Arsenal FC – Our home record against Napoli

April 10, 2019

Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. It was first settled by Greeks in the second millennium BC. In the ninth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope was established on the Island of Megaride later refounded as Neápolis in the sixth century BC. The city was an important part of Magna Graecia, played a major role in the merging of Greek and Roman society and a significant cultural centre under the Romans. It served as the capital of the Duchy of Naples (661–1139), then of the Kingdom of Naples (1282–1816) and finally of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861.

Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli S.p.A.

Nickname(s)    Gli Azzurri (The Blues), I Partenopei (The Parthenopeans)

Napoli’s San Paolo Stadium (capacity 60,240) was inaugurated in 1959 and is the third largest in Italy, after Milan’s Meazza Stadium and Rome’s Olimpico. Situated in the Fuorigrotta neighbourhood, it measures 110 by 68 meters. It was remodelled for the 1980 European Championship and again for the World Cup hosted by Italy in 1990, when a covering and a new 330-seat press stand were installed, the track and lighting systems were redone and the stadium was brought up to FIFA safety standards. With an 8-lane track, three sports gyms, a boxing gym, a fitness gym and a wrestling and martial arts gym.

Naples Football Club was the first true Neapolitan football club to represent the city.  It was founded between late 1904 and early 1905, after a series of meetings at the homes of an Englishman, William Poths, and a Neapolitan, Ernesto Bruschini.

William Poths

Dark and pale blue stripes were chosen as the team colours. Their first President was engineer Amedeo Salsi, flanked by Poths, Bayon and two amateur football players, Conforti and Catterina. William Poths deserves special mention. An employee of the Cunard Shipping Line, he moved to Naples from England in 1903 and quite naturally brought all his English customs with him, including an immense passion for football, which had been played in England since 1847 and was rapidly gaining popularity in Europe and Italy too. There were already several teams in Naples: The aristocratic Open Air team, The Helios team, and the Audace team.

Early games were played at via Campegna. Napoli’s early history seems sketchier by comparison to Arsenal’s. The following is a translation from a SSC Napoli history site which beautifully captures the appeal of the early rise of football in the area by describing the via Campegna playing conditions.

a rather unstable and dusty expanse of land where a group of “stoic gamblers” chased a rolling sphere in shorts and rough and often ungainly attitudes that induced the paying public (at that time half a lira) including marquises, countesses, dukes and real dudes and ” gagà ” of Naples to smile at observing that absurd race to those who conquered the ball

Napoli broke the world transfer record fee after acquiring Diego Maradona in a €12 million deal from Barcelona on 30 June 1984. The 1986–87 season was the landmark in Napoli’s history; they won the double, securing the Serie A title by three points and then beating Atalanta 4–0 to lift the Coppa Italia.

Honours

National titles

Serie A

Winners (2): 1986–87, 1989–90

Coppa Italia

Winners (5): 1961–62, 1975–76, 1986–87, 2011–12, 2013–14

Supercoppa Italiana

Winners (2): 1990, 2014

European titles

UEFA Cup

Winners (1): 1988–89

Our only home game against Napoli was in Group F of the 2013-14 Champions League – we won the game 2-0 with goals from Ozil (his first Arsenal goal) and Giroud.

The Napoli fans have a reputation it’s fair to say and caused a deal of trouble in Islington in 2013.

Getty Images

Given our away record this season we will need to take full advantage of playing in front of our home supporters and win the game with an all important clean sheet.

GunnerN5

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Everton Arsenal – Player Ratings

April 8, 2019

Torreira banned, Xhaka not quite ready plus Rambo eased back slowly (perhaps because he’s in the red zone) means that Elneny and Guendouzi got the gig in centre midfield. Mkhitaryan there to help and with the wingbacks we should have enough in midfield? Kos is still out so the back three is as against Newcastle but will surely face greater pressure than on Monday night.

First Half

The start to the game tended to suggest which way the game might head. After a couple of minutes Laca was completely cleared out by Zouma with a late, sliding, reckless challenge in the penalty area which the ref completely ignored. A penalty and caution were obvious, but no, it was Guendouzi who received the first yellow with a silly follow through a couple of minutes later.

Action Images via Reuters

The goal when it came was typical Arsenal, back to those away days at Stoke when Delap used to terrorise us with his trebuchet. The throw was legal as Digne’s heel was on the touchline contrary to a huge outcry on twitter. The 50/50 header wasn’t read by the Arsenal defence and the follow up header hit Kolasinac on the foot, deflected 90 degrees straight to Jagielka who hadn’t been down to play until a half hour before kick off. He hadn’t scored since the 20th century. Classic Arsenal concession.

