Misleading crowd comparisons for Arsenal, and PL bail out Liverpool.

By Tony Attwood Much is being made of the fact that we have just seen the lowest attendance ever at the Emirates Stadium.   Where reported it reads like a shock horror tale of absolute decline. But sadly although there are some big headlines around, the reporters don’t give any background to help us make a …

Arsenal v Doncaster. The Arsenal team, and memories of thumping Sheffield Utd 9 years ago.

By Bulldog Drummond 23 September 2008 was one of the most famous days in the years of austerity.  For it was the day that a team of youngsters was put out by Arsenal in the league cup, much to howls of derision from the rest of football. We were told it was unfair on the …

Arsenal v Doncaster: tickets, injuries, form, cards, Totts at Wembley, Liverpool 4 without a win

By Bulldog Drummond First off the tickets: I think there are still some tickets available at the usual prices of upper tier tickets £20.00 Adults and £10.00 Concessions and  lower tier tickets £10.00 Adults and £5.00 Concessions.  They will be on sale until 4pm and then that’s that.  There is no purchasing of tickets thereafter. It is …

Can Doncaster repeat their previous triumphs against Arsenal?

by Tony Attwood Probably the key thing you know about Doncaster is that their manager is the son of Sir Alex Ferguson: Duncan.  He has been manager of Preston, and Peterborough (twice).  He joined Doncaster in October 2015.  And well, if you didn’t know that, you know now. In recent years the club has had …

Kroenke and other American owners plan Premier League revolution, and its going to be big.

  by Tony Attwood How many Premier League teams are under American control?   Come to that how mean English league teams are under American control? It’s an interesting question, because despite all the mega power that exists in being sponsored by a country, as Manchester City is, it doesn’t really give the club that …

Arsenal Women – Season Preview. New name, rearranged season.

by Andrew Crawshaw There are a number of very significant changes this season for Arsenal Women. The WSL starts this weekend having reverted back to a winter league. The Club’s name has changed from Arsenal Ladies to Arsenal (with Women added when necessary to distinguish from the Men’s team) There have been significant personnel changes …

Corbyn and Bellerin excommunicate Piers Morgan,

by Tony Attwood Some people are game changers.   Some people like Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born Piers Stefan O’Meara now known as Piers Morgan) are name changers.  He’s the man of whom the Leveson enquiry said,he was “sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it”. Anyway he was at the GQ …

What exactly does it mean when Arsenal are on red alert over a player spotted at the airport?

By Sir Hardly Anyone As I have said before, by now I should be on the estate in the heart of the Rutland Forest hunting wildebeest, but it seems we now have a 365 days a year transfer rumour window and these pesky devils at Untold have me on a contract that says when there …

Arsenal are not going to match the expenditure of the Manchester clubs no matter who is manager

by Tony Attwood The notion that if only Arsenal could replace the manager we would then have someone who will ruthlessly identify the players needed and bring them to the club, is, in my view, not a reasonable one.  The expenditure by Manchester City and Manchester United is now getting so far ahead of Arsenal, …

Chelsea on track to get 23 red cards this season and Arsenal to get 53 yellows.

By Tony Attwood And so the world spins, and the statistics are chosen to back up a point and fairy stories continue. On the fairy story front we have “A number of Real Madrid stars are reportedly not keen on the idea of a January move for Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez,” from the ever fanciful …

Chelsea – Arsenal : 0-0 – the Untold match report

By Walter Broeckx The late match report. A bright start of the match with Chelsea going forward with more speed and Arsenal building up things a bit slower. Apart from a short taken corner has to be cleared by Welbeck to prevent further danger on the low cross. An unfortunate contact knee against knee between …

Chelsea’s problem with the Reds and a red, and China’s problem with Arry the Red.

By Tony Attwood Seeing a club lose their third player to a red card this season it was hard not to think that had it happened last season or the season before it would have been Arsenal who would have had at least one man sent off in this match, not Chelsea.  To lose one …

Chelsea v Arsenal: the supporters and the team; the injuries and the discipline.

