Tag Archive | Premier League

Arsenal Versus Watford: Careful Husbandry

You can tell it has been a painfully long time since last we had any football to distract us when we find ourselves, as I did last night, watching the ‘action’ from Ashton Gate in the largely forlorn hope that something resembling the beautiful game might inadvertently break out and thus bridge the gap between […]

Arsenal Versus Manchester United: League Of Legends

Cormac was discussing the match yesterday. He and my daughter’s boyfriend were very dismissive of the team. We may have enjoyed some early dominance they agreed, but somehow we always manage to flatter to deceive, to pull an ignominious defeat out of the hat when ostensibly playing well. I reclined into the unseasonal October sunshine, […]

Arsenal Versus Leicester: The Coquelin Event Horizon

Everyone feeling a little bit happier now? A shot of league cup and North London Derby victory in the old veins has done the trick I trust? It may not have made a difference to our league position but by Jimminy the world seems a brighter place after a win doesn’t it? The league position […]

Arsenal Versus Chelsea: Beware The Wounded Beast

Chelsea. It wasn’t ever thus. There was once a time when the word evoked a different series of meanings, conjured other images. Fashionable clothes, big side burns, walking down the Kings Road, colourfully clad pensioners with shining medals and long memories, Charlie Cooke, John  Hollins, Alan Hudson, the Chelsea Drugstore (architecture meeting modern art on […]

Arsenal Versus Stoke: Putting Lipstick On A Pig

Exciting, free flowing Stoke City travel south to London today, whetting the appetite of sports fans across the nation. Mark Hughes brings an expensively assembled team of international all star talent to a clash already being labelled as beauty meets the beast. The home team, dogged, predictable Arsenal, have already earned a reputation for grinding […]

Data-Based Arsenal

In a matter of days, the international break will be over and both the clubs and their fans will be back to the business of real football. The latter is not another snide put-down of the international game, which in my opinion is an important counter-weight to the narrow self interest of money-driven clubs.  However […]

Arsenal Versus Newcastle: The Narrow Road to the Deep North East

Where do I begin? We’re three games into a spluttering start to a season which promises much but has yet to deliver. We’ve lost one on a bewildering afternoon which felt like watching a match after inadvertently switching the Splenda for a tab of acid, nothing quite made sense. We’ve won one in a gruelling […]

Countering The White Flag Brigade at The Arsenal

After the disappointment of not winning at home vs Liverpool, there was the expected emotional reaction by many pundits and fans who have concluded after the first three games of the season that Arsenal cannot contend for the title. 1-Win, 1-Draw and 1-Loss and we are already out of the runnings. In this rush to […]

Arsenal Versus Liverpool: Breaking Warren’s Heart

I bumped into Warren on Thursday, I was haggling in a camera shop, he was mooching about town with his daughter. We haven’t seen much of each other lately so we pressed pause in our respective schedules and brought one another up to date. As with most people in these circumstances it wasn’t long before […]

Football’s Habituation Principle

 A guest post from @foreverheady On Tuesday night I watched United take on Club Brugge in the Champions League qualifier. I enjoyed the early goal against them, of course I did, but any hopes of further embarrassment were stopped short by an excellent performance form their new player, Memphis Depay. Although the rest of the […]