to leave.

And the closer we get to the new year the louder the talk doing its rounds. If one should believe all the hype the media we should prepare ourselves for a complete new team in January. Forget the 25 rule we will have a squad of 52 players at least. If we should believe the media that is. The fact that they wouldn’t be able to play in the EPL is just a small detail for the know it all in the media. As long as they have their headline that has brought some extra readers to their sites and newspapers the world is fine for them.

Also on the going-out front it is as if we will have a whole team leaving us in January. You name a player and we will give you a team that is interested in him. All top teams are after our players. And that is a bit strange as they all are rubbish according to some sources in the Arsenal blog world.

So how on earth would Real Madrid be after that ‘useless’ (not my words and opinion!!!) Clichy. Why would Mourinho (of all coaches) be after him? Or is he not that bad as some try to tell us? And if it is not Real Madrid, they will find another team for him. You just got to love those newspapers and websites for their help in the transfer dealing. All for free and without any self interest of course.

But the problem is that some fans believe all this media rubbish. And all of them have their own opinion on who we should sell or give away, as they are bad players you understand. So we are starting on a new round of ‘Wenger should buy X, Y and Z or he should be sacked’. And as everyone has a different opinion on who this player X, Y and Z are we would have hundred of new players coming over to us. And if Wenger doesn’t buy their own personal top 3 he should be sacked.

So expectations are high once again from some fans. And with every new rumour they grow bigger and bigger. And then they find themselves disappointed at the end of the transfer period as Wenger hasn’t bought their preferred players and we start again with a round of abuse against the manager, the board and everyone who is not in the we should buy them all-mode.

Am I against signing new players? No. But I certainly don’t have the pretension to say that I know who we should buy and who we should sell. And this is just because I am a supporter. I’m not a would-be manager. I’m just a supporter with my biased view on things and with my biased view on our players. I like them all, so I wouldn’t want anyone out. They all have their skills and they all have their flaws. Just like I have and most of us have in our own little lives.

Sometimes I have written a masterpiece and sometimes when I re-read what I have written I think: Why did I send this to Tony? And why did he publish it? It’s the same with football players. Sometimes you find the genius assist and sometimes the ball goes in the stand. As a supporter you swear for a moment, if the latter happens. But then I know: that is just the way life goes. Apart from one useless and rubbish Arsenal player in a game last season no player can finish a game with a 100% success in his passing. We just have to accept the fact we and the players are human beings.

So let us take a look at what we have and what we will have in the next months of the season. First of all we are in second place and we have played the big teams away from home.

We have missed some key players so far this season like Vermaelen in defence. And Robin Van Persie in our attack. And as we are used to having him out for half a season we can count on him in the next months of the season. He always has some injury that keeps him out for months and now he has already had this period of the season.

We have Cesc back and hopefully he will finally get his season underway and we can hope that his hamstrings are completely healed for the rest of the season. We get Diaby back who is much hated by some of our own fans but who can offer something completely different to the rest of our midfielders. We just got to hope that he doesn’t get kicked off the field once again by some Neanderthal who can get away with it unpunished as it happened twice this season.

So that should be 4 players we didn’t have for the biggest part of the season we should have now. Two in midfield and one in attack and one in defence. And in fact having them missing was also a bit of a blessing as it gave the chance to Wilshere to shine and to prove he is worth his place now and will be a very great player in the near and distant future for Arsenal. And I will not even mention Ramsey as I think he still will have to climb a big mountain to come back to his level. But sure wish he would get back as soon as possible.

We are second in the league for the moment and we are certainly not rubbish. We are nearing the ideal age for most of our midfielders (most of them are still only around 21-23 years young) who are getting stronger each season. We have (when fit) four good centre backs, we have cover on our full backs. We have cover in attack and when all our players are fit (and it can happen, just look at City who had only one player out this weekend) Wenger is having a difficult task to keep everyone happy and give them playing time.

So I don’t need any new players for myself. I will support and stick with the older players and will not throw them away just because there is a new shining player in the display. And if someone gives me a new player under the Christmas tree I will accept it and cherish it just like I will do with the older players. As a supporter I will support my Arsenal players until the moment they have left.

Yesterday Wenger said that if we could learn from our mistakes in the first half of the season we could get far. And I think he is right. And as most of our players are still young and in the learning stage: we will learn.

The longer the route to glory, the sweeter the success will taste.

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

Untold Indexes index the index behind the index and then supply the contents

Arsenal history takes the official version, tears it up and starts again.

Making the Arsenal is, well, just so different from everything else in the history of history that really words fail most people who have ever read it.

Supporting Arsenal in the land of cricket

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

By Eibaad Ahmed Butt

Arsenal; a team that excites me to my very core, a team that has defined the word passion to me, a team that made football more than a sport to me.

Now; I live in Asia (Pakistan) and there isn’t much of a craze for football, as cricket is our national game and is loved and played every day. It seems a farfetched idea if someone would have said that I would grow up and start sporting and loving a football team more than anything else in the world.

I am a young guy nearing my thirties and my allegiance to Arsenal doesn’t go as far as for some readers of this site. But nonetheless it is by no way any less than yours that I can guarantee. I have never been to The Highbury nor the Emirates, I have been only able to watch my team play on TV but still it’s a pleasure like none other, considering that due to the time difference usually the matches are very late at night sometimes around midnight; it sure has some problems, as I have to go to office the next day.

I have never written before, but lately I just got tired of reading everything against Arsenal and I got to a point where I stopped reading as I couldn’t believe what I read about something I see every day and total opposite of my view. Then I got to know about Untold Arsenal, and finally I am at peace.

It’s not just football; all the sports have been commercialized and has became a sport for the rich; something to play with where they can show their supremacy by throwing cash around.

If you look into history it was always about pride and devotion, it was about being the best not buying the best. It used to be considered the biggest offence if a player from rival club was bought, it was considered to be a crime if someone was approached from some other team. I know my ideas are idealistic but…

As far as Wenger is concerned well I wouldn’t change him for another manager in the world, and as for Arsenal I would change them for any other team, even FC Barcelona.

I only started to watch Arsenal while under Wenger so I can’t compare much with the previous greats, but I think there is no need to. What he has done, and what he is doing, and what he will do in the future is a whole different ball game.

For all the “Glory Hunters” “the Arsenal Haters”, the “AAA”, I have just one thing to say: if trophies is all that matters to you, then please by all means go and support teams like, ManU, Chelsea, ManC, Real Madrid, etc etc. We don’t need you.

——————-

If you are a supporter of Arsenal from outside the UK then you will probably enjoy the companionship and conversation that can be gained from Arsenal Worldwide. You can find us here.

Untold Indexes index the index behind the index and then supply the contents

Arsenal history takes the official version, tears it up and starts again.

Making the Arsenal is, well, just so different from everything else in the history of history that really words fail most people who have ever read it.

An Untold Letter to Father Christmas; love, hate, laugh, cry, and the truth about the AAA.

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

Dear Father Christmas,

We think we have been good boys all season long and now we want to ask you if you could bring our friends and ourselves some nice Christmas presents.

Of course we know you have already done so much for us this year. For example, when you arranged it so that nine of the eleven players for England in a single match all had managed to get Super Injunctions or Injunctions to stop us talking about their naughty little activities off the football pitch. Oh how we laughed.

Next year we look forward to seeing an entire England team and management all with injunctions to stop us talking about them. That will, we believe, be a major achievement. No one will talk about England. Yes!

In the league we know that Ryan Shawcross applied for an injunction, and the court refused, on the grounds that basically he was that sort of player. Thank you Santa, that was great.

And we also want to say thank you for Ian Holloway who really made us smile and laugh and laugh and smile. He’s running a team with no money, and a tiny stadium in which the chairman went bankrupt and didn’t resign his position, (he was still fit and proper), and then resigned for no reason, then wasn’t bankrupt, and where another director (the chair’s father) is a convicted rapist, but is also a fit and proper person. And still he refuses to play rotational fouling and rotational time wasting. He makes his team play football. Good on yer mate, and an extra Xmas pie from the man with the big white beard for Mr H. please.

Better still you have given us a lot of laughs as we read the chit-chat of the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal (who are currently saying that they want 25 new shining players). They claimed all the season ticket holders had left and this season the stadium would be empty. Oh how we laughed.