Not too much happened goalmouth-wise for the rest of the first half. There were, however, a series of nasty challenges. We’ve been kicked off the park at Goodison before but it never gets any easier to watch.

Only one effort from Arsenal in that 45, zero on target, not good enough. Mesut was swamped every time he touched the ball. Pre-match doubts about the Guendouzi/Elneny partnership were completely justified in that first half. The only way to match them in the second half would be to match their intensity or completely change formation.

Second Half

The necessary change in personnel with Ramsey and Auba replacing Elneny and Wardrobe appeared to have an immediate positive effect, but illustrated the absolute poverty of that first half performance and team selection.

Our best period of the game was the ten minutes after half time. There were a few good chances but none looked remotely like being taken.

The rest of the second period was Arsenal pressing but Everton looking more likely to score on the break.

In summary, we were garbage and made an average Everton side look quite good.

This pretty much sums up the performance …..

https://twitter.com/outofcontextars/status/1114900461738393600

Conclusion

What has become a somewhat predictable away performance from Arsenal. Few chances created but plenty of opposition chances allowed. We probably could have played for another hour and not scored. Beaten by a really poxy set piece calamity of a goal.

So, we’re back behind the spuds and those 4 away games left look dangerous unless there’s some sort of change in mentality.

Getty Images

Ratings

Leno – nowt much do again, a good block from Sigurdsson in the second half and a fine block when Bernard was through – when the keeper is MOTM and you’ve lost, you know it’s been a shite performance from the team … 7

Mustafi – a pretty standard performance from the German – some good challenges mixed in with some garbage … 5

Sokratis – too often left exposed by our weakness on the flanks – his booking means he misses our next two matches against Watford and Palace … 5

Monreal – struggled manfully as usual but received no cover from the wing back or central midfield … 5

Maitland-Niles – seemed confused by Everton’s intensity – mind you, he wasn’t the only one … 3

Kolasinac – pretty clueless – no help to Monreal and he passes backwards if he’s not barrelling toward the byline, which he never was … 4

Guendouzi – felt sorry for him – a 19 year old shouldn’t be placed under that much pressure and responsibility … 5

Elneny – a squad player at best – a chance to shine and he was barely noticeable in that first half … 3

Mkhitaryan – lightweight and not what was required for a battle at Goodison … 5

Ozil – captain? do me a favour – not very good leadership either by command or by example … 4

Lacazette – not one of his best days – almost our best move/chance and Laca could only fall over when a simple pass to Aubameyang was on … 4

Subs

Ramsey – raised the level of Arsenal’s performance from the depths – but couldn’t engineer a goal … 6

Aubameyang – another who perhaps should have been on from the start – it would have been nice to see him double-teaming with Laca, especially near the end when we needed a goal … 5

Iwobi – had an excellent little test of his dribbling skills for 15 minutes – perhaps unlucky not to achieve more … 6

Managers

Emery – he’s still not cracked the away form weakness – let’s hope inspiration comes before Watford … 5

Marco Wagner – set his team up to steamroller the Southern softies into submission and it worked – 3 points reduction for beating us … 4

Ref

Kevin Friend of Everton – a penalty and a yellow for Zouma in the first few minutes and it’s a different game – allowed far too much niggly foul play from the Toffees … 3

chas

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Arsenal’s Century Club – John Radford

April 6, 2019

Nineteen players have achieved the feat of scoring 100 goals for the Club over the past 96 years. The players are sorted by the number of games taken to reach the 100 goal mark. Big Raddy sits at number 17.

John Radford was born on 22 February 1947 in Hemsworth, Yorkshire.

He joined Arsenal as an apprentice in 1962, turning professional in February 1964.

During an interview he said – “I well remember the day before my debut in Arsenal’s senior side. It was Friday 20th March 1964, just a month after my 17th birthday. In those days we youngsters had to do all sorts of menial tasks around the place and one of them that day was to clean the baths at Highbury stadium. I was scrubbing away when the next thing I knew, our manager Billy Wright was standing watching me.

“John, you’ll need to rest up a bit when you’ve finished doing that.” he said looking serious.

“Why’s that?” I replied a bit puzzled.

“Because you’re playing at West Ham tomorrow” he said and walked away leaving me stunned as you can well imagine.”

