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Running On Empty

Feb 22nd, 2025 by

Injuries and red cards caught up with us today as a poor performance led to a one goal loss to West Ham. Despite the paucity of our display, West Ham offered little beyond shape and discipline, so whilst I cannot argue we deserved anything from the game, it would be generous indeed to say the Hammers deserved to win it. This one was no advert for the Premier League.

We spent the first half holding down the pilot light without ever sparking a flame as we just weren’t pumping any gas. Click, click, click, it kept making that annoying sound but, ironically, nothing was clicking for the Gunners.

We had most of the ball and the game was played between midfield and the West Ham third of the pitch – they rarely troubled us. Despite threatening to ignite, all we could manage was a long series of nearly moments, often failing to make the most of promising situations when one good ball would have led to a shooting chance.

Rice needed to be more involved, but he left Trossard and Calafiori to exchange passes on the left wing, both rather scattergun in their final delivery. The Italian volleyed our first shot on target after thirty-five minutes. When the ball recycled to Trossard he swung a deep cross over everybody, which was typical on the day. Ødegaard was poor all game. One of his worst performances in a while and the man who scored fifteen PL goals in a season no longer looks a threat. He failed to look after the ball, misplacing too many passes and hitting one shot which would have been more useful at Twickenham than the Emirates. Norwegian rugby must be rueing his loss.

Nwaneri lost possession the first two or three times he got the ball, but he warmed into the half and looked especially dangerous when he drifted towards the right wing (positionally, not politically). Today was a reminder not to put too much expectation on a young player who needs to develop his consistency. 

We need him to forge a connection with the captain and Timber. If the former was in the doldrums, then the latter offered very little. Timber is a player I really like. He has a great attitude and lots of quality. He gets into good positions and keeps the shape of the team. But he offers almost nothing decisive from an attacking perspective. He rarely scores or assists, and that right side has gone from dangerous to toothless. I was keen to see White in the second half as we badly needed overlapping runs to draw a defender away from Ethan.

In the 42nd minute, Merino threaded a lovely ball through to a surging Rice, but the out-of-sorts dynamo failed to pull the ball back and the chance was gone. It was the first of two poor moments in the boxes from him.

After a very quiet attacking performance, West Ham took the lead two minutes later. Ødegaard and Timber lost the ball on the edge of the opposition box and all it took was a couple of quick passes to release Wan-Bissaka in acres of space down our left. He advanced to the byline, did well to get his cross past Calafiori and in front of Raya, where Jared Bowen nodded it home. The England man owed a debt of gratitude to Rice, who had tracked his run for fifty yards, kept his eye on him nicely, and then just slowed up at the critical moment, failing to intercept the cross by a foot. The Irons’ fans had been giving him some stick, so why he thought they deserved this gift was beyond me. It cost us big time. It was an awful goal to concede, and it changed the match. This was the big regret on the day, because even playing badly we could have turned this lot over, but we gave them a goal that we just could not afford to do. 1-0 looked like the only possible winning scoreline if we continued to be so anaemic in attack – we needed to maintain our defensive solidity but we threw it away by failing to do the basics. This team has been worked to the bone and it is tired.

Arteta gave it ten minutes in the second half and hooked Rice and Calafiori for Zinny and MLS. We tried to threaten but it was tough going. Trossard had an effort saved, but we mostly failed to create shooting opportunities and, when we did, we missed the target. Merino tried hard, but his limitations were clear. We’ll see if he starts the next one or goes back to impact sub.

On 70 minutes, MLS and Gabriel played a poor series of passes to each other, inviting pressure, and a heavy touch from the youngster gave Kudus a sniff. They scrapped for the ball on the halfway line, it bobbled through the defender and he brought Kudus down. It could have been given as a foul against Kudus (some days it would be, but we’d have been lucky if it had been) but once Craig Pawson decided it wasn’t, he had a decision to make. He was not exactly sure where the keeper and other defenders had been at the time of the foul and so he made the sensible decision to award a yellow, knowing that VAR would have a look at it. This they duly did, and we can have no complaints when it was upgraded to a red. Our distribution was sloppy all day (only Partey got a pass from me on his usage of the ball) and it was our own fault we got caught. MLS had to bring Kudus down to prevent a goal, and the rest is history.

The thing is, even with 10 men, if we had twenty minutes to score a single goal to win the game then the Ems would have been rocking and the pressure on (it’s easy to say I told you so, but that’s also the time I’d have liked to see Merino enter the fray up top). Instead, we knew we had to score two, as even a point didn’t feel like enough, and (watching on tv) the atmosphere felt like no-one expected us to get the two goals we needed. Ødegaard tried to rouse the crowd with his arms, but his feet were not on the same page. With everyone in the box he played a six-yard pass to Saliba, who wasn’t expecting it (neither was anyone else, it was a terrible decision) and passed it back to Raya in an uncharacteristic flap.

