Author: jamesgillesp

The Economic Vindication of Arsène Wenger

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Finances31 Comments

Arsène Wenger has had a tough time in front of the media over the last few years. Arsenal are still playing the high class, crisp passing game everyone loves (or loves to hate), but silverware has not been forthcoming. Recently the economic figures have been released, revealing that Arsenal’s turnover is exceeding Premier League records, and this in itself can be seen as a step forward.

A graphic from the Guardian

However, the harshest critics are those who completely lack perspective. The easiest way to visualise the project that Arsène Wenger and the back-room staff at Arsenal have been working on is to split it into three stages. The first stage was the moulding of the club in Arsene’s image, and the transformation of Arsenal from a good team into a successful, world class team. This was completed, with many years of silverware, and high achievements.

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The Results – Run-in predictions for Arsenal, Man Utd and Chelsea: Did they work?

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

As the final few games of the season approached in May I attempted to analyse the possible results and predict an outcome to the title race. Now in June, with the season well and truly behind us, it seems a good point to dissect the results and have a look at what actually happened in those last few games.

The original prediction was based on the last eight games Arsenal had to play, and compared the individual records against each team and the final eight games of each season. These methods both provided a result of 15.8 points from eight games, which would have put us on 80 points at the end.

In reality Arsenal achieved 75 points, and so actually fell short of the prediction by 5 points. A massive amount in real terms. Meaning we took 11/18 points or 61%.

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Video: Arsène Wenger at AS Nancy in the 1980s – looking very old school!

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, History, Video13 Comments

Arsène Wenger is looking rather retro in the clip below, which I believe is from his early days at AS Nancy-Lorraine. From my basic French he seems to be age 35. That would date the video to 1984, his first season as a manager.

A French Arsespeak reader has kindly translated the interview, transcript below.

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Premier League Run-in: The Stats for Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal’s Last 5 Games

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Data10 Comments

The last 5 games of the League are going to decide the season, here we attempt to make sense of the stats from the past 4 years to understand the run-ins for Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal.

My previous statistical analysis of Arsenal’s run-in predicted that we would take something like 16 points from our last 8 games, or 65.7% of the points available.

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Arsenal’s ‘easy run in’ may not be so easy – The real facts

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal29 Comments


The consensus in football at the moment is that Arsenal’s final eight games are going to be much softer than Man Utd or Chelsea’s. I do agree that on paper they are easier fixtures, and Man Utd and Chelsea have to play each other and Liverpool – all games where points can be won.

On the other hand the so called smaller teams are where we have struggled to pick up the points in the past. This season so far has seen Arsenal improve their consistency in results against these sort of teams – the wins against Stoke and Hull away showed the team’s ability to dig deep. Here we look at the historical data and see whether Arsenal’s run in really is as easy as it seems.

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Arsenal 5-0 Porto Highlights: a balanced side get it right on the night with a Nasri stunner

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Champions League, Highlights6 Comments

Bendtner 10, Bendtner 25, Nasri 63, Eboue 66, Bendtner (pen) 90+1

I’m still reeling from the fantastic performance Arsenal put in last night. Say what you want about Porto, winning 5-0 in the second round of the Champions League is some achievement -especially after being 2-1 down in humiliating fashion in the first leg.

Arshavin provided a lot of the key moments in the game, setting up three goals. Overall I think everyone put in a good performance, and gave a good account of the team.

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The father of dirty dirty football in the Premier League, and how Ramsey was done in

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Comment, Injuries8 Comments

Sam Allardyce has molded Blackburn in his own image during his time there, just has he did at Bolton. The match against Liverpool saw Blackburn notch up 25 fouls, equaling this season’s record for fouls. This endemic ‘physical’ style play is the direct cause of Aaron Ramsey’s leg hanging off at an awful angle on Saturday.

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Wenger was right not to buy Babel – A transfer window warning

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal, Transfers30 Comments

Ryan Babel was a Wenger transfer target in the summer of 2007. The press were reporting that it was a done deal, that Ryan would be joining Arsenal in a matter of weeks. However, the deal fell through, and it looked like the Ajax player would remain in Amsterdam, that was until Rafa Benitez came in with an £11.5 million bid which took Ryan to Liverpool.

Image courtesy of Paul Blank

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Arsenal sticking to formation

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

Samir Nasri remains convinced that the 4-3-3 formation can help Arsenal in their quest for Premier League glory.

The French international was brought to the Emirates from Marseille in 2008 and recently made his 50th appearance for the club, with his time in North London hit by a number of injury problems.

He is looking to remain at Arsenal for many years and feels he can offer a lot to the side in the future. The Gunners currently sit fourth in the Premier League table and are 11 points behind leaders Chelsea after the West London side beat them 3-0 at the Emirates at the weekend.

Nasri claims the 4-3-3 formation that Arsene Wenger has been using this season suits the players which he has at his disposal and can be used efficiently to beat teams this season.

“I think that the 4-3-3 has worked because of the quality here,” he said. “It enables not just me but everyone to express themselves. I think that at the end of last season we adopted this style against Chelsea and some of the others, but it suits me as I can play on the left, on the right or in the middle and is something I’m well suited to.”

Wenger came out earlier this week and insisted that Arsenal were still capable of winning the title despite lagging behind in the table.

According to the Frenchman, Chelsea can drop points over the rest of the season and his side need to continue picking up wins to make up ground.

Nike CTR360 Trequartista Review at Sunderland

On By jamesgillespIn Arsenal

I’ve been trying out some new football boots from the guys at Soccerpro. I gave the Nike CTR360 Trequartista boots a go and they are fantastic. I wore them for the first time with my 6 a-side team the other day and I noticed the difference. They are light and feel pretty good on your feet.

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