We also know that last year the AAA wrote pleading letters to you saying that new players all have to be world class. No younger players any more. They wrote to you asking for big names and big price tags, old and experienced because they claimed our old toy players are all bad, no good, just rubbish and that Cesc would leave in 2010.

But you, wonderful Father Christmas, brought us a brand new Nasri to replace the prototype Nasri, and he’s as good as it gets. And you gave us Baby Jack, who gets better every game. And to round it all Baby jack came second in the kiddie of the year competition for the whole universe – although that’s not good enough for the AAA. They want a big name to shut up that big prick from United and that fat twat who supports Chelsea and eats McDonald’s (if you’ll excuse my patois Father C).

And oh how we laughed when you gave us Chamakh and the AAA told us Chamakh was no good because he came on a free, because good players cost £££££££, but you brought him to us, and he’s wonderful. Thank you.

But now we have to confess something Father C. Last weekend we sneaked up to your igloo at the North Pole – just past where the map ends – and we plugged a kettle into your wind farm turbine, and used the steam to open some of the letters you have been sent this year. And now we know what the AAA are asking for, for 2011.

They want a Schwarzer in goal to start with because they can see that so many people are still so angry about us not getting him in the summer he must be world class. And there’s one letter saying why don’t you bring us Given also? After all sitting on the bench at Manchester City must be a sign of being world class. (Sorry Santa, we burned that one in the little fire we lit to keep us warm).

Another letter – a rather sad and sorry one we think – said could you also give us Ferdinand and Vidic? They must be much better than what we have now and it would give us a lot of bragging rights. An could you also add Mertesacker. And while you are at it just give us also Puyol. And just give us Melo in midfield. He is supposed to be world class and who will cost a fortune but that shouldn’t be a problem for you. And Melo and we want him now. We will change them all just for one Melo toy.

Oh the screaming cries of the little ones as they beg you, Father Christmas! How do you stand it?

(And also give us Van Bommel and Dejongh because we want to see some good kicking – sorry that was in a letter that got stuck to the one about Melo, and it got eaten by a polar bear that Billy the Dog had a fight with).

And there were more and more letters from them – but as we looked (and I know we shouldn’t but Billy insisted), we found something odd. Because although they were all signed by a different person, they were all in the same handwriting. 600 letters a day, all written by the same demented child! Oh Father Christmas! What will you do?

“Could you also bring us Messi and Ronaldo,” he wrote in one letter. Oh and Torres he said in another. Oh no wait just give us Villa in a third. Oh no he is too small, chimed the sad little boy in a third. And give us Abramovic. Yeah that one will do nicely. Oh, on second thought: just give them all! And please give us another Father Christmas since you don’t seem to be up to it any more. We know that you can print your own money as much as you want so just get your dwarfs out there and let them start printing more money so you can buy us the toys we want.”

And here’s one we really liked (but it got eaten by our husky that Billy was training for the Manchester to London uphill ski championship) so I can’t show you the original. “And if you think we are naughty boys, well we are not completely bad. And we even will prove it to you. We are thinking of giving our old toys to that boy down the road. The one that cried his eyes out when we won at the Lane in the Carling cup. We think he would be happy with our old toys. He would have been happy in the past, that is for sure. And we want you to punish some people for being silly too. We’d like you to punish every player who is not that kind of player, and make them sit on a bench in the park until the player that they maimed comes back to play again.”

What a funny little boy he is!

But anyway Mr Claus, back to us, and what we (Walter and Tony) want. Here’s a very special request. We want you to cook in oil all of Fifa for being corrupt, and all of the FA for being so stupid that they didn’t realise Fifa was corrupt and so put in a bid which they (sorry, Father Christmas, I can hardly write this I am laughing so much)… which they really thought they would win!!!!! But really Father Christmas, on that one we have to say thank you for making us laugh and laugh until we were taken away by the stewards. Oh the nativity! Oh the stupidity! To think that England could put in a bid that would win! (Actually we think the whole thing was made up by the little boy who writes all the AAA letters, and that the FA didn’t put in a bid at all. After all, no one could be that stupid. Could they?)

Oh and while we are at it, can you give something very funny and painful to Mr Sepp “There is no systematic corruption in Fifa” Blatter. Some sort of nasty irritating skin disease perhaps? Or a cactus that looks like a bowl of petunias which sits in his toilet and spikes him when he goes to the loo, but he never knows what it is so he has to go to the doctor who sends him to a hospital where he is put down. Something like that.

Now what else? Oh yes – thank you for your punishment of Barca. When they got the “Unpaid Team of the Year” away in June we were so pleased for them.

And thank you for Graham Taylor, who actually seems to be a rather loveable old rogue these days and says one or two interesting things occasionally. He’s ok, but this year, could you please somehow get rid of Robbie Savage? OK, let him play for Derby, but on radio? Although maybe you put him there just to torment the other prat they have on 606. You will have your little game!

And thank you to for Frank Lampard. “Nobody can stand here and tell me Germany were a lot better than us.” Oh you couldn’t make it up – you really are pulling the strings aren’t you? Like Shearer saying that no one knows much about Hatem Ben Arfa. Well yes, these funny foreigners who play in strange alien places like France, and win the Kent Junior Challenge Cup (or the French League). Difficult to keep track of. Thanks Santa. That was a good one. Shame the old prat (Shearer that is) didn’t get the sack, but you can’t have it all.

Thank you also Father X for John Terry and his family of thieves and drug dealers, and for Wayne Rooney’s wallet and its relationship with the England fans and the Man IOU fans. They show us just what football is like in far-flung corners of the galaxy – and yes we need to be reminded.

And finally Father Christmas, some very personal thanks and wishes. From Walter, thank you for supplying tickets for the Benelux Supporters Club, so we can watch our beloved team. And next year, please can we have more, because our membership is growing, and each game we come to we are disappointing more and more people who want to get to the shrine.

From Tony: thank you thank you Father Christmas, for setting it up so I could have a meeting with Ivan Gazidis, and for him receiving the ideas about celebrating Arsenal’s history so positively. And in 2011, can we have our statue to Jack Humble please, and can Arsenal let me rewrite the Official Illustrated History of Arsenal without all those mistakes in.

With all our good wishes, and hopes for the new year

Walter Broeckx and Tony Attwood

Outside the UK – try Arsenal Worldwide

Arsenal Untold

Is Mr Usmanov about to takeover Arsenal?

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

By Tony Attwood

Predictions of Arsenal’s imminent downfall are always interesting, and 2010 gave us quite a few of them. The most amusing one, and the one that was talked about the most I guess, was the complete failure of the season ticket sales, and a half empty Ems for this season.

That story started a year ago, with the rumour that if you wanted a season ticket you could just phone up and get one. Then it went on to the summer with people jumping from position 50,000 on the waiting list to being able to get a ticket straight off.

The stadium is however sold out all the time, the waiting list is still 10 years, and I suspect Arsenal v Ipswich will sell out too – without any season tickets in place (its excluded from the Gold package).

We have also had quite a bit about shareholders taking over the club with comments such as, “There’s no multiple ownership at Arsenal – Usmanov will buy the lot, and we’ll be just like Man IOU.”

And it is true. Alisher Usmanov has been trying to buy shares to catch up with Stan Kronke and then… well then what? I am not quite sure that anything follows from that.

Bloomberg, the financial thingy that knows a lot about money quoted Mr Usmanov as saying that “Today, we have 27%; our objective is to bring that up to a blocking stake of 29.9%,”

As I said, Mr Usmanov has been buying, and his known willingness to buy has taken the price of Arsenal shares even higher than the price they were at before. In fact this year shares are 20% or more higher that last Christmas. But despite his offer to buy and his obvious access to the money, Mr Usmanov has still not got anywhere near the 29.9% he says he wants. According to the record book he has grown his share portfolio by under one tenth of one percent since he started trying to buy – even when offering way over the odds. Which means he is stuck not even on 27% but actually on 26.9%.

However here’s the oddity. The shares of the Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith which are just under 16% of the show, are still on sale – and no one wants to buy. The sale of those shares was another great story that the AAA circulated for a while. Lady Nina’s shares were going to be bought by someone from China, and then Aliko Dangote of Nigeria, but after a while he said, “not me mate”, and it all went quiet again. As far as I know, no one has bought any of the shares.

We didn’t actually get told that an Al Qaeda war-lord was going for the shares, but that rumour is probably next on the list. Come to think of it, we could start the story and see if the AAA pick it up.