We brought White on with five minutes to go, and despite having Merino and Gabriel to aim at, we refused to cross the ball from wide positions. Remember the Inter game where we swung 376 crosses at our smallest players? Well, this was the reverse. We ignored our biggest lumps and fannied about on the edge of the box.

Eight minutes of injury time roused the crowd but the best chance fell to a breaking Ferguson and Kudus. They took a leaf from our book though and messed it up without getting a shot off.

With the home faithful baying for an equaliser, we had a last corner. Raya went up but it was cleared. Our keeper outsprinted some West Ham lad to the halfway line and backheeled the ball skilfully past him to get us going again. It was probably the best thing we did all day.

So, the chance to catch up points on Pool was wasted. I am sure there will be lots of opinions about how much this result might cost us, and it is a bit too close to the action for me to throw my two cents in. I just don’t know. We will see how it plays out.

I did not like the balance of the team and there were too many poor performances. Hopefully Arteta will have learned a few things as he seeks to redeploy his scarce resources as effectively as he can for a few more games. Saka and Gabigol cannot come back quickly enough.

The thought I want to end with is that we have had a lot of injuries and a lot of bad luck this season. Our squad is not big enough. But the players on the pitch, those very same players who were not good today, gave it their all. They worked hard for the badge, they deserved the support they got from an excellent crowd, and I cannot ask more than that.

This one hurt us as fans. It will have hurt them as players. We are hurting together. But we will be ready for the next one together too.

Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Until next time, ‘holics.

Posted in Match Report | 9 Drinks »

One Game at a Time, Gunners

Feb 21st, 2025 by

The season has reached a critical juncture where the league leaders face a trio of challenging games in short order in which they might just drop a few points. It is vital that we now keep up the pressure on Slot and his team. West Ham’s visit on Saturday therefore represents yet another ‘must win game’ for the Arsenal to narrow the gap to 5 points after Villa took two points off Liverpool in a well-earned draw at Villa Park. It’s really quite simple: we just have to keep doing our own job and, by hook or by crook, beat every team in front of us as the fixtures wind down.

Our visitors claim to have been founded in 1895 as ‘Thames Ironworks’ only to be disbanded in 1900. Another club was refounded as West Ham United later that year subsequently joining the Football League in 1919. The Boleyn Ground was that club’s home from 1904 until 2016 when it received a gift from London Mayor in the award of tenancy of the former Olympic Stadium at a peppercorn rent with the ratepayers funding conversion costs to a ‘football stadium’. That move was expected to give the club a huge competitive boost but the ground is apparently a soulless place to watch football where the stadium’s original design features leave most fans far too far from the action. In addition the stands frequently appear to be filled with toxicity – though that may simply be the culture of the natives. There were certainly clear delusions of grandeur after that move but fan expectations have not yet been met and, frankly, seem unlikely ever to be met. Another as yet unfulfilled dream was that the club would be sold to a Chinese investor and their current pornographer owners would ride into the sunset with their saddle bags stuffed with gold. Dream on, barrow boys.

Although West Ham have never actually been anything other than London’s fourth largest club, they have indeed won five major honours over the years. They won the FA Cup in 1963, 1975 and 1980, the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965 (under Ron Greenwood, with an exciting young team which included three stalwarts-to-be of England’s World Cup winners in 1966), and most recently the Europa Conference League in 2023 (lifted by a certain Mr D. Rice) prompting, for a season, the preposterous chant of ‘Champions of Europe’! Delusions of grandeur in the boardroom as well as on the terraces were probably responsible for their failure to offer a contract extension in 2024 to David Moyes, who had twice saved them from relegation, took them to three consecutive European tournaments, for the first time in their history, including reaching the Europa League semi-final in 2021-22 then lifting that Europa Conference League trophy in 2022-23. Their beef was apparently that the quality of football they were playing had regressed which was probably not unrelated to the sale of key players, including a certain Mr D Rice. Moyes was replaced by the underwhelming Julian Lopetegui in May last year but his team lost 9 of 20 Premier League games leading to his replacement on 8 January by Graham Potter with the club sitting in 14th place.

At least West Ham can proudly claim to be one of only eight clubs never to have been relegated below the second tier of English football (the certificate is in the post). However, they have spent only 67 of 99 seasons in the top flight and their highest ever league position is third place on a single occasion: 1985-86. Although, when they visit the Grove, their fans sing, “We hate Tottnumb more than you,” their traditional rival is Millwall FC due to their common origins as neighbouring Thames ironworks teams and the Hammers’ frequent sojourns in the second tier. Those matches have a certain spiciness on the pitch, on the terracing and even in the streets. It’s not a fixture which the Met anticipate with glee.

Since Potter’s appointment, West Ham have played a series of matches more reminiscent of the old Southern League than the globe conquering Premiership. After being knocked out of the FA Cup by Villa the day after his appointment, the ‘new manager bounce’ kicked in briefly when they beat Fulham 3-2 at the Council Stadium following which they have lost 0-2 at home to Palace, drawn away to Villa, lost away to Chelsea and lost at home to Brentford. They now sit 16th but are 10 points clear of the relegation zone though two places below Everton whose fortunes have been transformed by none other than David Moyes. While points-wise they are, at present, well clear of the relegation scrap, continuation of their current form will see them slip inexorably towards it. We can therefore expect them to scrap desperately for a point on Saturday.