By Bulldog Drummond To start with an admin note: you may have seen that pages on Untold suddenly reduce in size to allow extra advertising.  This normally works with the text but screws up our tables.  I’m talking with our ad agency about this, but if you do find it affects your reading just click …

Arsenal v Cologne: what did they think of the fiasco in Germany?

by Tony Attwood This is a translation of what the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitungde put on its website in the aftermath of the Cologne game 15,000 Cologne fans travel to London for the first European League game for 25 years, but only a few have tickets. But how big was the chaos? Peter Stöger [head coach of …

Will the referee’s change of style seen in the Cup Final continue on Sunday

By Bulldog Drummond In March 2014 Andre Mariner sent off Kieran Gibbs for doing … nothing, in a match against Chelsea and gave Chelsea a penalty.  Two mistakes – one, as replays showed, was that the ball was not going into the net when the Arsenal player touched it, and two it wasn’t Gibbs.  In …

Chelsea v Arsenal : Sunday 17 September – The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw Our officials for Sunday Afternoon are :- Referee – Michael Oliver  Age 32 from Northumberland FIFA Accredited Assistant Referee 1 – Simon Bennett  from Staffordshire and FIFA Accredited Assistant Referee 2 – Stuart Burt  from Northamptonshire and FIFA Accredited Fourth Official – Neil Swarbrick  Age 51 from Lancashire So a FIFA Accredited …

It is ludicrous that Arsenal are still saying they are trying to stop ticket touting

By Tony Attwood Gradually the issues following last night’s fiasco have begun to emerge. Cologne have been charged by Uefa with crowd disturbances, setting of fireworks, throwing objects and acts of damage.   Arsenal have been charged with the blocking of stairways in an away supporter section. Arsenal’s statement however includes the comment that, “Many tickets …

Arsenal in total chaos as absolute failure of security leaves everyone vulnerable to attack

By Tony Attwood We live in a world in which all major western cities are on total alert against terror attacks.  Except in seems in London.  For last night we had an outbreak of much lower level (but still dangerous and still unlawful) misbehaviour, which was announced a week in advance, and Arsenal did not …

Arsenal v Cologne: The teams, the Jack talk, the growth of penalties in Europe.

By Bulldog Drummond And moving on to the final episode of our Cologne previews, of course there is Jack who has now been working with Mr Wenger for ten years.  Mr W said… “Jack is very hungry and very determined, He is also not completely at his best but he is getting there every week. …

People with not much to say, and even less insight, saying things that aren’t true

By Bulldog Drummond “Arsenal are falling apart.  One must clearly say, Arsenal show signs of disintegration under Wenger.” Now which middle of the road unbiased neutral critic might have said that?  Oh look it was former Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann, now a Sky Germany pundit.  He said it  in an interview with Sport Buzzer which is …

Seven, no six, no seven players dropped for the Cologne game, and one of their team is an Arsenal fan

by Bulldog Drummond And the stories keep on emerging about Arsenal’s line up tomorrow, along of course with all the transfers that will take place in January – after all the window opens in in a mere 109 days so it is good to get the rumours in early. I’ll leave the transfers for Sir …

The reason Cologne are in the Europa and yet bottom of the German League tells us all about German football.

By Bulldog Drummond Approaching the game against 1. FC Köln I was pondering how a team that could do well enough to get into the Europa, could then be bottom of their league by the time the first Euro game came around. The answer turns out to be not too hard to fathom, and it comes about …

Shock lineup for Cologne game, Arsenal’s next manager confirmed, injured duo on road to recovery.

By Sir Hardly Anyone, Now normally I only leave the Ancestral Republic of Rutlandshire to cover transfer nonsense, but it seems that nonsense has now become an all the year round event, and so I have been invited, as an experiment, to comment on chit chat that happens during what I believe the lower classes …

The Arsenal U18 Team early season update

by Andrew Crawshaw The U18s This season has seen a number of changes forced on Kwame Ampadu’s team as several of last year’s starters have moved upwards to the U23s.  Injuries to other players have given opportunities for a number of schoolboys to step up, something unexpected at this time in the season. Game 1 …

Jack against Cologne, Kos is out, crowd trouble worries, and doping in German football.

By Tony Attwood We’ve had the story that Jack Wilshere will be brought back against Cologne abut 20 times, which can only mean he probably won’t start, but if he is in the squad, he’ll be on the beach.  And I write that because normally when the same story goes around and around and around …