Prior to the start of the 1968-69 football season. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

John was a prolific goal scorer in his youth but his only appearance in 1964-65 was his debut game against West Ham. In the 1965-66 season he played 15 times, and became Arsenal’s youngest ever hat-trick scorer, against Wolves on 2 January 1965, at the age of 17 years and 315 days, a record that remains to this day.

He soon became an Arsenal regular, and blossomed under the management of Bertie Mee; in 1968-69, although he had been moved out to the right wing, he scored nineteen goals and reached the 1969 League Cup final. As he peaked, so did Arsenal; in 1969-70 he again scored nineteen goals, and helped Arsenal win the 1970 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, their first trophy in seventeen years; John scored the second goal in Arsenal’s 3-0 win in the second leg of the final, which they won 4-3 on aggregate.

John was moved up front again and continued to score regularly. The following season (1970-71) he scored 21 goals, his best single tally in a season, forming a partnership with Ray Kennedy they recorded 47 goals between them. With his goals, John was an instrumental part of Arsenal’s FA Cup and League Championship double-winning side, and his assists played an important role too; he set up Kennedy for the winning goal in Arsenal’s FA Cup semi-final replay win against Stoke City, and set up both Eddie Kelly and Charlie George for their goals in the Final against Liverpool.

Arsenal footballers Ray Kennedy, Frank McClintock, (captain) and John Radford celebrating in the changing room after Arsenal’s 2-1 victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup final. Original Publication: People Disc – HP0267 (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

He continued to play for Arsenal through the early 1970s, scoring another 19 goals in 1972-73. However, his goal rate gradually reduced (only achieving single figures in 1973-74 and 1974-75) and he was injured in 1975-76, further restricting his appearances. By now, the partnership of Malcolm Macdonald and Frank Stapleton had become Arsenal’s first-choice attacking duo and John only played twice in the first four months of 1976-77.

Unable to keep a regular place in the side, he moved on to West Ham United in December 1976 for £80,000. After a year and 28 league appearances and no goals with the Hammers, Radford joined Blackburn Rovers in 1977. He was moderately successful with the Second Division side, scoring ten times in 38 league appearances. He left Rovers in 1978 and played for non-league Bishop’s Stortford before retiring. After retiring, he became a pub landlord, and enjoyed several spells as manager of Bishop’s Stortford in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In all he played 485 times for Arsenal, scoring 149 goals, which makes him Arsenal’s fourth all-time top scorer.

His 100th goal was scored against Leicester City at Highbury on September 25th 1971 in his 306th game for Arsenal.

In a supporter’s poll to determine Arsenal’s all time top 50 players John placed 24th. His total of 149 goals puts him 4th on Arsenal’s all time top goalscorer list.

GunnerN5

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Arsenal FC – Our away record against Everton

April 5, 2019

Everton was founded in 1878 by the St Domingo Methodist New Connexion Chapel in Breckfield Road North; it was named St Domingo FC and was created so that members of the congregation could play football as well as cricket. The club was renamed Everton in November 1879 to allow people outside of the congregation to participate.

The lock up tower featured on Everton’s club crest

On April 17, 1888 Everton became a founding member of the Football League.

Representatives of the Blues along with Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers met at the Royal Hotel in Manchester.

The move followed concerns that too many friendly games were being cancelled thereby depriving the clubs of gate money, and playing a set number of matches home and away should offset any losses derived from losing friendly matches.

Membership was set at £2 2s a year.

Everton’s nickname “The Toffees” or “The Toffeemen”, came about after Everton moved to Goodison. One of the possible reasons for the nickname was that there was a business in Everton village, named Mother Noblett’s, it was a toffee shop that sold sweets including the Everton Mint. It was also located opposite the lock up which Everton’s club crest is based on. The Toffee Lady tradition in which a girl walks around the perimeter of the pitch before the start of a game tossing free Everton Mints into the crowd symbolises the connection. Another possible reason is that there was a house named Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House in nearby Village Street, Everton, run by Ma Bushell. The toffee house was located near the Queen’s Head hotel in which early club meetings took place

Goodison Park clock 1970s

(Joe Mercer was born in Ellesmere Port in 1914. He joined Everton as a youngster and forced himself into the first team on a regular basis in 1935. Developing quickly, he became England’s left-half. The Second World War came and went and Sergeant Major Mercer, captain of his country, returned to Goodison Park having won 26 wartime caps. When he returned Everton had both a captain and a manager and Mercer, no longer a figure of responsibility became disconsolate. Arsenal heard about his disenchantment and signed him in late 1946 for £7,000. )

In 1925 they signed Dixie Dean from Tranmere Rovers.