Potter’s preferred playing style may best be characterised as ‘fluid possession-based football’. At Brighton, he constantly changed team formation and personnel, occasionally playing 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 but most frequently using a back three and selecting players capable of changing roles within games. In possession he likes his forward(s) to drift wide to support an advancing wing back, creating space for central midfielders or the other wing back to run into attacking areas and take advantage of diagonal cut-backs from the wide men. Potter’s regular 3-4-2-1 employs two ’10’s’ supporting a lone striker, creating a four man midfield box to overload the opposition’s three man midfield. Meanwhile, Potter’s wide centre backs are encouraged to get forward regularly to support the wingback on their side – an attribute that you will recognise Benjamin White has successfully brought to his Arsenal game.

Out of possession, Potter’s wing backs and wide midfielders press their direct opponents aggressively out wide while his preferred double pivot hold their zonal positions to screen the defence and the two 10’s move wide to prevent in-field passes.  Their aim is to force the opponent into wide areas, away from their goal, also creating space for a breakout if they can regain possession. When the opposition has extended periods of possession Potter’s teams fall back into a 5-2-3 or 5-4-1 using a combination of low and mid blocks. In terms of defensive actions, Potter’s Brighton were the fourth most aggressive team for pressing, duelling, tackling and interceptions in his final season there, primarily due to the workrate of his two pivots and two ’10’s’. 

Undoubtedly, in the 6 weeks he has been in charge Potter will have begun to induct his new squad into his preferred strategies. Whether he adapts his tactics to a squad that was built for Lopetugi’s 4-2-3-1 system or finds players ready to adopt his methods remains to be seen. However, he has inherited an efficient double pivot in Alvarez and Soucek though they are less technically-gifted or creative than his erstwhile Brighton pairs. However., Wan-Bissaka, Kudus, Ferguson and Bowen are certainly the kind of players who would fit his mould.

Paqueta is a doubt following an ankle injury in training which means Brighton loanee Ferguson may make his first start. Summerville is out with a hamstring injury and Coufal is also expected to miss this match. Strikers Fullkrug and Antonio are long term absentees. The following starting XI is predicted by several sources: Areola; Wan-Bissaka, Mavropanos, Kidman, Emerson;  Alvarez, Ward-Prowse; Bowen, Kudus, Solar; Ferguson.

The latest news from the Arsenal camp seems to be all about successful surgical procedures. In the past week or so, Tomiyasu, Havertz and Nelson have gone under the knife and will not play again this season with the Japanese defender unlikely to be fit again until the end of the YEAR! More encouragingly, John Cross has reported in the Mirror that Mikel Arteta is targeting Fulham’s visit on 1 April for the return of both Martinelli and Saka – make of that what you will, given the date selected! However with Jesùs in the early phase of rehab post ACL surgery, we will face the Hammers without our four first choice attackers.

Thank the Lord (DB10 – no conversions here) that our Hale End graduates have stepped up to the plate so brilliantly and Mikel Merino has emulated Kai Havertz, at least initially, (hopefully to be continued indefinitely) in transforming himself from a toiling midfielder into a deadly finisher – truly a caterpillar to butterfly scale mutation. We need those three players to reproduce their Lesta form against West Ham and thereafter. I have to give special flowers to the Hale End lads. Without MLS’s toe poke deflection, I doubt whether we would have taken all 3 points at Lesta and Nwaneri’s match long endeavours should have been rewarded with more than that beautiful assist and two strikes on the woodwork. Frankly, without the emergence of those two lads we would not be breathing down the Scousers’ necks. Hopefully further rewards will be forthcoming. Benjamin White has been training with the first team since Dubai, was on the bench at Lesta and can also be expected to be available on Saturday. 

There are few questions about our starting XI. Will White start, giving Timber a well earned rest or will he join the game from the bench after 60 minutes? I suspect the latter. Will MLS retain the left back slot after several outstanding performances or will Calafiori claim the starting position? I suspect the former. After 70 minutes of unrewarding toil by Sterling prompting the consensus that the man was willing but that ‘his legs had gone’, we saw the value of a big, technically-gifted player driving into the middle of the opposition box. Will Merino start in the attack or, as Mikel Arteta implied had been his strategy against Lesta, will Sterling join Trossard and Nwaneri in driving at and tiring out the opposition’s defenders to create, as the game draws late, the space for our Big Brawny Basque Bomber to finish the job? Personally, I would start Merino up front from the off and bring Sterling on at 60-70 minutes to allow one of the starting forwards to put their feet up for half an hour, but Mikel knows better.

