My last post has generated lively debate on Twitter, as supporters of Arsene defend him against any suggestion he’s not achieved absolutely everything he should have achieved. (He built a stadium, you know. So did Herbert Chapman as it happens, and it didn’t stop him and his successors winning the League, but anyway…) If you…

It’s been a great achievement for Arsène Wenger to keep Arsenal in the top 4 every year for 20 years. Just saying that upfront so I’m not accused of ignoring it. I keep seeing the chart comparing Arsène’s 20 years of finishing positions with the previous 20 years, and naturally the Wenger years look better…

Just posting this up as I put it on Twitter and it generated a fair bit of comment. An interview with David Dein from the Arsenal programme in 1989 – sorry, ‘match day magazine’, as it had been retitled by then. Dein, for all his faults, is a man who in my humble opinion not…

News has broken that Alisher Usmanov’s company USM is to sponsor Everton’s new training ground in exchange for the naming rights. The Sun (I know, ever reliable…) are running this story, but have not given a figure for the deal. Usmanov’s business partner Farhad Moshiri gave up his half of Red & White Holdings, their…

By the start of the 1978-79 season it had been seven full years since any Arsenal silverware, but the Chairman’s mood in the first programme of the season, home to Leeds, was optimistic. Arsenal had been FA Cup finalists and League Cup semi-finalists and had finished fifth in Division One a couple of months earlier…

Continuing my potted history of Arsenal through the medium of the match programme, we reach 1977-78.  It’s fair to say that the 1977-78 was not a particularly vintage year for the Arsenal programme. It appeared the editor thought he’d seen enough change in recent seasons, so stuck with almost exactly the same format as 1976-77.…

Further to my last post, I’ve now got fascinated by the possibility of predicting the eventual number of points the league champions will win the title with by looking at the table after nine games (much more exciting than xG). Arsene Wenger alerted me to this with his prediction that this season’s champions would win…

At Arsenal’s recent AGM Arsène stated that based on points accumulated so far, he expected the Premier League to be won with a total of 82-86 points this season. He appeared to be basing this on the fact that the top three were all on 20 points after 9 games, which is half a game…

It was the Arsenal AGM today. I won’t give a full report because most of what happens is the same thing year after year. Things that are always the same at the Arsenal AGM: 1: The Chairman acts like an old duffer. PH-W used to, now Sir Chips does. They blunder about, get the protocol…

I guess the celebrations of #Wenger20 brought this to the front of my mind. Congratulations to Arsène for outlasting 144 other Premier League managers and 1,027 in total in English football since October 1996. The longevity is exceptional, though I believe opinions differ on whether it’s become exceptionally good or exceptionally bad in recent seasons.…