Prior to the final game of the 1927-28 season Dean had been injured but was declared fit to play just before the kick off; the game was at home to Herbert Chapman’s legendary Arsenal side, he needed to get a hat-trick for the league scoring record. The Gunners had the famous Charles Buchan playing his final match before retirement in their defence and he was eager to ensure Everton’s young upstart didn’t steal his show. It was, however, undeniably Dean’s day. He scored the third goal of his hat trick and the record 60th of the season in the 85th minute. His record stands to this day.

A reporter wrote – “You talk about explosions, and loud applause; we have heard many explosions, and much applause in our long pilgrimage, but, believe us, we have never heard such a prolonged roar of thundering, congratulatory applause before as to that which ascended to heaven when Dixie broke the record.”

He scored 37 hat tricks for Everton – First: 17/10/1925, Last: 7/11/1936.

(Tommy Lawton one of the greatest goal scorers of his or any age began his career with Burnley and moved to Everton for £6,500, as an eventual replacement for Dixie Dean, in March 1937. He helped the club win the League title in 1939. In November 1953, Lawton was traded to First Division champions Arsenal for £7,500.)

Domestic Honours:

* 1st Division Champions (9): 1890–91, 1914–15, 1927–28, 1931–32, 1938–39, 1962–63, 1969–70, 1984–85, 1986–87

* 2nd Division: Winners (1): 1930–31

* FA Cup: Winners (5): 1905–06, 1932–33, 1965–66, 1983–84, 1994–95

* FA Charity Shield: Winners (9): 1928, 1932, 1963, 1970, 1984, 1985, 1986 (shared), 1987, 1995

European Honours:

* European Cup Winners Cup: Winners: (1): 1984–85

 

AFP

Everton’s 2018-19 home record.

Thirty one games played and we are down to our final seven games of the season; Sunday will be the first of the five away games we have to play and none of them will be easy.

If we win all seven games we will be guaranteed both third place and a place in the 2019-20 Champions League.

My breath is bated and I await the games with a great deal of nervous anticipation.

GunnerN5

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Is Guendouzi really lightweight, Mesut really lazy, Mustafi an accident waiting to happen?

April 3, 2019

One of the topics of discussion from the Arsenal Toon game was Matteo Guendouzi and how different spectators see different things when watching his performances. This brings me to ‘confirmation bias’. Basically we choose what we want to see and, one would imagine that in terms of football fans, this phenomenon is positively viral in its contagion.

Here’s the Wiki definition of the term …..

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

Back to some specific examples. Mattteo Guendouzi is still ten days away from not being a teenager anymore. Before coming to Arsenal he played a handful of games for Lorient in his debut season of 2016/17 (Lorient were relegated). He featured 21 times in the following season in the French second tier and Lorient finished 7th. So far this season he has made 34 (23 League) appearances across all competitions for a top 6 EPL side.  This is just background and may or may not be of any significance.

Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

What do you think the answer to the question is, ‘Does Guendouzi get caught in possession more times on average than Granit Xhaka or than Lucas Torreira?’ The answer is probably that for central midfielders, they all get caught a similar number of times – it’s the nature of the position to a certain extent, especially as the high press is the current fashion for every Klopp, Pep and Wagner.

How about ‘Does Guendouzi make more misplaced passes than the other two?’ Their pass accuracy percentages are 87.7, 87.6 and 85.2. Matteo top, then Lucas followed by Granit. Granit plays twice as many long balls per game which probably accounts for part of this difference.

Is Mesut lazy? If so, why does he clock up so many k’s over a season. (2016/7 season figures given just because they were handy)

2016/7 season

Is Shkodran Mustafi an accident waiting to happen? Does he launch into ‘flat on his a*se’ tackles at every available opportunity? If this is the case, why does he top the stats for tackles for the whole Arsenal squad?

It’s not so very far back that Aaron Ramsey was always slated on Arsenal blogs across the world for slowing the game down, being ponderous on the ball and indecisive when it came to the crunch. Now that he’s leaving, he’s suddenly become the best player since Zidane and absolutely crucial to Arsenal’s team play. Where does the truth lie? Somewhere in the middle, maybe?

Many Arsenal fans (well, it’s probably true for all fans of other teams, too) like to have their favourite players and also the ones they just can’t bear to see on the teamsheet. AdeBarnDoor was a prime example, Walcott another. What I find difficult to understand is that if you make up your mind that a particular player is pants, what do you do when they have a good game? Do you celebrate any goals they might score?