Thus, my starting XI is as follows (Mikel will likely have other ideas):

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, MLS

Ødegaard, Partey, Rice

Nwaneri, Merino, Trossard

We have won 74 out of 152 matches against West Ham (lost 41), scored at least 5 in each of our last two games against them and are unbeaten in 15 games, whilst West Ham haven’t kept a clean sheet in 2025. We should be optimistic that, even bereft of four top attackers, we will score goals and should win this game. If we dominate possession, as I expect, control the ball, maintain defensive solidity and regularly get the ball to Nwaneri, Dave’s favourite 2-0 scoreline seems a likely outcome. Thus the Holic Pound is going on this scoreline which is offered at 5/1 at SkyBet.

The match kicks off at 3pm and is therefore not being televised live in the UK. Overseas viewers have a number of live broadcast options.

If we are going to hunt Liverpool down, we need to win this game.

Enjoy the game, ‘Holics.

ONE. GAME. AT. A. TIME.

Posted in Match Preview | 38 Drinks »

When Your Threadbare Wardrobe Requires Wool, Ensure It’s Merino

Feb 16th, 2025 by

Of the many lessons my eight years of active-duty army experience taught, one of my most valuable kernels of wisdom, is the importance of footcare. Trust me, after you have endured seventy-two-hour continuous operations in a water-logged GP-medium tent, the last thing you want to worry about is trench-foot. I tried myriad preventative measures, but the first bit of helpful guidance on the road to proper footcare came from my platoon sergeant (all the real wisdom always comes from our cadre of noncommissioned officers) who early on took a look at my standard-issue cotton socks and mused, “Sir, part of your problem here is these sh*t cotton socks. You gotta invest in high-quality wool socks.” Boy was he ever correct. The wool wicked moisture away from my skin keeping my feet cool and dry in the summer and warm and dry in the winter. On a wet, early Saturday kick-off in the East Midlands, Mikel Merino, much like my woolen socks, wicked the moisture from Arsenal’s damp-squib attack and proved all the difference as we attempt to make this year’s league title race a competitive one.

More on that anon…

The Lineups.

The clairvoyant Ned and his industrious monks nailed the Arsenal starting eleven, though, as he quite rightly pointed out, the team sheet basically picked itself. I had come across some more “adventurous” proposed set-ups in the various nooks-and-crannies of the Arsenal media landscape; some advocating a box formation to accommodate a Merino start. But, our gaffa, being a generally conservative manager, made selections designed to minimize disruption:   

Raya
Timber—Saliba—Gabriel—Lewis-Skelly
Ødegaard—Partey—Rice
Nwaneri—Trossard—Sterling

Van Nistelrooy, in an effort to arrest a four-game, scoreless losing streak at the King Power Stadium, went with his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation:

Vardy
DeCordova-Reid—El Khannouss—Ayew
Soumare—Ndidi
Kristiansen—Okoli—Faes—Justin
Hermansen

Truth be told, the first sixty-five minutes or so of this match were an assortment of nearly-moments. The odious Jamie Vardy and Jordan Ayew played their standard roles as pantomime villains, buying fouls and undeserved restarts, while slyly grabbing, pulling and, on occasion, committing various and sundry battery across the pitch. Justin, and, later, Coulibaly kept an aged and lackluster Sterling under wraps; while Okoli ably shielded the error-prone Faes. Despite Arsenal’s relative dominance in possession in the first half, Ndidi asked the most pointed questions of Raya, including forcing saves from a tenth-minute volley and a forty-ninth minute header that, on another day, might’ve nestled into the bottom corner of Raya’s net.

In many ways, we were the source of our own frustration. Any team forced to play without its four most threatening attackers will find scoring difficult (By the way, how good was Marmoush for Citeh? Blimey, in sport and “real life” it appears the most iniquitous are the ones most often smiling.) But, for the better part of seventy-minutes, senior Gunners (full grown men) were making silly errors while a seventeen-year-old was (unfairly) shouldering the creative burden. As much as I had hoped for a Sterling remontada, I fear he is, as the young folk say, washed. Raheem had more offside calls than he had successful dribbles or progressive carries/passes. He just has the look of a player who knows he has lost his only offensive threat, explosive pace, and now he has to cheat that extra half-yard. Leo never stopped grafting, but, against the gargantuan defenders fielded by the Foxes, his diminutive stature suffered. He immediately improved after assuming the left attacking position upon Sterling’s substitution. Things just didn’t seem to click for Ødegaard in the first half—miscontrolled touches, errant passes, and running down cul-de-sacs, but his second-half form rebounded as he took more responsibility for advancing the ball and making incisive, splitting passes.

However, as we are becoming accustomed to, our Hale End Boys continued to make a salutary impact. Myles Lewis-Skelly made perhaps the most important defensive action of the match when he toe-poked a dangerous Ayew cross away from the lurking DeCordova-Reid to keep the scoreline level at nil. (A lackluster Partey had given the ball away for that Ayew attack by the way.) And what more can we say about the precocious Ethan Nwaneri? Even before Merino’s introduction in the sixty-ninth minute, Ethan was the sharpest blade in the Gunners’ satchel. Whether cutting the ball onto his left foot or driving on his right to the by-line, Nwaneri had the better of his defender (and at times multiple defenders). His intelligence, pace, and preternatural self-belief was the bright spot of this period, and he lifted his game to even higher levels after Merino entered the fray. Ethan accounted for six of Arsenal’s eleven shots, successfully completed six of his seven dribbles, and had an assist. What we are witnessing from these two boys cannot be overstated. Bless ‘em.