The point is still the point I tried to make at the time. With all those shares you get nothing. No dividend, no seat on the board, not even a silver membership. What’s the point? In fact, having now sat in the director’s section of the stand (see the tiny picture of me in the final shot of the Arsenal Til I Die event) I’ve got further up the hierarchy than whoever does buy the shares.

Stan Kroenke (now an executive director of the club) still has 29.999999% or something like that. Danny Fiszman, has 16% stake and seems never to want to sell anything to Mr Usmanov. According to the Guardian he is “believed to be behind moves that have frustrated Usmanov’s attempts to gain boardroom representation.”

So you are asking, (if not currently frozen to death – if you are in western Europe that is) why does Mr Usmanov not buy the Bracewell-Smith bundle of goodiese and get 43% of the company?

Because he would then have to bid for all the shares. No problem there, except that it is 99.999999999999% certain that he would not get the 50.01% he needs. At that point he then has to go back down to the 29.9% stake – which means he is then left with all the Bracewell Smith shares to get rid of.

So at this point he will have lost a few million pounds in the cost of the bidding, and have £100m worth of shares that he is not allowed to keep. The chances are he would not be able to sell them (if there was someone wanting them they would be buying them from Lady N), so what he then has is an investment of £100m with no value, no income and no nothing, and which he can only redeem by reducing the price of the shares for a sale.

That would not only lose him money in itself, but would instantly devalue all the other shares he holds, and which he has been paying a premium price for.

It is in effect a non-starter of a story. Ownership of Arsenal stays where it is.

Arsenal Untold

Who was the greatest Arsenal visionary? You might be surprised to find out.

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

by Tony Attwood

Who made Arsenal the club of world-wide renown and stature that we now have the privilege to watch? Who was the visionary who transformed us from being an ordinary club into being one of the great clubs?

Of course many answers are possible, but one, which I often hear, is open to question.

That one is Herbert Chapman. Of course I am not saying he did not do brilliant things for Arsenal. He won us our first trophies, and set up the team which dominated the 30s, plus the traditions that gave us medals after the second world war.

Off the pitch Chapman is credited with much – from getting Gillespie Road underground changed to Arsenal, to changing the team’s colours to incorporate the white sleeves. From changing the team formation to the M-W approach to changing the club name from The Arsenal to Arsenal. From introducing shirt numbers to playing under floodlights.

Of course whether he did actually do all these things or not is irrelevant in the sense that his real achievement was the cup and league titles, but for those of us interested in such things, in many of these issues of historical detail there is doubt.

He may well have forwarded a request for the local underground station to be renamed. But this was hardly big news. By the 1930s six of the Picadilly Line stations had been renamed – some (like Oakwood) within a year of being opened, some (like Kings Cross) more than once. Indeed some stations on other lines (Charing Cross and Archway for example) were renamed four times before things settled down.

In other words changing a station’s name was no big deal – and for it to be seen as a Chapman masterstroke is probably over playing the issue. I suspect he did an interview for the Standard on the topic, nothing more.

As for the red sleeves, there is a suspicion that this was a Norris thing – since the new colours were the same as Fulham had when he took over that club in 1903.

The MW formation was Chapman’s, I believe, but the changing of the club’s name to Arsenal (from The Arsenal) was certainly not – although that most unreliable of documents (Arsenal: The Official History) makes this claim for Chapman. In fact the name was changed in 1914 – long before Chapman came along.

On shirt numbers Arsenal did play on 25 August 1928 against The Wednesday with numbers on their backs, but then so did Chelsea apparently, on the same day against Swansea. And as for floodlights, there were experiments with gas lighting of grounds as early as 1910. So over much of this detail I have my doubts.

But like I say, it is all a bit trivial compared to the results.

However I would like to nominate one other person who did make two huge decisions, without which we would not have a club at all – or at least not a club that anyone outside of the local area would ever have heard of.

The man in question is Jack Humble. He was there at the start of the Dial Square club, along with several others. But what makes him stand out is two things.

First he proposed that we became a professional team, when no other team in the south was professional, and at a time when Arsenal did not have a league to play in. This was a huge step forward for Arsenal, in an era when London and Kent were totally amateur in footballing matters. Indeed some of the Arsenal committee of the time left the club on this issue, and went off to form a new amateur club of their own: Royal Ordnance Factories.

Without professionalism Arsenal would today be where Royal Ordnance Factories FC are today – a tiny byline in the history of 19th century football.

Second, when Arsenal went into liquidation in 1910 Jack Humble stayed with the club (the one other survivor from the original Dial Square FC resigned at this point). Jack had been a director from the start, and he stayed on the board until 1929 with Arsenal on the edge of their first ever trophy. He saw the need for financial reform, and when the plan was launched for moving Woolwich Arsenal to Highbury he accepted it totally as the only way to keep the club that he had helped create, going.

Jack Humble was thus truly our founding father, taking the club from Dial Square to Highbury, and into the Chapman era.

And yet he is seemingly forgotten by the club and the fans. There’s no pictures, no statue, no nothing. There isn’t even one of those entrances for club level members named after him. There’s a Royal Oak, and a Dial Square, not to mention a Woolwich Arsenal – but where’s Jack Humble?

I am slowly putting together a campaign to have Jack Humble instated as the founding father of Arsenal FC in time for the 125th anniversary of the founding of the club next year. If you would like to read more about the early work of this man there’s an article on the Woolwich Arsenal site which gives a lot more detail.

I’ll bring more thoughts on the 125th birthday in the near future.

Arsenal’s History

Arsenal in 1910

Arsenal today, tomorrow

Snooping Around Blue Sky Blogs

Untold Arsenal – where it is always warm

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

Snooping Around Blue Sky Blogs

By Sammy The Snake

My father’s most favorite comment while I was growing up was “money doesn’t grow on trees”. As my childhood was spent mostly on and around trees, this was quite obvious for me, but that didn’t discourage the old man from saying it over and over again. As I shed my skin through the years, I heard that humans too keep repeating the same advice to their children, up to a limit that a latest UN poll suggests that this is the one universal parental advice through the ages and across races and species.

I come from a jungle not too far away from a land where money in fact erupts from the ground. This place has nothing but sand and oil, and sometimes gas. It’s ruled like it’s the Middle Ages (this to be discussed on another occasion for now, perhaps after my release from the local detention unit).

Anyhoo, oil is sold in really large buckets called tankers and shipped off to all parts of the world. In return, the rulers get gazillions of hard currency, ready to spend like a 5 year old on X’Mas morning. When everyone is tired of palaces, private jets, gold-plated super cars, and the like, they turn to prestigious hobbies. Buying a football club was the premier choice until it was trumped by staging your very own World Cup at 6PM on the 2^nd of December 2010, but don’t get me started on that one…

Which brings me to my topic of the day, Man-Sea-Of-Flops! Or was it Man-Sea-Of-Overpaid-Players? How are they coping with expectations following the promises made when the new owners/rulers took over? How are they handling the Tevez antics?

My magic Google ball shows me mancityblog.com, “the biggest club in Manchester” they claim (I already like this place!). What a nice corporate looking blog! Its neat and organized appearance makes me think this place is well managed, perhaps by the club itself. The writer is pro-Mancini, and he writes with a bit of humor, which is nice to see.

The articles are your usual stuff, generating only a couple of comments at best. As it had been suggested that some blogs may get the most comments on Facebook, I checked their page and found that assumption to be incorrect. In fact, they only have 69 Facebook “Likes”! Our very own Untold Arsenal has 362 such friends.

“Arsenal Exchange” is an article on this blog that grabs my attention. The blogger went to Arsenal-Fulham game to “Sit back and observe the soak up the atmosphere of a rival Club”. I’m starting to think this guy is a snake! Here’s a snippet:

“I found the Emirates a fantastic stadium… I found the game a good one to watch although while watching some fine football for me it of coursed lacked the edge of a City match as the feelings are not there… atmosphere was good non aggressive like what you see at the swamp… I found the Arsenal fans to be a good bunch of lads who were in fairness talking City up…”

I love you too, man! What a genuinely nice guy. Yes, we are a good bunch of lads. I just wish your English writing skills were a bit better, you know, especially for someone writing a blog. Moving on…

Totalmanchesterblog is decorated with a huge ManC emblem, too big to let you see anything else around here. Six articles in total, zero comments for all of them, no Facebook or other social networking links. A bit spooky! Again, I can only see honesty:

“Manchester City will be desperate to start winning some trophies this season, now they are the world’s richest club. It’s fair to say that manager Roberto Mancini will be under a bit of pressure from owner Sheikh Mansour and his wallet carriers. The club haven’t won a trophy since lifting the 1976 League Cup but this is definitely the best chance they’ll ever have.”