My particular strongest confirmation bias is against refs. Why are they all against us? Don’t they like the red and white shirts? Are they all from the North West? (Most are, as it happens 🙂 ). I realise that a lot of the time it’s irrational, but hell, I’m blowed if I’m going to stop doing it. I love it.

Anyway, enough of this waffle. All I’m saying is that we all see what we want to see and have our own multitudinous confirmation biases going on in our heads every time we watch a game.

After all, that’s where varying opinions come from and is partly what makes blogging or shooting the breeze in the pub so popular.

Thoughts?

chas

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Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0 – Player Ratings

April 2, 2019

No Xhaka, no Kos, Curly is last man standing with Torreira banned. Iwobi gets a run with Auba and Micki as firepower off the bench.

First Half

Consider the Benitez Bus well and truly parked – the wheels were off and it was being shoved backwards and forwards across the 18 yard box on a massive trolley jack.

Nothing to speak of in the first 30 apart from a seemingly perfect goal from Ramsey ruled out by the replusive Taylor for some ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’ shirt tugging which had no influence on the goal.

Finally a ball broke for us in the area with a cannily crafted assist from two Magpie defenders; Rambo’s left slotting it in off the far post.

Newcastle had one token effort from Rondon which was going wide before some nice interchange created the best chance of the half when Laca swivelled but his shot miraculously cannoned off a square head to leave the score at 1-0 at the break.

Halftime foul count Arsenal 8 Newcastle 4 – yeah right.

Second Half

More of the same from Newcastle – a tedious desire to suck the life out of a game of football.

Auba for Iwobi had an immediate effect. His pace was electric down the right wing but couldn’t quite find Laca with a driven cross. The second when it came was the same combination, an Auba header and Laca slipping round the back to lob the keeper.

Stuart MacFarlane on twitter

The chances now started to flow properly and we should have had a third when Taylor decided he’d seen a handball from Laca which came off a massive goalkeeping glove! He really was terrible tonight – the comical booking of SeadK straight out of the Mike Dean book of celebrity reffing.

Conclusion

A perfect start to April with Newcastle being the only fools on Fools’ Day. Bus parking got exactly what it received – absolutely sweet FA.

Ratings

Leno – nothing to do against the shot shy Toon  ….. 7

Ainsley – recovered from his knock and played competently throughout   ….. 7

Shkod – some on social media still having a pop even when he does nothing wrong -smh ….. 7

Papa – solid, steely, indefatigable ….. 8

Nacho – another fine performance from La Cabra – ridiculous booking dished out by the man from the Manchester region   ….. 8

Wardrobe – rampaging and rollocking, just couldn’t find that crucial final ball ….. 7

Guendouzi – still caught in possession too often but with no protection from the ref – must have touched the ball most? – never hides ….. 7

Ramsey – crucial goal – not sure what his injury was as he jogged off comfortably enough ….. 7

Iwobi – tried to unpick the bus station doors to no avail  ….. 7

Ozil – all over the pitch, needs to take his class to some away grounds     ….. 8

Laca – didn’t look like he was going to have a right place, right time night until he popped up chasing Auba’s header ….. 8

Subs

Auba – made a difference – he really suits that last half hour cameo  ….. 8

Elneny – he came, he saw, he Mo’ed ….. 7

Micki – time wasting sub to allow Mesut to get an ovation

Managers

Emery – Everything right again at home against an uninspiring negative Newcastle team – Let’s come up with an away plan now, Unai ….. 8

The Spanish Wagner – Tediousness personified ….. 3

Referee – so many calls wrong it was ridiculous – no wonder we can’t provide refs for big international tournaments – he’s meant to be one of the better ones …. 0

chas

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Arsenal’s Century Club – Joe Hulme

March 29, 2019

Nineteen players have achieved the feat of scoring 100 goals for the Club over the past 96 years. The players are sorted by the number of games taken to reach the 100 goal mark. Joe Hulme sits at number 18.

Joseph Harold Anthony Hulme (26 August 1904 – 27 September 1991) was born in Stafford.

Early on he played for the Stafford YMCA usually on the right wing. He started his career in non-league football in October 1922 with York City and moved on to Blackburn Rovers in February 1924 where he made 74 league appearances.

In February 1926 Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman was looking for a fast skilful winger and he purchased Joe Hulme for £3,500. He joined a team that included – David Jack, Jimmy Brain, Jack Lambert, Bob John, Jack Butler, Andy Neil, Jimmy Ramsey, Billy Blyth, Cliff Bastin, Herbert Roberts, Alf Baker and Tom Parker.