Leicester 0 – Arsenal 1

On either side of Merino’s substitution, both Ødegaard and Nwaneri increased their influence on the match. Martin did so by dropping deeper to collect the ball and passing with more sharpness. Ethan did so by, well, donning a superhero cape that remains perhaps a touch too large…but only a touch. In the sixty-first minute, Ethan received a sublime and inviting pass from Ødegaard and, wait for it, cut the ball onto his lift foot just outside the “D” leaving four Leicester Force defenders on skates. With the confidence of an attacker several years his senior, Nwaneri’s impertinent left-footed shot just kissed the left angle of post and bar. Shots fired. Undeterred, after Calafiori replaced Lewis-Skelly in the seventy-sixth minute, Nwaneri received an excellent pass on the edge of our attacking third from a rampaging Rice, drove at Kristiansen, and caromed a venomous right-footed effort off the right post. I hadn’t seen that shot from him before, and the keeper was dead-to-rights. The third time, however, was the charm. In the eighty-first minute, after a spell of Arsenal attacking domination, Ethan, staying alert and onside in the eighteen-yard box, accepted an inviting pass from the sturdy Timber and, with a coolness usually only found on the underside of the pillow, clipped an inch-perfect pass to the far post. An imposing figure clad in the stately red and white rose with commitment to meet the ball and nod it past the hapless Leicester keeper. Was it a bird? Was it plane? Was it a Havertz? No, it was our Spanish wolf in sheep’s clothing…Mikel Merino. Cue limbs.

Leicester 0 – Arsenal 2

Although it was likely down to several factors, Merino’s inclusion revitalized the Arsenal attack. He kept popping up in various places across our front line, wicking away moisture here, threading together possession there, and, generally, making a nuisance of himself against the tiring Foxes. Rice and Ødegaard found more pockets of space to attack, and the team’s overall timing and speed-of-thought improved. Trossard moved to the left and was immediately more dangerous. Indeed, after an impressive, lung-busting, twenty (or thirty)-yard carry by Calafiori, Leo received the pass and rifled a precise, low cross to a galloping (wait, who was that man?) Mikel Merino. His first-time, left-footed finish into the bottom right corner of the Leicester net would have flattered any veteran striker. Even, dare I say, Vardy himself looked on with envy. An eighty-seventh minute brace for Merino and a welcomed three points for the Arsenal. Tasty.

FT Leicester 0 – Arsenal 2

As the fourth official indicated a minimum of four additional minutes, a curious and long-missed song rose from the dedicated traveling Gooners. “Stadiums are empty everywhere we go. Stadiums are empty, everywhere we gooo, everywhere we gooooo.” Oh, how I have missed that song. None the worst for wear, with mere seconds remaining, Merino wove another counterattack by playing the ball out wide to Ødegaard and sprinting to form a four-on-three with Rice and Tierney. With the goal mouth looming, a slightly errant pass from Rice was cut out by the weary Leicester defender. (Ok, ok, I’ll get me coat.)

Conclusion

An electrifying win for the Gunners will likely spark a lively debate for the coming week. Should Arteta keep faith with Sterling? Will Merino start matches as our Number Nine? How much of a burden can Ethan shoulder? When (if) Saka returns this season, does Ethan remain in the starting eleven? So many questions and so much fodder for Arsenal pundits and content creators. I do know this—we’re not yet drinking cider in the park…we’re still here. For another week, we’re still here. Now, it’s over to the Scousers (Where are those FA charges for failing to control their players or abusing the referee? Oh, silly me, I forgot.) With any luck, the Wolves will bring their own wool…

Have a nice one, ‘Holics.

MCMBD.

(Stay humble, eh?)

Posted in Match Report | 119 Drinks »

A Nine, a Nine, My Kingdom for a Nine

Feb 14th, 2025 by

And so to the King Power Stadium for the early Saturday game, just a mile from Richard III’s crypt in Leicester Cathedral, which provides a cheap and cheesy headline. Cheap and cheesy might also be a Walker’s crisp flavour, right up there with Cajun Squirrel.

Before our first visit to Leicester, on Monday, January 7, 1895, up to three inches of snow had to be swept from the pitch. Teams of men with brushes were set to the task after a heavy overnight snowfall with the country in the grip of Dickensian wintry weather.

The Woolwich Arsenal eleven travelled up that morning by train. They needn’t have bothered. Out of sorts and out of form, they were down by two goals after 11 minutes and three with 20 minutes to go. Young Scottish inside left Peter Mortimer scored our goal a couple of minutes from time. 