I’ve always said “we” when referring to Arsenal as I think of myself as part of the team, so I find it odd that a blogger would say “they” when talking about his team.

Another genuine headline is “Will transfer gossip allow City players to concentrate on football?”, which is a fair question if you ask me. Other articles show “hope” for silverware, but little “expectation”. I guess you can’t expect everything, even if money does grow on trees in your neck of the woods!

Interestingly, there was once a ManC blog called Bitter & Blue, but they closed shop on 5^th of Feb 2010. It appears as if they have their own version of our AAA, but had no audience, and hence went bust. Lesson to be learnt for Gooners? Perhaps.

Finally, I visit ManCity Issues, and I think I’ve seen too much light blue for one day! The hit-counter shows 399,171 but there are no or little comments here too. Can anyone explain for me if there are proper schools in the greater Manchester area? These guys obviously visit the site, and they must have opinions, but they probably just can’t write!

As my next task, I shall write a letter to Sheikh Mansour to ask him to set aside a few money trees to open a few elementary schools for poor Manchester residents, I hope their next generations can write their opinions about their clubs.

The snow’s a b!tch, ain’t it? What a total waste of a Saturday without Arsenal!

Sammy The Snake

Making the Arsenal (not a flake of snow in the whole story)

Just how long has this hatred of Arsenal been going on?

by Tony Attwood

It is hard to find many people in football who don’t have a bad word to say about Arsène Wenger, and Arsenal FC.

In the current era it seemed to start with the journalists who tried to run the original paedophile story when Arsène Wenger first arrived (and who now conveniently forget they were part of the nauseating show as they condemn the fans for singing the song that arose from their actions outside Highbury).

The abuse and distaste then moved on to accusations of footballing incompetence from the anti-Arsenal Mafia who now seemingly ally themselves to these journalists forever saying that Arsenal are not up to it. You only have to go back to the Observer report after the Unbeaten Season to see how it looks – despite the most staggering achievement in modern football the paper ran a wholly negative piece about Arsenal, pointing out that it was wrong to call a season in which a club had only won the league an “Unbeaten” season. Churlish or what?

And constantly in the background we have the fans of Tottenham, still commenting on Arsenal as the club who stole a place in the first division from Tottenham nearly a century ago. And they do this not in terms of historical debate but to symbolise Arsenal, as they see the club. “Same old Arsenal, always cheating.”

But why us? Why do the journalists and broadcasters turn on Arsenal? Why does Arsenal, uniquely among top football clubs, have such a vociferous body of people who claim to be supporters while endlessly attacking the manager and the entire approach of the club? Of course other clubs get abuse both from their own supporters and from the media, but nowhere else do the two combine so vociferously and so regularly to put a club down. Why does it happen, and why does it happen to us?

During the abortive trip to London for the Stoke game (and the return) we got to debating this, (when not talking about the origins of the Italian language, as I mentioned yesterday) and for once actually came up with a few interesting conclusions. Here’s how we see it.

The earliest anti-Arsenal commentaries came in the Woolwich Arsenal days when Newcastle United directors called a visit to the Arsenal, “our trip to hell”, on account of the journey. Teams travelled to games by train in those days, and with most clubs in stadia in the city centres near the railway station, it was but a short horse drawn bus ride from the station to the ground in most cases.

But although the clubs could all get to London by train, the final part of the journey to Woolwich involved crossing London by horse drawn bus or tram (or later the Underground) and then taking the long and tedious tram ride to Woolwich, followed by another long horse drawn bus to Plumstead. (The ferry at Woolwich did not operate in those days – despite the statements to the contrary in the Official History of the club that comes out each year).

That the phrase “trip to hell” stuck is as much an issue of intense northern bias and distrust of southerners as anything else. But there was more. Woolwich Arsenal was also disliked because it was in effect a Scottish club playing in the English league. There were many Scottish players in England but perhaps none more than at Woolwich Arsenal where many players left Scotland to find work at the munitions factory, and then employment in the club, if they could get taken on.

Third, Woolwich Arsenal never won a trophy, and ended their time in Kent bottom of the league and playing in front of crowds of 3000. Yet their image of being an important club never faded, thanks both to their background and the London press. This, remember, was an era where the UK ran a global Empire, and when half the world’s trade went through the ports of London. The Empire was built on coal, enterprise and military might – and nothing symbolised the latter more than the great munitions factories of Woolwich Arsenal. Indeed it is hard to conceive of the scale of the factories – over 25000 were employed there at the time of the Boer War, and these people had jobs vital to the Empire.

As such the name “Woolwich Arsenal” was instantly recognised in a way that “Everton” or “Aston Villa” or “Preston North End” was not. The club had come from Royal Arsenal (perhaps the only club with Royal in the name) and the image grew of a club that was almost an official part of the Empire. The team that were at the heart of the world. No wonder that Woolwich Arsenal named one end of the Manor Ground “Spion Kop”.

And although not exactly in London, Woolwich was considered London’s “first professional club” – the club from the south that dared take on the pros of the north.

Through these connections and associations, Woolwich Arsenal found favour in the London press – not least because George Allison was (from 1910) the programme editor for the club and also the reporter who covered home games at the club for six different London papers (each report written in a different style). He was a director of the club from 1919.

Throughout his time as supporter, historian, director and ultimately manager of the club Allison was a brilliant publicist – and he built the “Arsenal – the unique innovators” brand remorselessly (although many of stories were simply made up). His assertion, for example, that the FA ordered amateur teams not to play Woolwich Arsenal when the club turned pro (another story reported in the Official History) has been shown to be quite untrue by an analysis on the Arsenal History site of the games Arsenal played in the two years between becoming a pro team and joining the Football League. And yet it gave a feeling of Arsenal standing up against the hidebound administrators of the game – Arsenal always pushing forwards, bringing football to the masses.

Thus Allison made sure Arsenal got publicity beyond the norm for other mid-table teams, and helped build up the mystique of the club – something that intensely annoyed northern teams who won the league and cup – which Arsenal singularly failed to do before the last years of Chapman’s reign.

As time went by this resentment seeped into London, and the battles of 1919 show just how intense the anti-Arsenal feeling had become since then. You’ll know the story: the league was being expanded after the war, and the issue to be debated was who would be in the first division, and who in the second. Tottenham had ended up in 1915 bottom of the first, Arsenal finished fifth in the second. Arsenal went up, and Tottenham down, and they have been screaming “fix” ever since.

That the press still run this version is a further example of anti-Arsenal bias. Promotions and relegations were often sorted out by club votes – as Tottenham well knew, having secured a place in the League after coming seventh in the Southern League the season before. Clapton Orient had got elected into the Football League after coming near the bottom of the second division of the Southern League. Bradford City and Chelsea got elected without having a team and, in Chelsea’s case, without having a ground.

But for 1919 there was more – for Liverpool and Manchester United had been found guilty of match fixing to such a level that the whole league table was a fake. And this is where the hatred of Arsenal became cemented. Match fixing was so widespread at the time that everyone was ready to ignore it – except Henry Norris at Arsenal who threatened to split the league, or seek a judicial review, if the matter were not resolved this time. Tottenham with its first division position at stake allied itself with the north. Indeed they, and other clubs, still try on the pathetic “Arsenal was the first franchise club” because we moved 15 miles – forgetting that most clubs moved around a lot at that time. Here’s one example: Millwall moved in the opposite direction across the Thames three years before Arsenal moved.

Thus the position was fixed – Lucky Arsenal, Arsenal always cheating, the cries continued even though many of those involved in carrying the message forward over the years had no idea of the origins.

The arrival of Arsène Wenger re-energised hostilities and the press threw everything at him which the fans of other clubs took up with a vengeance, to be joined by what has become known in some quarters as the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal (AAA) – this huge mob of blogs that snipe and criticise every day.

By why would the press attack Wenger so much rather than someone like the Tottenham manager, currently on bail and facing financial charges, or the Man U manager, for years refusing to speak to much of the media at all. Why don’t they turn on managers like Hughes or Allerdyce who have perfected the anti-football play of timewasting and rotational fouling?

