Untold Arsenal: football news from an Arsenal perspective

For the History of Arsenal and the daily Arsenal video of a great historic match you might enjoy the daily blog of the Arsenal History Society

Football finances

• Why the collapse of the transfer market prefaces the collapse of football.
• Arsenal’s financial woes and the media’s call for more spending.
• Arsenal’s finances are really in a mess
• Football finances: the numbers are not making sense
• The finances of the top clubs are weird and not wholly making sense.

Arsenal Ladies

• The Champions League: how the competition works
• The match against PSV and the second round draw
• Arsenal v Slavia Prague: the preview

Understanding Arsenal’s start to the 2021/22 season

• Just how many new players can Arsenal bring in over three summers
• Spending and tackles – is last season’s trend continuing?
• Does being bottom after 3 games actually tell us how the season will end?
• It is the failure to ask one simple question that is causing problems for Arsenal
• It has taken 3 years and we are still not back at the level of when Wenger left
• Does changing managers actually work for Arsenal?

Refereeing Updates

• Arsenal are more than twice as dirty a team as Southampton – according to refs

The tactics files

• How tackling is change in the PL and how it is affecting clubs’ positions in the league
• How clubs manipulate referees through their tactics
• Revealed: How clubs have evolved their “referee handling” tactics with such success

The media’s take 

• What happened to the 134 players said to be coming to Arsenal last summer?
• How “I think that was positive” was turned into “Arteta’s worried” by the media
• Newpaper reports show journalists’ failure to grasp what’s happening at Arsenal
• A conspiracy against Arsenal, or just journalists not doing any work.
• New positives emerge as the truth finally dawns.

The statistical enquiry of 2021 that the media totally ignored

How the media created an alternative story that Arsenal failed in 2020/21, when in fact Arsenal brought about a revolution

• Which PL clubs foul the most and which are fouled the most?
• Behold: The dirtiest teams in the PL last season; and the one that were fouled the most
• Making up statistics about Arsenal is ok… until someone bothers to check.
• New fouls and yellow card data suggest refs are reacting to club ploys.
• Arsenal keeper to be replaced by 8 year old who’s never played football
• 2020/21: The key data tables

And the articles that emerged from the data tables above….

• Arsenal’s fouls dropped by 22% last season – but did it help?
• Amazingly, in 2020/1 the more clubs tackled, the more goals they let in!
• How Arsenal’s 40% decline in tackling over the past five years has sparked the revival
• The Great Arsenal Untruth: does it matter?
• As football supporters we are being brainwashed.
• How viral lies about Arsenal are amplified
• Arteta’s 10 greatest triumphs with Arsenal
• If Arteta fails it might be for the best
• Does it matter that the media spread lies about Arsenal every day?
• Arsenal’s 2020/1 season upgraded from woeful to disappointing
• Media suddenly realises it wasn’t Arsenal who were awful last season
• How the football media face up to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky
• Making up statistics about the Arsenal is ok… until someone bothers to check
• How the media decided that Arsenal’s biggest story didn’t fit the agenda
• Arsenal keeper to be replaced by 8 year old who has never played football
• The complete lack of exit strategy is causing Arsenal havoc
• How is tackling changing in the Premier League and how is it affecting clubs’ position?
• Arsenal have been given more red cards in the last 10 years than any other PL club
• The new positives emerge
• The curious case of how the media treats Manchester City and how it treats Arsenal
• Arsenal fouls dropped by 22% last season: did it help?
• Which clubs foul more than they are fouled

The proof that something is seriously wrong with football refereeing and reporting

• The curious case of how the media treats Man C and how it treats Arsenal
• Arsenal in mega crisis
• How one journalist decided to turn the truth about Arsenal upside down.
• Arsenal’s results are on track for top four finishes – from next season.
• This is Arsenal’s worst position for over a quarter of a century
• If the media lie and bully about the news, what do you think they do about football?
• Arsenal’s financial woes and the media’s call for more spending.