Our fourth loss in five games left us mid-table in the old Second Division. Early season hopes of promotion were dead. Leicester Fosse would finish fourth in their debut season in the Football League, missing qualification for the Test matches, a Victorian version of the playoffs, on goal average, a Victorian version of goal difference that would last until 1978-79.

Like many places and institutions in and around Leicester, its football club owed its name to the Fosse Way. This Roman road between Exeter and Lincoln ran through Ratae Corieltauvorum (now Leicester, but how prescient of the Romans to anticipate Vardy). The club was started in 1884 as Fosse FC by members of a chapel bible class and former pupils of Wyggeston Grammar School, whose lengthy list of distinguished alumni includes Sir David Attenborough. 

The founding XI, mostly still teenagers, lived in or around Fosse Road, which tracked the old Roman road. Fosse played its first game in a field off Fosse Road, winning 5-0 against Syston Fosse, a team from a small town northeast of Leicester, through which the Fosse Way had also run. 

That was the only time the Fosse played there before moving to a succession of grounds in the city, including the county cricket ground at Grace Road. In 1891, newly admitted to the Midland League, it settled at the Walnut Street Ground, whose entrance was off Filbert Street, the name the ground would adopt from the turn of the century. There are still Brazil and Hazel Streets and an Almond Road nearby. Nuts!

Like many Victorian-era teams, the Fosse acquired a geographical anchor to their name during the passage from local to regional and eventually national football. Royal Arsenal and The Wednesday are other examples. However, the club’s accounts for 1893-94, its last season in the Midland League before election to the Football League, were still in the name of Fosse FC. The Fossils, as they were inevitably nicknamed (Foxes is post-World War Two), played in the Football League as Leicester Fosse until the First World War, after which the club, having fallen into financial straits, was reformed as Leicester City.

And the rest, as they say, is for another day.

The opposition

Thirteen games into his tenure at the King Power Stadium, Ruud van Nistelrooy’s record reads: P13 W 3 D1 L 9, although Old Horse Face has good cause to feel aggrieved that the most recent of those losses, in the FA Cup last weekend, was a miscarriage of offside. In the league, the Foxes sit atop the relegation zone, a point clear of Ipswich but two short of the salvation of seventeenth, currently enjoyed by Wolves.

At Leicester, van Nistelrooy has gone with a 4-2-3-1, not the 4-3-3 he deployed with some success with PSV in Eindhoven.

The young Dane, Mads Hermansen, is his preferred glove butler to Wales’s Danny Ward. Hermansen will likely be behind a back four of James Justin, who has one England cap, Wout Faes, who has 25 Belgium caps, Jannick Vestergaard, who has 51 Denmark caps, and another young Dane, Victor Kristiansen, who has 17 caps for his country. 

Van Nistelrooy has been rotating his centre-backs, saying he has been picking the pairing best suited to the opposition. Yet, there is a sense that his two best players in the position, last season’s regulars Faes and Vestergaard, do not have the chemistry of the best pairings. He needs to find it: Leicester have conceded 53 goals in 24 league games, more than twice as many as the team has scored.

Vestergaard and Kristiansen have had knocks but should be fit to play. If not, the nippy but error-prone young Italian Caleb Okoli, who was called up by the Italy squad for their Nations League games earlier this season, or ex-Wolves skipper Conor Coady, who reportedly tried to return to his former club in the January window, would step in in the centre. Luke Thomas, a Hoffenheim target in January, or the versatile Woyo Coulibaly, a January signing still waiting for his first start, are the cover at full-back.

Boubakary Soumare and Wilfred Ndidi are van Nistelrooy’s preferred double pivot. Ndidi strained his hamstring in December and only returned last weekend. He did not complete the whole game, and Leicester’s defensive performance noticeably dropped once he left the field.

Nonetheless, van Nistelrooy will start him, and his stand-in, Harry Winks, signed from the neighbours in 2023, will drop to the bench. Plan C would be Oliver Skipp, a £20 million purchase from the same marshy quagmire last summer.

Leicester’s attacking midfielders—Jordan Ayew, Bilal El Khannous and Bobby De Cordova-Reid—have experience, quality and experience, in that order. Stephy Mavididi, Facundo Buonanotte and Kasey McAteer will come off the bench.

The veteran Ayew, signed from Palace last summer for £5 million plus £3 million in add-ons, has over 100 caps for Ghana and is joint second in Leicester’s goal-scoring chart this season with four, behind only the beloved Jamie Vardy. Belgian-born and raised, El Khannous, 18 years younger than Vardy, is already well-established in Morocco’s national team. Bristol-born De Cordova-Reid, another summer signing, on a free from Fulham, remains a regular in the Jamaica national squad, but has been in and out of the Leicester side since suffering Achilles heel problems in November. 

Buonanotte, a 20-year-old who has earned a couple of Argentina caps in friendly matches and is on loan from Brighton, would be the next choice, followed by either McAteer, a young Ireland winger whom Sunderland attempted to sign in January, or Mavididi, formerly of this parish. 