The most obvious reason is because of the way Wenger turned the pedophile story back on them. As the club hierarchy told him not to go out to face the press, he walked out and dared them to mention the story (which would have allowed him to sue for slander). They shied away, and left with tails between legs – and they have been trying to get him ever since.

As for the AAA, in one way they have always been there. I have mentioned recently that I contributed a piece to the new Arsenal in the Community book, “Arsenal til I die”. My piece is about my father and my grandfather, and one part tells of how in the 1930s, with Arsenal in their pomp, supporters would shout abuse at players for not trying hard enough. One defeat and they were rubbish. I personally can remember sitting next to a “fan” at an away game in which Pat Jennings made a couple of errors, and having this “fan” screaming abuse at Jennings – not least for him being a Tottenham player.

That the volume of the AAA is much higher now is undoubtedly the result of technology. We can lose a match and the headlines are about Wenger once again shows his failure to (whatever is deemed the failure this week).

So, I guess, the AAA is just the latest in a long tradition of moaners, who see the cup not even as half empty but as drained to the bottom. And in this regard it is interesting to compare ourselves with Tottenham. Two league championships in their history, the last 50 years ago, but they don’t have nearly such a vigorous anti-Tottenham group as we have with the AAA. Instead they focus on re-writing the history of Arsenal’s promotion and their own embarrassing relegation, while ignoring their later sojourns into the second division. They issue celebratory DVDs of draws with us, while quietly putting aside an embarrassing 4-1 home defeat to our reserve team. They debate the ins and outs of a move to east London, and still call us Woolwich Arsenal for daring to move the same distance.

The AAA is a uniquely Arsenal experience. Personally I could do without it, but there is one relief. Within home and away games they have very little influence. Both at the Ems and away, the crowd is positive. Yes we are chastened by a home defeat – but the noise, the pro-Wenger feeling, the positiveness towards the players, is terrific.

And in a sense I wonder if the press, still seeking revenge for being made to look such idiots when Wenger first arrived, because every time the Man U and Aston V crowd chant their disgusting chant it is a reminder that they got it from the press. And the AAA with their endless negativity, are they not helping the cause inside the stadium where for once we can escape their attitude problems?

I’m not actually going to say thank you to them, for making the stadium such a good experience, but it is the closest I can get to a positive thought with them in mind.

Arsenal history

Untold Arsenal

Football in the cold, will it ever change?

Untold Arsenal – where it is always warm

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

By Walter Broeckx

I can only remember one game before that was postponed in the Emirates and this was also with some snow but even more with the prospect of the police of having a difficult evening with a lot of travelling fans that could meet each other in various stations.

So I can imagine the frustration from some fans who found out about it being already on their way to the stadium since I have been through this myself. (Happened to me yesterday Walter – we had already gone 80km or more when the word came through – Tony). But when I looked at the pitch and the snow falling down it was obvious that we wouldn’t and couldn’t see any football in those circumstances.

And now I am at it I was thinking of how many leagues actually play in the winter and how many have a summer league. I was wondering if I could find some general consensus in Europe to see which time is the best to play football: in the winter or in the summer?

So I went on searching on the internet to see how things are arranged in Europe during this period of the year. And in my little survey I took 51 countries in consideration. I left out San Marino and Liechtenstein and I really hope the huge numbers of readers of Untold in those countries don’t mind.

So from these 51 countries there are 12 countries that play their league in the summer. Mostly countries from the north of Europe and Russia is also amongst them. Playing at -50°C in Siberia is not someone would look forward to. But Ireland has followed this route of having a summer league, although their northern neighbours (N Ireland) stick with the UK model.

And then we find 15 countries who have a winter competition with no break. England is among them and the rest of the leagues in the UK are. They just keep on playing without any real interruption apart from sometimes when Christmas or New Years day is situated in the weekend.

And then you have 5 countries who play in the winter but who have a mini break of maximum one month. This is the case in my own country and in Holland and also in France, just to name a few.

The biggest group however are the one that have a winter competition but who have a break of 2 or 3 months during the winter. This group has 19 countries. There competition runs from July till may but they just skip the winter months.

When the word summer league comes above water (or should I say snow) we can hear as the most heard reaction: Football is a winter sport and it always has been. Well from my survey I can learn that football is only played in the heart of the winter by some 15 countries of the 51 in total. And in fact 31 don’t play in the winter at all. This is more than the double of the hard winter boys.

And in those 15 “hard winter boys-leagues” you have some countries where they hardly understand the word winter as in countries like Spain and Greece there hardly is any winter cold.

So looking at it in general in countries where there is a colder climate in the winter, most of the countries prefer to stop their league.

So this could raise the question: shouldn’t we all switch to some kind of summer football league? And apart from the it’s a tradition I was wondering are there any other benefits from playing in subzero temperatures? At first sight I only see negative things: greater chance of muscle injuries. It is very cold for the supporters and maybe it doesn’t matter when you are 20 years old but I can tell you that when nearing the 50 year mark I don’t find it that amusing anymore to sit in the freezing cold. One can also add to this that travelling in those conditions is not safe at all.

So apart from the “tradition” and “it has always been like that” I cannot see much benefit from playing in the winter.

But I could imagine some benefits from playing the league from February till November. Most of the games would be played in conumer friendly temperatures. Tell me honest when you like going to the stadium most? With -5°C or in the sunshine when it is 20°C? I know what I like most.

In which temperature would you think you can see the best football? On a snowy pitch or an a perfect pitch in the summer? I think we all know the answer. How many times would you travel to the ground only to find you can turn back because the game had to be cancelled in the summertime? Not many times I think.

To be honest when I look at it, I can only see more advantages when you play a summer league. But for those who hold on to the tradition I don’t think we will see this happening in the very near future. The way football is moving can be more compared to the speed of a turtle than the speed of a rabbit.

But do keep in mind that since this season we will see the start of the new Ladies league which will be played in the summer. And keep in mind the year 2022. In that year we will have the World cup in Qatar and after having handed the world cup to this country Fifa has suddenly realized that in the summer it is way too hot in Qatar to play football. And they are talking about holding the world cup in January as the temperatures are much lower then. A bit late to think of this but I guess the people in charge of Fifa will have had their reasons to give it to Qatar. Most of the reason will have started with the letter D and ended on ollar.

But this would have as a result that for a lot of countries the world cup will come in the middle of their season. And so the league will have to be stopped. Or… some people might come up with the idea of doing a ladies trick: making the league a summer league. And to be honest about it: I wouldn’t mind. It’s much nicer to stand outside the Auld Triangle (I really think he should give us a free drink next time around – don’t you think Tony?) with a drink in your hand in the warmth of the sunshine instead of being frozen to the bone as we had on a few occasions.

Making the Arsenal (not a flake of snow in the whole story)

Arsenal Stoke: the Chinese perspective; the Swiss view

By Billy “The Dog” McGraw

Watching Stoke City

is rather like dancing the night

with a girl with no rhythm

Only to wake up with a hangover and find

She won the dance competition.

Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher, Zen Tse Province, 537 BC

It has been a matter of some debate among academics how Lao Tzu, perhaps the greatest of all the Chinese philosophers, the author of the “The Way”, would write about Stoke City FC. And why.

Indeed it was not until Alfie Einstein, physicist, lover, Arsenal supporter, watchmaker, hedgehog, groundsman at Leyton Orient and first poke in the Swiss 1936 Olympic underhill ski bobbing XI, wrote his seminal paper, “If you think time only goes in one direction, then you are facing the wrong way,” that the truth of the matter was revealed.

For as Einstein pointed out time not only travels at different rates depending on the speed of travel of the clock maker across the universe, but like the other three dimensions it can go this way and that. And quite possibly both at once.

But why, philosophers and football analysits have asked ever since, pick on Stoke?

In “The Eternal Vision and The Eternal Light” Tsu Lyn wrote, “Transmorph time in a game, and the game is won, the game is lost. The game is all, the game is not,” and of course we have all been agreeing ever since.

For many viewers it was the original Wimbledon, Cup winners over Little Liverpool (no championships for 21 years) who devised Anti-Football – kicking the ball long up the field towards the corner flag in the hope of muscling it back. It was Wimbledon (and not Stoke) who would always kick the ball out for a thrown in, in the sure knowledge that they would be able to elbow the opposition out of the way to regain possession. It was Wimbledon who had crowds so low that the notion of negative numbers had to be introduced to count them.