The Super League: how it was stopped and what next

• Who can stop the Midweek Combination, and how can they do it?
• Arsenal supporters issue solid rebuttal of club’s plan to join unwanted new league
• Breakaway clubs face largest football PR and political disaster of all times
• Superleague. The key question the media utterly refused to ask, let alone answer
• Apologies from Arsenal, but not everyone is saying sorry.
• After the apologies, what next for naughty six? And how did they get it so wrong?
• Super League v Premier League: now the real war begins

Fifa in crisis

• Why and how Infantino is still happy to promote the Super League.
• “Fifa will not exist in ten years time.” Or maybe even less!

The slavery files & the FA

• Qatar and the world cup – the protests grows
• Odegaard speaks out against world cup in Qatar; a country built on slavery
• Human rights abuses: has our little campaign had unexpected support?
• MP stance on football should fill us all with disgust
• If all lives matter, if slavery is unacceptable, what is the FA doing about Qatar?
• British media universally continues to support modern slavery

How referees influence games 

• Arsenal have been given more red cards in the last 10 years than any other club.
• How clubs manipulate referees through their tactics
• Proving unconscious bias by referees is rife in the Premier League: penalties
• Revealed: How clubs have evolved their “referee handling” tactics with such success
• How the impression refs have of certain clubs influences how they are treated
• How clubs developed the fourth type of match fixing in the Premier League

Gaslighting: how refereeing in the Premier League is manipulated, and why the media never speak about it.

• 1: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it?
• 2: How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media
• 3: Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed
• 4: How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4
• 5: Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the credibility of the Premier League
• 6: Revealed: PL referees are not 98% accurate but actually just 75% accurate

(Footnote: the first ever mention of gaslighting in connection with football other than in this article appeared in the media just six weeks after the launch of the above series on Untold)

PL Refereeing: where it has all gone so wrong.

• Abuse of players and referees is in part at least, PGMO’s own fault.
• If PGMO don’t act now, someone is going to get seriously hurt.

Tackles, fouls and yellow cards.  These figures are truly weird.

• New fouls and yellow card data suggest refs are reacting to club ploys.
• How the top clubs foul with impunity
• Could Arsenal adopt Leicester’s tactics and follow them up the table?

The evidence that referees have not been running matches properly

• Referee changed after Liverpool demand; even the excuse makes no sense
• Despite media denials, away advantage now outweighs home advantage
• Media’s feeble attempt to explain away wins while ignoring the true research
• Crowdless stadia stats reveal fallacy of PGMO claims about referee accuracy
• PL refs make almost 3 times as many errors per game as Swiss refs. Why?
• Without crowds away teams do so much better
• We must be clear; it is the referees who have been giving clubs the advantage
• 160 games analysed with video evidence
• The media is quiet as Riley finally admit huge number of referee errors.
• Excellent newspaper article proves ref bias and points to media complicity in hiding it

The FA and the corruption files

• Brexit bites the Premier League: we’ll never be the same again
• Sweet FA. A history of the idiocy and incompetence in football administration
• The FA scandals part 2: The minister says reform or we close you
• The FA scandals part 3: hiding racism and appointing idiots
• Mr Wenger v The FA – the full 20 year history. And the world of the fake innuendo.
• The crimes of the FA: failing to deal with Fifa and with discrimination
• The failures of the FA: Part 6 – if we don’t communicate it is your fault
• Tracking the fun things the FA have got up to over the years. Part 7.
• How the FA have manipulated the stats in order to try and gain more power

Switzerland take a greater interest in Fifa – at last

The corruption files

• Platini and Blatter now prosecuted for fraud, but don’t tell the English
• Could Fifa really be stopped? Is the unthinkable now actually possible?
• Fifa, “Guilty As Charged.” This MUST be the turning point for Fifa and CAS
• IFAB vs PGMO vs Fifa… who is the most secret (and damaging) of them all?
• Another football scandal looms as law officers raid the German FA’s offices
• Infantino is one step closer to the edge of the cliff, but UK media is still silent
• Fifa in chaos as Infantino’s illegal meetings revealed and chief Swiss lawman resigns
• Swiss prosecutors demand prison for beIN & PSG president and ex-Fifa No 2.