Joe Hulme made his debut against Leeds United on 6th February 1926. He was an immediate success and by the end of the first season Hulme’s startling pace had become his trade mark, his main trick being to push the ball past the opposing full-back then tear past him.

Photo by Barratts/PA Images via Getty Images

Hulme won his first international cap for England against Scotland on 2nd April 1927. England won the game 2-1. Hulme retained his place in the team and that year played against Belgium (9-1), France (6-0), Northern Ireland (0-2) and Wales (1-2). Other members of the England team that year included Dixie Dean, Tom Cooper, Stanley Earle, Edward Hufton and Alf Baker.  In total Joe won nine caps for England, between 1927 and 1933.

In October 1927, Herbert Chapman signed Eddie Hapgood, a 19 year old milkman, who was playing for non-league Kettering Town for a fee of £750. This was followed by the purchase of David Jack (£10,000), Cliff Bastin (£2,000) and Alex James (£8,750).

In the 1929-30 season Arsenal finished in 14th place in the First Division. However in the FA Cup they beat Birmingham City (1-0), Middlesbrough (2-0), West Ham United (3-0) and Hull City (1-0) to reach the final against Chapman’s old club, Huddersfield Town. Arsenal won the game 2-0 with goals from Alex James and Jack Lambert and Joe Hulme had his first cup winners’ medal.

Joe Hulme on the right

The following season Arsenal won their first ever First Division Championship with a record 66 points. The Gunners only lost four games that season. Jack Lambert was top-scorer with 38 goals. Other important players in the team included Joe Hulme, Frank Moss, Alex James, David Jack, Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood, Bob John, Jimmy Brain, Tom Parker, Herbert Roberts, Alf Baker and George Male.

Joe Hulme scored his 100th goal for Arsenal in his 307th game.

In January 1938 Hulme was transferred to Huddersfield Town. His last senior appearance was in the 1938 FA Cup Final against Preston North End making him the first player ever to appear in five Wembley cup finals.

Honours

Arsenal

Football League Division 1 winner – 1930–31, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35

FA Cup winner – 1930, 1936

FA Cup finalist – 1927, 1932

Huddersfield Town

FA Cup finalist – 1938

Joe Hulme was also a fine all round cricketer he was a right-handed middle order batsman, right-arm medium bowler and superb deep fieldsman. He represented Middlesex 223 times between 1929 and 1939 and accumulated 8,103 runs (av. 26.56) with twelve centuries and a top score of 143. He hit 1,000 runs in a season three times with a best of 1,258 (av. 34.94) in 1934. He bagged 89 wickets (av. 36.40) with a best of 4 for 44 and he held 110 catches.

1936 Middlesex CCC – Denis Compton and Joe Hulme – Colorsport

After World War II he worked as a police reserve and played for the Metropolitan Police side; he went on to manage Tottenham Hotspur for four years after which he became a sports journalist up until his retirement in 1965.

He passed away at Winchmore Hill, Middlesex, aged 87, on September 26, 1991.

GunnerN5

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Shkodran Mustafi – give the man a break!

March 28, 2019

This post was prompted by yet more whingeing from Arsenal fans about Mustafi after a failed block in a friendly in Dubai, for heaven’s sake. 

Shkodran Mustafi signed for Arsenal from Valencia in August 2016 for a reputed fee of £35m. In his first two seasons under Arsene Wenger he played 26 and 27 games respectively, missing a few games in both with hamstring and thigh muscle problems. For quite a while now, he has been the whipping boy of the Arsenal fans and many were hoping to see the back of him at the end of last season.

With the long-term injury to Kos, this never looked likely to happen. Under Unai Emery, Sokratis had been bought from Dortmund in the summer and Rob Holding chosen to fight for a first team place in preference to the unlucky Calum Chambers, who was sent out on loan to progress his playing time.

Looking a bit gormless isn’t a crime

Almost undetected, Herr Mustafi has become an invaluable part of the Arsenal squad. Unai Emery chose him to be the regular partner of Sokratis at the start of the season. When Papa was injured in October, Rob Holding stepped into the breach to partner Shkodran and quickly looked to be maturing into the role very nicely indeed. Rob’s injury in the away game at the Old Cowshed has been absorbed by the gradual return of Captain Koscielny and by Papa establishing himself as a no-nonsense old school defender who can adjust to the rigours of Premier League football.