Of course these days Wimbledon has cleverly re-invented itself, by putting the blame on MK Dons for stealing the club – but the truth is that the original Wimbledon was not a club worth stealing, they were a club worth wrapping up in the paper left over when you open a sticky toffee pudding, and jettisoning into the darker regions of Ursa Minor.

This re-writing of the past – again noted by Lao Tzu when wrote so metaphorically,

Girl with no rhythm

I awaken with a hangover again

And find you are really Wimbledon in disguise.

Do it again

And I’ll smash your bleedin face in

who thus drew the attention of how football supporters can re-write history as if the new version was true.

Tottenham, (50 years since winning the League) are masters of this. Having cheated their way into the Football League by coming a brilliant 7th in the Southern League (QPR, the winners, were so certain that they were going up into the Football League they brought in new players, ordered a new kit, and resigned from the Southern League, only to find the horrific Totties doing their stuff), Tottenham came a resounding bottom of the 1st Division of the League a few years later.

They then claimed that they shouldn’t go down, because the League was being expanded and they should be rewarded for their absolute and total failure. When Arsenal were voted up to the first division (following expansion) then went berserk and again re-wrote history. (Quite often including a parrot in the story for reasons that will not become clear at this time).

So it goes – time forwards, time backwards. All that is constant is the eternal downwards spiral of the Totties and the Stokies (if I may be so bold).

What of Stoke?

Stoke Ramblers was formed in 1863 by the uppity Chaterhouse School and the downward spiral of North Staffs Railway Works playing 15 a side football at the Victoria Cricket Club (an interesting game, and a style that they have kept to this day).

Little has changed which is why today you will see the ref counting the players before the match starts. Time wasting and leg breaking are their key activities.

The Stoke team expected for today’s game.

In 1997 Stoke Towel (as they were renamed) move to the 28,000 all-standing Towel Stadium, after 119 years at the God-What-A-Mess Ground, the longest time spent at a rubbish pit by any team in Britain. They lost 7–0 at home to Birmingham City – a feat that was so extraordinary that Lao Tzu wrote a poem “It is beyond the realms of possibility and normality in our time zone for Brummies to score more than one” in celebration of the event.

Chris Kamara, Alan Durban, and Brian Little all had a go, each lasting about three weeks in the job before being sacked and replaced by Gary Megson, who lasted four days. Iceland then bought the club (“it is as much of a frozen wasteland as you can find in the UK – right up our street” said Stig Stiggissonson). Gudjon Thordarson became manager and Stoke won the Autoglass Trophy.

Thus the history, and the future, the past and tomorrow, the beginning and the end. Throw in the Towel.

Arsenal today…

Szschschzchsnycsch

Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Erwin Schrödinger’s cat, Heisenberg

Gustav Ludwig Hertz, Richard Feynman, Paul Dirac

Niels Bohr, Do you know, Any other physicists?

I am not sure Cesc is ready to start, nor if Theo is either. A worry about the defence though. Heisenburg has looked very uncertain to me (uncertain, Heisenberg, geddit? oh well, you did the wrong subjects at school), and the inclusion of a cat who may, or may not be all there, is frankly, worrying.

I’ve put Hertz in midfield to keep up the rhythmn, Feynman to do the unexpected, and Dirac to transmit a sense of total uncertainty.

Do you realise my journey to Arsenal is 100 miles each way, the snow is 33 meters deep and the temperature has just dipped below absolute zero?

What’s more there is just a chance that a photo of all the authors of the new Arsenal Til I Die book might actually be appearing somewhere soon. And we all know who wrote the centre spread for that little number don’t we?

Arsenal History (we got a bit in the Islington Gazette this week).

Making the Arsenal (the third edition is now in stock and all orders were sent out yesterday)

RefWatch – Arsenal v Stoke City (18/12/2010 15:00)

RefWatch – Arsenal v Stoke City (18/12/2010 15:00)

By DogFace

Referee: Lee Mason
Assistant 1: Mick McDonough
Assistant 2: Patrick Keane
4th Official: Keith Stroud

Good morning stat-fans and welcome to what is a rather threadbare RefWatch. The reason being that we have on our hands a couple of new(ish) boys – the up’n’comers and movers’n’shakers in the ‘Select Group’ in the PGMOL… ones to keep an eye on – know what I mean? Something tells me that these lads are going to be made of the ‘right stuff’ to fit into the mould of what a EPL referee should be i.e. coupon busters and generally inconsistent randomisers of form. Lee Mason has actually been around a while and has been introduced quite gently into his role – but what with the departure of Styles, Riley, Wiley and the imminent departure [no doubt] of Foy, Halsey, Walton and hopefully Dowd, who clocking on a bit and appear to be struggling for fitness, these are the guys who will be stepping up.

I would like to digress here to make, or at least argue, a point… there are currently only 16 referee’s in the ‘Select Group’ – this number seems shockingly low to me, if a team were to gain influence over 1 or 2 referees then, statistically speaking, the advantage gained in the competition would be all the higher because of it [the low number] i.e. 1 referee = 1/16^th or 6.25% of all matches – although this assumes that each referee will get the same amount of matches – which they don’t. It seems that referee like Mike Dean, Howard Webb, Mark Clattenburg, Phil Dowd and Martin Atkinson not only get more matches but are also chosen for the more ‘high profile’ games i.e. Sky matches and the games that involve the teams considered as ‘title contenders’.

So – it follows that if a team, a ‘title contending’ team, were to gain influence over one of these referees the actual % of influence on their chances of success would rise significantly – not only in the games that they played under that referee but also the games their competitors played under him. If I were a cynic I would look at my data for these referees and try to work out whom, out of the ‘title contenders’, is doing rather well… or bucking the trend in a positive manner; it would go a little something like this:

Mike Dean: Tottenham Hotspur
Howard Webb: Manchester United
Mark Clattenburg: Manchester City
Phil Dowd: Manchester City
Martin Atkinson: Chelsea

This is not only in terms of positive results for that team but also negative results against that teams rivals… there are also other referees, lower down the food chain, who have shown a positive influence against the handicap for these teams – and this worries me… it speaks of their ambition and would also explain [in my mind] the reasons for the dissolution of the ‘Top 4’ in recent seasons – add to this the financial fair play rules and the global depression hitting clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United and you have – well, you have what we see – a competition and/or brand that is losing its credibility among the fans of football – but, through its seeming unpredictability against the betting line (or handicap), gaining huge interest from the fans of gambling – particularly in massive underground markets in Asia.

I’ve tried searching for some kind of regulatory structure around the PGMOL and/or a system of meritocracy or ‘performance based’ selection – but this is either non-existent or totally void of transparency other than the results i.e. Howard Webb is considered the best referee… but we won’t tell you why!

This self regulatory nature of club/fan based ‘trust’ would be fine if the PGMOL were fit for purpose – unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that it is not and this ‘trust’ is breaking down so fast that no amount of censorship through initiatives such as the ‘Respect’ campaign can disguise the tacit agenda for corruption or paper over the gaping cracks in the systems integrity… not that the bookies or the ‘new wave’ of club ownership give much of a toss about the scarf-waving fans – the big money is in the global markets and media rights; and these markets have a firm foundation in gambling liquidity and the influx of mug money; with the globalisation of our sport, integrity, local community and club history mean nothing.

Let’s have a look at Lee Mason:

Full name: Lee S Mason
Date of birth: 29 October 1971 (1971-10-29) (age 39)
Place of birth: Bolton, Lancashire, England
EPL Referee Since: 2005/2006
EPL Games to date: 69

This’ll learn you Mason for giving us nowt!

Ahh… look at that picture – Lee tries desperately to protect his testicles when indulging in a bit of ‘creative obstruction’ while Stoke retaliate by upping their game and do a bit of the old ‘rotational fouling’ on him. Stoke lost this match 2-0 (26/12/2009) and hopefully Lee will cherish this memory and it will subconsciously influence his decision making process on Saturday!

Lee Mason has not been great for us, although this can partly be explained by the fact that he has only ever refereed Arsenal ‘away’ games – although only a small part as we have seen a higher than average number of uncharacteristic underperformances from Arsenal with him at the whistle. Most notably, during the 2009/2010 season, we lost 3-2 to Wigan Athletic (18/04/2010) and, before then, during the 2006/2007 season we were defeated 1-0 to Sheffield United (30/12/2006).