How to save football

• Bumbling or planning? What are they smoking at Liverpool?
• How football can be saved from itself: a simple 15 point plan.
• Man U & Liverpool come up with new plan to “rescue football”
• Football is teetering on the brink, but no one will admit it’s their fault

Premier League referees

• There’s no proof of corruption in the PL, it is just that some things are rather odd.
• In the past they said they were 98% accurate.  Now they admit it was only 85% accuracy.  So how can we ever believe anything they say again?
• The media is quiet as Riley finally admit huge number of referee errors.
• Why football journalism is both misleading and making no sense at all.
• How Fulham 0 Arsenal 3 was a total disaster… for journalists
• 160 games analysed with video evidence

The great refereeing scandal

• Excellent newspaper article proves ref bias and points to media complicity in hiding it
• The shocking statistics on how referees have affected Arsenal’s league position
• Leicester’s strange tackle / foul / yellow figures change as they slip down the league
• “Disgraceful;” “The worst refereeing performance I have ever seen”. TalkSport
• Now is the time to investigate the refereeing system in the Premier League
• Why do Liverpool keep getting the same referees?
• Is Premier League refereeing very different from other major European leagues?
• The openness of German referees raises the question, what have the PGMO got to hide?

Chaos in Europe; silence in England

• Another football scandal looms as law officers raid the German FA’s offices
• Swiss prosecutors demand prison for beIN & PSG president and ex-Fifa No 2.
• Infantino looks sunk; but if he takes down Fifa as well, what replaces it?
• Fifa starts to implode, and the strange case of lack of UK interest in events
• Amazing unbelievable development in the Fifa battle; sadly not on UK news
• The Fifa court cases continue, more corruption, more scandals and the FA says…
• How Fifa is finally falling apart in the courts (but the English don’t want to know)
• The Swiss government is fighting Fifa. And now so is the USA!
• Another legal case involving Fifa, yet more silence in the UK media
• Another huge football scandal – and why the mass media in England won’t cover it
• English football in danger of deluding itself out of business
• Yet another Fifa scandal breaks, but again the British media won’t report it.

The stories missed by the media but published in Untold

• After City Group and Red Bull now a third group: it’s the future of football
• Europe moves towards a salary cap
• The real reason Arsenal is winding up its scouting network.
• Human rights abusers to be excluded from football? One tiny step forward
• The Big Big Big change to football that is lurking just around the corner
• No turning back: why no one dares let the image of football slip
• Are the media helping to cover up Fifa’s activities, on behalf of the FA?
• “The noose is drawn around Gianni Infantino” but don’t tell the UK media

Football scandals

• New security systems hints at threat to serious journalism after Man C case
• The CAS hearing regarding Man C’s suspension is over. What now?
• Huge Fifa corruption story breaks; no report in English media!
• English football in danger of deluding itself out of business

• What foreign journalists think of the missing ethics of their English counterparts
• Saudi Arabian questions as we have been celebrating liberation
• City Group’s expansion is starting to run into legal complexities

Arsenal’s history

• Still getting Arsenal’s history wrong, after all these years
• 100 years ago today in the midst of a pandemic, how were Arsenal doing compared to now?
• Arsenal’s anniversaries – published each day by the Arsenal History Society
• The Arsenal History Society publishes details of around 20 anniversaries of the club on this day, each day of the year.   For the latest click on the link and see the “Posts” column – just click on the top article.

Untold Culture

• The music of Bob Dylan

For advertising enquiries contact Snack Media at 0207 272 7582 or email Tom@Snack-media.com

For all other issues please contact Untold Arsenal at Tony@schools.co.uk

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What on earth is going on?

• Two simple rules: stuff happens, and if you’re worried don’t sign the contract
• Football is being taken over by those fighting their own wars. Can Arsenal survive?
• The big issues facing football, and why no one is addressing them.

How the media tells us what is news, what is not, and how to think

• This unreported event shows just how fast football can implode
• When the English media ignore a big story like this, you know something is up
• The media should be “held accountable for the way they harass and vilify people”.

The corruption files: an Untold exclusive

The Swiss government is fighting Fifa. And now so is the USA!