The closest Mavididi came to a first-team game in red and white was twice being an unused substitute in a league cup match. We sold him as a 20-year-old to Juventus’s B team for £1.25 million; the Old Lady sold him to Montpellier two seasons later for four times that. Montpellier moved him on to Leicester for £1 million more than they paid for him.

Another formerly of this parish, Bless Akolbire, has been named to Leicester’s PL Under-21s squad list, but the 18-year-old, a box-to-box midfielder, is unlikely to be on parade for the senior side on Saturday.

Up front, Vardy is likely to return from injury. He is the Foxes’ top scorer this season with seven goals plus three assists. From the bench, when those speedy but ageing legs tire, van Nistelrooy can call on Zambian international Patson Daka, for whom Leicester paid Red Bull Salzburg £25 million in 2021, and Odsonne Edouard, on loan from Palace but who has not played a minute under van Nistelrooy and was barely used when Steve Cooper was still manager.

The Arsenal

Before the Havertz hamstring news, I had drafted this paragraph as, ‘Refreshed and revived from a week in Dubai and unencumbered by domestic cup involvements, the team can now focus on the two prizes that matter. There are 14 games to go in the league, each a must-win, and up to seven in the CL, pretty much the same.’

At least the second sentence holds. 

Nine of the team pick themselves. Calafiori or Lewis-Skelly and Sterling or Merino are the questions. One plus is that van Nistelrooy won’t have any better idea of how Arteta will set up without Havertz than I do. Trossard has mainly played as a false nine in a 4-4-2 when Ødegaard was out, which does not help the second-guessing. Thus:

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly

Ødegaard, Partey, Rice

Nwaneri, Trossard, Sterling

There is not much more to say. We must win. The game is a potential banana skin. Vardy is eternally tiresome: he has scored more often against us than any other team (11 goals in 17 games). 

Some Leicester fans are planning to stage a protest on 14 minutes over how the club’s transfer business is being run (theirs, not ours, I assume, but one can’t be sure). It would be nice to think that we would be a goal up by then (Nwaneri nodding in a corner, having been given a piggyback by MLS — Nicolas Jover’s innovative solution for replacing Havertz’s height) and settling in for an uneventful three points. 

It will be more of a grind than that. Yet, 2-0 should be doable against a team that has lost its past four home league games without scoring.

Enjoy the game ‘holics, far and near.

Posted in Match Preview | 45 Drinks »

Admitting The Problem Is The First Step

Feb 9th, 2025 by

The recent relaxation of our hectic fixture schedule finally allows us to publish the third part of Gunnersaurus Stunt Double’s trilogy on the current state of the game. If you missed his excellent earlier pieces, Part 1, ‘Fishbowl, Anyone?’ can be found here and Part 2, ‘Divided We Fall’ can be found here. Let’s be having (pace Delia) your tuppenceworth in the Drinks.

I should like to start by noting that I wrote this piece last November (2024) but due to scheduling conflict on GoonerholicsForever it is only appearing now. It was not written as a response to any refereeing decision(s) more recent than that, and I leave it to readers to assess if any decisions since November have provided it with additional relevance.

The idea that referees are impartial is ludicrous. Subconscious bias is a scientifically proven phenomenon which impacts how human beings think and how we make decisions. At some level, all (human) referees are biased.

Referees could try their best to mitigate the effects of subconscious bias if they accepted it is something capable of untowardly influencing them. Unfortunately, in a move typical of the culture of PGMOL, they seem to think they are the only group of humans alive who are unaffected by it. But, as ever, they claim expertise and impartiality they do not possess.

If The Face Fits

So, whom are they biased against?

Well, the evidence available is limited by the studies done. There are consistent results from across a variety of sports to show that home teams have an advantage. It is not a huge advantage but noticeable, especially over time.

However, I cannot find any reliable information on some other interesting areas, probably because no-one has studied them properly. There are questions that we need the answers to. 

For me, two pressing ones given our current situation are:

  1. How does subconscious bias affect referees who support one of the clubs they referee?
  2. How does subconscious bias affect referees who support a rival club of those they referee?

Let me briefly note that subconscious bias is, essentially, a phenomenon which sees us favour people and groups who we identify with as being like us or feel an affinity towards, and act against those we see as different to us or feel antipathy towards.

With that understanding, it is no surprise that one of the most studied and widely seen subconscious biases relates to race. The scenarios that this has been found in are legion. For example, overwhelming subconscious bias has been shown to exist across US police forces (as well as overt racism, but that is not today’s topic). This boils down to white people in positions of power who are more likely to believe other white people are law-abiding and honest, and non-white people are less so – and to act on these subconscious assumptions.

Our current crop of referees are almost exclusively white men born around the 1980s who grew up in the North of England. Even at its most progressive, that location in that era was not an environment that would stand up to examination by the standards of today. I would be staggered if PGMOL referees do not have any subconscious racial bias (I’d argue it is vanishingly unlikely as almost everyone does) yet there have been no studies I can find on subconscious racial bias impacting officiating in any sport.