Two defeats wouldn’t be ‘that bad’, but it is if you consider our form under Lee Mason consists of only 5 games, consisting of 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses… that’s relegation form!

Therefore it is no surprise that Arsenal currently languish in 19th place in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for matches in the EPL), with an average of only 1.00 PPG. In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for matches in the EPL), Arsenal comes a lowly 13th with an average negative swing of -0.20.

Arsenal currently resides in 26th in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League, for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 2.80 BPM. In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League, for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 28th with an overall average of 3.50 FPB.

You can see from the graph above that Lee’s intolerance for Arsenal in the challenge is not consistent with that of our opposition and last season this flipped the other way (the Wigan Match) – although one would suspect that the actual fouls given against us (bookings or no) benefited Wigan in a physical game consisting of territory being gained through free kicks and set pieces.

Let’s move the statistics on now and see what effect Lee Mason has on Stoke City’s form:

Stoke City fair considerably better under the whistle of Lee Mason, having had 8 games consisting of 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. This seems on the generous side of ‘about right’. This normality continues when we see that Stoke City are currently in 10th (9 places above Arsenal) in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League, for matches in the EPL, with an average of 1.50 PPG. In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League, for matches in the EPL, Stoke City came in at 11st (2 places above Arsenal) with an average positive swing of 0.19.

Stoke City are currently in 18^th (8 places above Arsenal) in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League, for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 2.00 BPM. In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League, for matches in the EPL, Stoke City are 18th (10 places above Arsenal) with an overall average of 6.13 FPB.

So, overall, Stoke City can have absolutely no complaints with the appointment of Lee Mason for this match… although it seems that, of late, Lee has been clamping down a tad on Stoke in the challenge (possibly due to that hoof in the knackers he took) – and this is about the only good news we can gleam from his stats.

Our fourth official for the afternoon is one Keith Stroud… we have no pretty graphs for Keith as he’s only refereed 14 EPL matches including one match each for Stoke City and Arsenal – we won and Stoke drew – but our respective form is not really worthy of much more analysis than that.

Let’s have a look at our Rev Vs EPL Asian Handicap Swing graph for Lee Mason… just to make sure that there are no other interesting trends sailing under the radar there that may have an effect on our game (I’ve only included teams with enough data to count):

What’s interesting here to note is that both Arsenal and Stoke have near identical swing figures for the most recent seasons so, upon initial inspection; there are no clues there with regards to which side of the betting line to take. Aston Villa seems to have done quite well with him against the handicap… and oh look – there is a meteoric rise of Manchester City in his numbers from the 2008/2009 season onwards – this season they currently stand at an incredible +3 against the handicap – although the sample data is low, the trend so far seems clear.

And this is yet another in a long line of worries for me as we, along with the other ‘title contenders’, represent a clear and present danger to their [Manchester City’s] Premiership ambitions and avaricious lust for silverware.

So – in conclusion I would say that we, as fans, we can either face the facts here and attempt to claim our game back by calling for regulation and change to a system that is tailor made for corruption; the game has changed, globalisation is swamping us and what currently stands in terms of the self regulatory establishment is archaic and no longer up to the job – or we can internalise the issues relating to our underperformances, kick the cat and just blame it all on Wenger… I’ll leave it for you to decide where the more constructive path to enlightenment lies

Making the Arsenal: 3rd edition

Arsenal Til I Die

Untold’s untold, because it was, well, you know, untold

We are Arsenal because of our history, our style, our tradition

Losing the invincibles, who is to blame

by Walter Broeckx

People are sometimes comparing the invincibles with our current squad and then they mostly end up with saying that we are not as good and that they never will be as good as the invincibles. Well there is a big chance that the invincible-achievement will never be repeated ever in the EPL. So this is not a difficult statement to make.

And there are even some people who blame Wenger for letting the invincibles go away. Some of them even have made a song about it and wrote these words in it:

You sold away, great players then,
Well easy come and easy go,
success would end.

So is Wenger to blame? Let us try to find out and take a look at this squad and I will take the players that have played most of the games. And if we take the team we have the following players.

They were the invincibles:
Name Age Arrival Left Price
	X	Lehmann	34	2003	2007	£1.5M
	X	Lauren	27	2000	2005	£7.2M
	X	Campbell	29	2001	2005	Free
	X	Touré	23	2002	2009	£0.25M
	X	Cole	23	2000	2005	Youth system
	X	Ljungberg	27	1998	2006	£3M
	X	Vieira (C)	27	1996	2007	£3.5M
	X	Gilberto	27	2002	2006	£4.5M
	X	Pires	30	2000	2007	£6M
	X	Bergkamp	35	1995	2005	£7.5M
	X	Henry	26	1999	2007	£10.5M
		Edu	26	2001	2004	£6M
		Parlour	31	1989	2004	Youth system
		Cygan	30	2002	2006	£2M
		Wiltord	30	2000	2004	£13.3M

		Total age	425,00			£65,25M
		Average age	26,563

And if we take the average age of the players marked with an X, we get the players that started most games in the invincible year and their average age was 28 years old.

In the 2004-2005 season Edu (27 at that moment) and Wiltord (31) left us. As you can see they were not in the starting XI in the invincible year. The average age of the starting XI was 29 years old. We finished in 2^nd place some 12 points behind Chelsea. So that team that we had to keep at all cost was not that invincible anymore one year later. We lost 5 games in that season.

And let us move to the 2005-2006 season. At then end of that year that a lot of the invincible left us. And if we take that starting XI again they then had the average age of 30 years. And an overall average age of some 28,5 years. And to expose the fact that they grew too old: we finished in 4^th place. You know the year we beat Tottenham on the last day of the season to get the last CL place.

So people who blame Wenger for letting the invincibles go: Wenger was right. They were getting too old. They were going down the hill at a very high tempo. And if you look at their age this is very understandable. Or should Wenger have kept them to go even further down the league table.

And at that moment in time 2006 we were covered with debt for the Emirates. So not much money to buy players and not much money to pay high wages. So we had to build patiently. And this process is still going on for the moment.

In 2003-2004 we had our wonder year and our average age was 28 year of our starting XI and 26,5 years of our most used players. Just notice the fact that only 2 players in there were under 26 (Cole and Touré) and most of the starting players had an average age of 26-29 (6 of them) and this is the best time for most players. And then we had 3 older and very experienced players of +30.

And now we have in our squad that has been used most: 8 players under the age of 25, 7 between 25 and 29 and one +30 (Almunia). I tried to compare 15 to 16 and then one could say that in the invincible year we had 13% of our team -25, 47% in the age between 25-29 and 40% in the age group +30.

Now we have 50% under the age of 25, 43% in the age of 25-29 and 6% in the age group +30.

I have put this in a table to make it a bit more clearer:

INVINCIBLES CURRENT SQUAD

AGE GROUP	-25	25-29	+30	total	-25	25-29	+30	total
NUMBER	2	7	6	15	8	7	1	16
% of squad	13(18)	47(55)	40(27)	100	50	44	6	100

(is the % of the starting XI in the invincible year)

So we are nearing a situation that comes near to the invincible year when you look at the players who are in the right age category. But still we are a few % short in the best age category.

Another big difference is that we in those days had some very wise and old players we don’t have now for the moment.

But the other side of the coin is that we now have a group of very young players ready to step in the footsteps of the players that will be too old in a few seasons. So now we are building the foundations so we will not face another situation like with the invincible when we had to drop deep and had to put on 17 and 18 year old to carry is through this period. And you might call it failure: getting in the CL each year is in my eyes a big success in this period of transition.

We didn’t had this situation in 2004 and the two young players we had in those days turned out to be money greedy at the end of the day. So another example of the fact that we had almost no one ready, we couldn’t compete with the likes of Chelsea, United, Madrid to buy established players and had to wait till the youth came good.

So the one who after reading this is blaming Wenger for letting the invincibles go is someone who wanted us to fail and to slide down like the invincibles started doing after their invincible year. And don’t read this as somehow telling something negative about the invincibles. After all getting is older is what we all do and there is nothing that one can do about that. It is just that we had to replace them. But please don’t tell rubbish and make it look as if Wenger wanted them out just for the sake of it.