• Football corruption and scandals. Why is it all so under reported? Part 1
• Football corruption and scandals. A few stories that did get reported. Part 2
• Football corruption and scandals.  How we tipped off Fifa and other unlikely tales.  Part 3
• The “100 years of Arsenal in the first division” series now has its own page here.
  • New book “exposing” Arsenal’s cheating is itself pure fantasy and lies
  • The index to the series about how Arsenal supposedly only had a budget of £40m for transfers is now listed under The AAA page.

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  Publications

  “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” is the definitive history of Arsenal from its inception as a league club through to its first year at Highbury, and reveals dramatic elements of Arsenal’s early days that have never been revealed before.

  “Making the Arsenal” is a journalist’s inside view of the events around Arsenal’s collapse in 1910 and the rescue that paved the way for the move to Highbury and the arrival of Herbert Chapman.

  Both books are now available on Kindle and in print.    Please see here for more details.

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  This daily blog was started in January 2008, and as the name is intended to suggest we try to cover issues that do not get fulsome coverage in other blogs or publications, and where we are covering the same ground as others, try to do so from a different perspective. A list of the most recent articles is given on the right under “Recent posts”.

  Among the many campaigns and research projects we have run across the years I’d probably pick out these as being of interest…

  160 games analysed – in which three researchers analysed the first 160 games of one PL season from the point of view of referee errors, and presented the evidence in videos.  It is a project that has, as far as we know, never been attempted or replicated anywhere else.  However it was picked up by the BBC and their report is included in this page on Corruption.

  The Untold Banner: a group of readers of Untold who supported what we are doing, liaised with Arsenal FC, and raised funding, so that a banner of our choosing could be erected at the Clock End of the ground.  The video of Match of the Day focussing on our banner is now shown on that page.

  The 25 player rule and the drive to allow fewer foreigners into the Premier League has long been the agenda of the FA.  But we undertook the research to see if countries that have done well on the international stage have followed the FA’s desired approach of banning foreigners, or whether there was another factor at play.  It turn out that there was indeed another factor involved.  The fairly simple research that established this was first published in Untold in 2010 and has since been republished (without acknowledgement) in the Daily Telegraph in August 2013.  The Guardian has also picked up on the theme.

  We are not the most injured club revelations. For many years it was asserted in the mainstream media that Arsenal under Mr Wenger suffered more injuries than any other club in the Premier League.  It was a tale often repeated, but without any serious evidence.  So we undertake the investigation that no one else seemed to want to do.

  Be careful in wishing for new owners

  The Emirates Statues.  Tony Attwood (publisher of Untold) had a meeting with Ivan Gazidis at Arsenal soon after the Emirates Stadium was opened, and was asked what could be done by the club to make the ground feel more like home to the Arsenal fans.  I suggested that erecting a set of statues of famous players, along with one of Herbert Chapman, outside the ground.  That Chapman statue, I said, should be facing the ground with Chapman looking up at the stadium as if to say, “I created this.”

  Arsenal’s history.  This part of the blog became so huge it had to be moved to a site of its own.  The Arsenal History Society site now has around 2500 articles, many arranged into sequences to tell the full story of different aspects of Arsenal’s development – many of these pieces including original research that has not been published before.

  Untold Social.   This is a series of articles on issues that are outside of football, but which writers for Untold found interesting.  They include articles on how to avoid paying parking fines, how to lose weight without cost, how to get every job interview you want, and ways to help your children discover their talents.

• Publications
• Across the years we’ve published half a dozen books on Arsenal.   Two of these remain in print: “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal”.  They are also available on Kindle.    Please see here for more details.

• Untold DylanA blog daily review of Bob Dylan songs, his concerts and the sources that he uses

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  The Untold Arsenal Banner is on permanent display inside the Emirates Stadium

  And Also…

  Click here for a great list of UK gambling sites

  Betting Sites

  New Betting Sites

  For the Nektan network specialists visit nektancasinosites.com here

   

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  The picture: From left to right Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn MP, Tony Attwood, Philippa Dawson (great grand daughter of Woolwich Arsenal’s first chairman).  On the far right the then chair of AISA.

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  For all enquiries about Untold Arsenal and the AISA Arsenal History Society please contact Tony Attwood at Tony@schools.co.uk

  Just in case you are interested, we also publish the Bob Dylan site Untold Dylan

  And some of us like dancing too.