Throughout these upheavals, and aside from a hamstring in December which kept him out for 7 games, Mustafi has been a constant in the Arsenal defence. Admittedly part of that has been down to the shift to a back three to allow Sead Kolasinac into his favoured left wing back position, but even so, Shkodran has never baulked at his opportunities to pull on the red and white (or pistachio!) shirt of the mighty Gunners.

His 24 appearances are testament to that. So far he has played 1987 minutes of Arsenal League season, the 5th highest.  Can he really be as terrible as everyone makes out? Let’s take a look at some of his other stats.

Shkodran makes on average 3.4 aerial duels per game which is the highest for any Arsenal player. He also tops Interceptions at 1.9 p.g.  and Clearances 5.3 p.g. These are not the stats of the completely incompetent player we see described all over the Arsenal blogosphere.

How about his passing? Is it the accident waiting to happen constantly mentioned on twitter. Well, it’s surprising to find out that he’s third on the list of Arsenal passers at 1319 in terms of volume, a hundred less than 2nd placed Torreira. Yes, a fair few of those have been sideways or back to the keeper as the team attempts to implement Unai’s ‘playing out from the back’ policy, but his pass accuracy is 83% and according to the official stats he hasn’t made any errors directly leading to a goal.

His tackles made and fouls conceded per game are both 4th in the list and he sits on 6 yellows, the same as Torreira, 2 behind Xhaka and 3 behind our imperturbable Greek. Have we paid for his perceived tendency to launch himself into reckless challenges? It appears not quite as much as his reputation would have us believe.

Yes, he may end up on his backside on occasion and the odd pass may go astray but all players make mistakes. The odd lapse shouldn’t discount the other 98% of a player’s overall performance. Can anyone remember when Koscielny was coming under constant criticism for not being good enough in his first couple of seasons?

Shkodran played in one of our best performances at home to Liverpool, was subbed on 70 minutes in the thrilling home victory against the spuds with Arsenal pushing for the win and he also scored the first goal away at Man U.

Yes, our first choice centre back pairing has become Kos and Papa in a back four but don’t rule out a few more starts for Mr Mustafi in the run-in – especially if we go to a back 5 to make room for the Bosnian battering ram.

Here’s Mustafi’s bullet header from the away game in Cardiff back in early September.

This season Unai has relied on the German Albanian enough for him to have started 80% of our League games. In a reasonably successful season so far for the Club, can we really say Mustafi hasn’t earnt his money as a decent squad player?

I suppose what I’m getting at is, regardless of what may or may not happen in the summer, please cut poor old Shkodran some slack. He may well yet play a crucial part in this season’s finale as we seek a CL place, be it either through the League, or via the Europa Cup.

chas

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8 games to go – how’s Señor Emery getting along?

March 26, 2019

So where are we with Emery after three quarters of a season having passed? It is probably easier to reflect on this as we are undoubtedly in the ascendancy right now and finishing third looks like a realistic possibility. This might all sound a bit rich coming from someone who only a few weeks ago voted sixth in a poll when asked where Arsenal would finish at the end of this season.

So what changed? Well, my reason for voting sixth was that by losing Bellerin we had lost any form of thrust from the right side which made it too easy for teams to double up on the left which in effect nullified both wings. Solutions were attempted to be found and Lichtsteiner, as good as a stop gap that he is, was never going to seriously to be able to hold it together for the amount of games that he has been asked to play and Jenkinson, as much as we love him for being one of ours, was equally never going to be the solution.

The answer, of course, has been Maitland-Niles (cons) just when it looked like he had blown his opportunity, back he came with a second half performance against ManU worthy of an England call up. His penetration down the right stretches the opposition’s defence giving Kolasinac just that bit more space to operate in which he uses to great effect.

The return of Mkhitaryan being able to play in front of AMN gives further strength to our right as well as my explanation. So I think it fair to say that Emery is a man who can find solutions but it is the bigger picture that is starting to intrigue me. I find myself asking questions like: was the ascendancy at this particular time planned. Did Emery have the luxury of first time objectivity at the beginning of the season and plan to tackle the tiring demands of EPL from the outset. I think it right to say that energy level wise our players are looking bright eyed and bushy tailed; Emery has cleverly rotated the midfield of Xhaka, Torreira and Guendouzi, the latter being the fallow field at the moment; he has certainly and purposely rotated the attack to such a point where Lacazette accepts his shortened role and gone are the earlier season tantrums and if that isn’t enough – there is Ozil.