When Peter Ridsdale says you are in trouble, you are in trouble

When you hear that Peter Ridsdale says your club is in real trouble then you probably are in trouble. Having left Cardiff City and now seemingly refused to help (I use the word lightly) Plymouth Argyle, he is now making comments about Blackburn and saying that he worries for their future.

Just in case you are out of touch with the madness of football Ridsdale came 5th in the Daily Mirror’s top ten list of bonkers club owners. OK I don’t normally quote the Mirror, but it does have a lot going for it – in that it is not the Sun, the Sport, the Star, the Mail or the Express.

This is what they said in their top 10 of Ridsdale

Known by football agents as ‘Father Christmas”, Ridsdale oversaw a period of largesse at Leeds that was so over the top the club is still paying the price today. During his reign at Elland Road the club was coughing up for 70 company cars (at an annual cost of £600,000), ran up a £70,000-a-year bill for directors’ travel in private jets and paid off sacked managers David O’Leary and Terry Venables to the tune of £5.7million. He eventually left with the club £79m in debt. Including a £240 bill for the goldfish in his office!

To me that reads like something that has been heavily edited by the lawyers, but it gives you a clue – a tiny insight – into the world of Mr R.

The actual top ten the Mirror ran was…

1: Former safe cracker and tax evader George Reynolds at Darlington (a real fit and proper person according to the FA)

2: Terry Smith who owned poor Chester. I personally think this inclusion is unfair – when you look at what has happened to them since. Just because he would take players to fast food restaurants before the game and then read them the Lord’s Prayer. It could have worked!

3: Spencer Trethewy who as a 19 year old appeared on TV to say he was buying Aldershot for £200k and was then jailed for fraud after failing to pay his hotel bill. Seemingly now owns or owned Chertsey Town FC

4: Simon Jordon. I don’t know about this one either – was the Palace man as bonkers as the rest on this list? His view of David Gold seems ok to me: “I was sick and tired of reading about David Gold trotting out his story about being a poor East End boy made good. We have heard it enough times now David! You were a poor boy, and now you’re sitting on a big pile of porn with loads of money. I said if I had to hear that story again I would impale myself on one of his dildos.”

5: The Ridsdale

6: Sam Hammam I liked Sam too – in fact I like anyone who says to his staff that if they don’t perform well enough he will force them to sit through Wagner at the Royal Opera. And anyone who locks Robbie Earle in a room can’t be all bad.

7: Martin Edwards, who as Man U chair was cautioned (ie charged – and he accepted the charge) for looking under the cubicle door to watch a woman he was after in the Mottram Hall Hotel

8: Michael Knighton – who bought Carlisle and nearly bought Man U for £20m. He still owes me £150 over some work my company did for a private school he owned.

9: Ken Bates – who wanted to put electrified fences around the pitch at Chelsea. Now at Leeds. If ever there was a match made in heaven it was Ken Bates and Leeds.

10: The wonderful Freddy Shepherd, who personally I would have had much higher up the list. Visited brothels, denigrated local fans of the female variety, called Alan Shearer “Mary Poppins.” Actually maybe he wasn’t that bad.

But back to Blackburn. This club, you may remember, is now owned by a company whose chair said, on taking over the show, that they would not be buying any new players. Why buy new players, she asked, when you can lease them?

About chucking Sam the Slug out she said, “We want Blackburn Rovers to be fourth or fifth in the league or even better. We wanted good football, wanted the games to be interesting and of course wanted to win and to have good players. This is a major step but it was needed. We thought: Why delay?”

The current boss Steve Kean got the job because, “he works long hours.” Actually so do I but they didn’t give the job to me.

Oh and if they were to come in 5^th they would not be able to play in the Europa League because their finances don’t allow it. Not enough people at the matches, too much put in by the previous late owner and his trust – a no-hoper for the Uefa rules.

It is also said that Sam the Slug wanted to buy David Bentley which I suppose is a good enough reason to put him in the top ten of mad managers. And there’s a thought – must do that list some time soon.

Now let me see…. Top ten bonkers managers

David O’Leary (I know he was a star for us – but really his time at Leeds was… well), Ruud Gullit at Chelsea, some of those people at Tottenham (including the present one)… oh this could be fun.

Making the Arsenal: third edition out tomorrow.

It is over for Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea? Actually it’s just beginning

Making the Arsenal: the third edition is now out.

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by Walter Broeckx

After a sleepless night I was waiting for the sun to come up again. I was sure this was not going to happen again. This was the ultimate doomsday. The end of the world.

And when my alarm clock told me it was time to go to work I had been living the game over and over and over again. Still the same final score at the end and still not the best of performances during the game.

But when I look at the league table for the moment I see:

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
1	Manchester United	16	9	7	0	36	16	20	34
2	Arsenal	17	10	2	5	34	19	15	32
3	Manchester City	17	9	5	3	24	13	11	32
4	Chelsea	17	9	4	4	31	12	19	31

And this hardly is looking doomsday to me. Oh yes, it could have been better and sweeter. But it always can be better. You can be unhappy with our defeat (I am unhappy) and you can be unhappy with our performance (I am unhappy) but does this now means that it is all over?

Does this means that it is all over for Manchester City also. They haven’t even won the same amount of games as we did. Or is it all over for Chelsea? They even couldn’t get as much points as we did.

Is the title decided and can we stop playing football until the next season? When I hear some people we could. But those are the people who stop with every set back in their life, sit on the floor and moan and cry a bit and tell how unfair live is to them and then just wait for things to get better.

Well let us take a look at how things stood last season around this time. Last season after 17 games we were 8 (eight) points behind the league leaders. And now we are 2 points behind. I know United have a game in hand but unless they have played it and won it they haven’t got the points. And remember last season we were in the title race until the whole team (well almost the whole team) got injured at the same time and we dropped out in April. So should we stop playing and forget it like some suggested?

And let us look at our players. We all had high hopes of players like Vermaelen (our best defender last year AND a notorious goal scorer as a defender), Cesc (one of the best midfielders in the world) and Robin Van Persie (when fit one of the best attackers around). We all expected them to be the spine of the team.

Vermaelen has started 3 of our 17 games. And he will be missing a few before he can come back. And note that we do not only miss his defending but also the fact that he scored 8 goals in his 45 appearances last season is something we must not forget. He can defend and score and we don’t have this for the moment.

Cesc has started 9 games of our 17 games. Just more than half of our games. But as he had to be taken off with an injury he hasn’t finished them all. And every time when he looked like getting back to his better playing levels he got injured again and had to start all over again. And last season he was our provider and goal scorer and got us through some tough games.

And then Robin Van Persie. Last season at the start of the EPL he was on fire. Distributing assists and scoring goals. And now he has had 1 (one) start in the season and had to be replaced after half an hour.

And yet with those important players who have only played 13 of the possible 51 starts between them we find ourselves in second place. Who would have thought this would be possible before the start of the season when we didn’t know that they would be out injured for such a long period?

And yes other teams have had their injured players. And did it affect them? Hell yes, it did affect them. Just look at Chelsea with not as many players out compared to us they struggled without some key players. For the moment we have been delivering results depending on the game of a young lad like Jack Wilshere. And he has done exceptionally well so far but you can’t expect that he can carry the team the whole season long. This is not possible for a young player like him. But he and we will benefit from his many starts in this season in the future. He has been having a master class education in a few weeks time and he did very well.

So for all these shouting like morons about lack of this, lack of that, managers that should be fired or that has lost it I would just suggest to take a step back and look at it again.

And things can only get better if you ask me. Cesc will become the player we knew and will deliver again. Van Persie has had his half year out with injury by now and will come back to his level. And if God allows it the mystery injury from Thomas Vermaelen will go away and he will be back firing on all cylinders and be important in defence and attack starting from January.

And hell, let us not forget Diaby is coming back and will add something to the team and will produce another option in midfield and attack. And if there is a good God somewhere around he will bring us back Aaron Ramsey and he will fill in the gap and become as good as he promised to be when he got kicked off the field.

We have had our fair share of injury bad luck so far this season and are still in second position at the half of the season. So those who want to give: just give up and sit back and feel sorry for yourself.

Those who will not give up: just join me in our support for our Gunners. After all, that is the only thing I can do. It is the only thing I will do. It is the only thing we can do. I will be there, in victory and in defeat. That is why I am a Gooner. No way will I give up until the final whistle, so should all of you. There still is too much to look forward to.

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