You’ll have to use the eye test to see if Grealish gets freekicks for the same fouls that Saka doesn’t. Whatever conclusions you make, remember that the question is valid, if not vital, and that the common belief that white referees do not consciously favour white players provides those of us who believe this (including me) with a basis for our own confirmation bias, affecting our ability to evaluate this impartially. That makes it even more important that we develop a culture of openly questioning what factors affect the fairness of decisions made, rather than a culture where decisions are above meaningful scrutiny. 

Whose Side Are You On?

There is little empirical evidence for how a referee who supports a club referees them or their rivals – Jarred Gillett on VAR may appear to treat Liverpool like he is their own personal Santa Claus but that isn’t actually evidence of bias, or cheating.

That said, it is worth noting that are there are easily verifiable statistics from statistically significant groups of games overseen by individual referees since the formation of the PGMOL that, all things being equal, can be considered anomalous, at best. Some officials have consistently higher rates of awarding penalties to certain teams, or lower rates of awarding them yellow cards, for example, when compared to the league average and their own personal average.

If they support or have an allegiance to the clubs involved, would we expect to see data like this? Yes.

Would we still expect this even if the individual officials were trying to be impartial and even believe their own propaganda and truly think they are impartial? Yes.

Does it make sense to suggest that our football club allegiances engender subconscious bias? Yes. This has been proved in studies not relating to refereeing and would provide a sound hypothesis to explain the data showing anomalies in the way referees treat certain teams differently to the expected norms.

I can find no-one who has commissioned a study on this. Someone needs to.

A previous article in this series about the necessity of fans from different clubs banding together was met in the bar with much suggestion that there is too much enmity for that, even though it would be to our mutual benefit. When even the conscious bias (in many cases fully developed into a visceral enmity) is this deeply ingrained, it would seem ridiculous to deny the subconscious bias.

The Unlikely Referee

So, without hard data, let’s use our little grey cells; allow me to go on a flight of fancy and imagine that yours truly had been asked to officiate a Spurs game. (You’ll have to assume I had the necessary qualifications and skills, of which I have neither, although the current referees only have one out of two themselves).

I’d recuse myself immediately.

That’s it. It would not go any further.

I should not be anywhere near refereeing a Spurs game. And it is not because I would try to be unfair towards them. I am a huge believer in sporting fair play and would much rather see a fair game that Spurs win than an unfair one which they lose (or a fair Arsenal loss over an unfair win). Indeed, in a nutshell, it is why I am writing this article, because the current situation is intrinsically unfair, and that goes against everything the game stands for to me.

But, no matter how hard I tried consciously to be impartial, I would fail because they are Spurs and I couldn’t put that aside no mater how hard I tried.

Picture it: I would assume Richarlison has not been fouled no matter how much he rolls around on the floor; I reckon there is a high chance that Romero has just missed the ball and kicked some bloke three feet in the air, regardless of how much he makes an incredulous face and does that little two handed roll action to tell me the striker dived, and I have seen Spurs get so many dodgy penalties against us that it would take a two-footed slide tackle from behind for me to be sure enough to award them one. That’s hardly fair, is it?

Although, thinking about it, I’ve seen a quite a lot of refereeing performances that have rather had that feel to them. 

Change The Collective

Put simply, there is no guaranteed way to negate subconscious bias in individuals, but it can be limited structurally within an organisation; in this case by having a wide pool of referees, who have different biases. With regard to biases involving specific teams, these must be clearly identified and the officials who hold them must be kept away from any matches they might affect.

The current group of homogenous white men from the North of England are institutionally unfit to referee the game, without any reference to them as individuals. We need far more representation in terms of age, race, gender, geography, allegiance and doubtless other areas too. The wider the net, the better, as long as they are professional and competent.

Currently, PGMOL employs a small pool of unprofessional incompetents. The worst of all worlds.

PGMOL has also actively refused to release who their referees support because they privately fear it would look bad.

Indeed, it would. Especially in light of many of their contentious decisions.

It should not need saying, but it manifestly does: all referees should have to publicly declare who they support, and no referee should be allowed to be part of the officiating team for any of their own team’s games or the games of their rivals. This would require a far larger group of officials, which is exactly what we need anyway.

PGMOL are against this as it would render most of their current crop of referees unfit to referee many of the teams in the league. Which, of course, they are.

Playing The Long Game

Let me finish by driving home a few points. Regardless of what we think of the current PGMOL officials, and my personal opinion is extremely low, as an institution they are unfit for purpose.

No official should be involved in a game where there is even the possibility of a suggestion of a conflict of interest.

Any homogeneous group of people, in this case middle-aged white men from the North(west) of England, would be unfit for officiating football across England, and any and all focus on the individuals involved and their respective qualities, or lack thereof, fails to address the point that the system itself is inherently flawed.

We need a large pool of diverse and skilled referees.

Anyone or any organisation that says otherwise is part of the problem.

Here’s looking at you, PGMOL.

Posted in Opinions | 76 Drinks »

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