Was Mesut’s lengthy Christmas break intentional? He certainly still looks fresh now. I don’t really believe  it was intentional, I think it was a case of simply making the necessary managerial adjustments to get him to understand what was what in the brave new world post AW and I also think again it is fair to say that it has worked. Ozil is onside, he has now brought into the idea of what is going on and that a full ninety minutes of uninterrupted game time is going to be few and far between and that now seems to be fine evidenced by Mesut’s new found determination while playing.

Ramsey is, of course, another who has been used sparingly but effectively, in fact I think if you can go round the whole team you will notice clever rotation, ok the changes to the back line have been mainly forced upon Emery so it is probably fairer to describe that as fire fighting rather than strategic rotation but again I think it only fair to say that the fire fighting has been well handled.

This whole idea might make a bit more sense if you look at other teams: spuds being the best example of having their first eleven ground into the dirt with results reflecting their fatigue. Chelsea are in a similar boat, there is way too much reliance on Hazard with the inevitable consequences occurring. ManU have less to worry about because “Ollie is at the wheel” raises eyebrows…….

No, things do look good right now and I suspect that I will not be the only one now and in the near future who starts to dare to believe that this may not be luck: this might just be the very clever vision and strategic deployment of troops from a certain Señor Emery from the outset — keep it going Unai.

COYRRG

LB

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Arsenal’s Century Club – Theo Walcott

March 25, 2019

Today we start to look at the players who are members of – “The Arsenal Century Club”. We start today with the player who took the most games and we will finish the series of posts with the player who took the least.

Nineteen players have achieved the feat of scoring 100 goals for the Club over the past 96 years. The players are sorted by the number of games taken to reach the 100 goal mark. Theo Walcott sits at number 19.

Theo James Walcott was born 16 March 1989 in Stanmore, London, but grew up in Compton, Berkshire. He attended Compton Church of England Primary School and The Downs School. Nike agreed to a sponsorship deal with Walcott when he was fourteen years old. He is a product of the Southampton Academy and started his career with Southampton before Arsene Wenger signed him for Arsenal in 2006 for £5 million.

He initially joined as a scholar, having agreed to sign a professional contract on his 17th birthday on 16 March 2006.

On 30 May 2006, Walcott became England’s youngest ever senior football player aged 17 years and 75 days. In December, he received the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award. On 6 September 2008, he made his first competitive start in a World Cup qualifier against Andorra. He has represented England at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2012 and has 47 caps, scoring eight goals. In September 2008 against Croatia he became the youngest player ever to score a hat-trick for the full England side, aged just 19.

His first goal for Arsenal came in the 2007 League Cup Final against Chelsea at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, on 25 February 2007. His 12th-minute strike was overshadowed by events later on in the match: John Terry was knocked unconscious, Didier Drogba scored twice to give Chelsea a 2–1 victory and three players were sent off following a mass brawl.

Some words from the man himself-

“I was only 17 and hadn’t even played in the Premiership when I went to Germany. It wasn’t my decision to pick me. But it was good experience to train with world-class players, see the way they handled themselves.

“I never read the papers, so I never know what people are saying about me. That helps. The environment I’m in with the other players around me, I don’t really see what is in the papers. Of course I wanted to play for Arsenal. But I was only 17 and I didn’t want to play too much and get injuries. The boss has done brilliantly with me and now I’m ready to push on.”

Some more words-

Football is about opinions, but love me or hate me I don’t really care,” he said.

“I have been so pleased with everything I have achieved and I’ve enjoyed everything about it. Even with the injuries, it is part of the game. I genuinely wouldn’t change anything, I don’t have any regrets.

“I’ve seen players come through who everyone says, ‘They’re the next best thing’ and they put so much pressure on them, but then they go down the leagues and down the leagues and you just don’t hear about them anymore. But if you’re strong up here [mentally] and you have good people around you, then you can get through it.”

This may come as a surprise, but Walcott is a published author.

He has written no less than four children’s books for his “T.J and the…” series.

He was just 21 when they were published in 2010. The lead character, TJ, appears to be based on the author. Goodreads rated every one of the books at least 4.5/5.

In his 370th game for Arsenal on February 20th 2017 he scored his 100th goal in a 2-0 FA Cup victory over Sutton United.

Theo’s 100th goal punch

Throughout his last season at Arsenal, he was mainly used in the Europa League and in the EFL Cup, and he only made 6 substitute appearances in the Premier League. By October, he was increasingly on the fringes and was criticised following a poor performance when made captain in a 2–1 League Cup victory at home to Championship side Norwich City.

On 17 January 2018, Walcott signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with Everton, ending his time at Arsenal.

GunnerN5

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