By Tony Attwood
- Why are so many Premier League clubs losing so much money?
- And so there we are: Champions at last! Thanks to every player and every supporter.
If you have been reading Untold for a while, you will know that it is not unknown for there to be a negative comment or two following a piece, usually along the lines that there are obviously things wrong with Arsenal and that this site is fooling fans by ignoring them or suggesting that things are getting better.
So it is truly refreshing to read such very positive comments coming in, some to me personally and many on the site itself. I am sorry I can’t reply to each one, but I do read them all, and am most grateful to everyone who has taken a moment to express appreciation of the site.
To celebrate, we’ve got some new equipment in for running the site, and I am hoping that over time, you might find it a little bit smoother. It will certainly make creating and typing up the articles easier. This is the first article published with the new hardware. I imagine it won’t look any different – at least that is the idea. But it is much easier to work with.
But anyway, amidst all the celebrations – which have been wonderful – we have to remember there is still some of the season left: Palace on Sunday 24th, and PSG on Saturday 30th. It would be wonderful to win them both, but such is the high of winning the league that just at this moment I really don’t mind too much. Although of course, I will do, when the time comes, if the results are not what I want!
However, I do hope I can manage to remember one or two events – in particular, the results in Europe in the opening group stage – that was when I personally really started to believe that this would be THE season. And not only has it been Arsenal’s season, but we’ve also put in some new equipment for running Untold. It probably won’t make the site look very different, but it certainly makes life easier for me!
But looking around the statistics, I found one that I had not seen before and rather amusing it was as well… it obviously doesn’t include this season, but it shows just how big a fall Tottenham have had this season…
And while looking around at facts and figures, I found that Arsenal Stadium is only the fifth largest in the Premier League, with 61,276 spaces and the third biggest league stadium in London. The bigger stadia are West Ham’s laughingly called the London Stadium with 62,500, Tottenham’s 62,850 and of course ManU 74,244. Which just about goes to show that size doesn’t always matter.
| Club | Ground | Capacity |
| Manchester United | Old Trafford | 74,244 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | Tottenham Hotspur Stadium | 62,850 |
| West Ham United | London Stadium | 62,500 |
| Liverpool | Anfield | 61,276 |
| Arsenal | Emirates Stadium | 60,704 |
Manchester City are fifth with just under the 60,000 mark. For the last four seasons, Arsenal has actually averaged attendances over the 60,000 mark – the highest being 60,252 in 2024/25.
It is also interesting to note that, excluding this season, three clubs have had 10 top six finishes in the 2010s – Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham – and of course one of those is dropping out this season, meaning that we are now left with only two clubs that have a perfect top six run. And one of them is dropping out. Chelsea, incidentally, are on nine, along with Manchester United, but Liverpool are only on six.
But perhaps what I would really like to direct your attention to is an article in the Guardian: “How Arteta overcame setbacks, crises and boos to defy doubters at Arsenal.” And it is worth noting because it does bother to mention early on that there was going to be a five-year plan to get Arsenal back to near the top of English football.
It is also interesting because it is one of the very few commentaries that point out how the Daily Mirror tried to derail Arteta coming to Arsenal. Here’s a sample:
“Mikel is not the type of person to get overwhelmed about anything,” said one senior member of the football staff. “He’s very driven and very solid in his mind. There were difficult times and then obviously Arsenal had invested massively. But the Kroenkes deserve credit.”
I think that tells us where we have been, where we are and where we are gonig. We’ve got a couple of rather interesting games still to come, but I am already looking forward to seeing what changes the manager might be contemplating through the summer months.
And I must say I do rather like this new equipment. Even if the result looks much the same..
I hope we sent out the reserve players at Palace so we get no injuries for the PSG match..
Tony Attwood
Untold Arsenal
Champions section
Gunnerland
Well done , and thank you for all your hard work and single minded dedication in presenting consistently encouraging fact based articles.
While I’m here I’d like to thank all the true Arsenal supporters out there who have been of great encouragement via their contribution in their positive comments. You know who you are, thanks again.
North London Forever
31,33,34,35,38,48,53,71,89,91, 98,02,04 and 26
LeMmy the Clerkenwell Gunner.
Palace won’t want to pick up any injuries either as they have the UEFA conference League final on Wednesday against Rayo Vallecano (currently 8th in the Spanish League and with a World Ranking of 104. Palace have a ranking of 86.
For our Champions League final, PSG ARE RANKED 5 IN THE world and we are ranked 7.
The rankings are based on past performances i the main international tournaments. Current top 10
1 Bayern Munich 146.5 points
2 Real Madrid 144.5 points
3 Liverpool 130 points
4 Inter Milan 127 points
5 PSG 126.5 points
6 Manchester City 125.5 points
7Arsenal 113.5 points
8 Barcelona 113.5 points
9Bayer 04 Leverkusen 105 points
10 Athletico Madrid 103.75 points
There will of course be changes when this season’s results are finished. From memory they are based on the cumulative points earned by each club in the last 5 seasond with part of the scores coming from the cumulative total earned by all national association so we get some points from Liverpool, City etc.
LeMmy
Love your last line of all FOURTEEN of Arsenal’s League titles – with the reporting of the latest win, you’d think we’d only won 2 championships!
2 days after the event and I STILL keep pinching myself that we won the Premier League once again! 14 titles is amazing for a London club, purely due to all the London detbies we have to play, not to mention the significant north/north-western bias in media and referee appointments…
A remarkable statistic|:
Since the start of season 22/23 through seasons 23/24, 24/25 and 25/26 in which, as you all know, we have finished 2nd 2nd 2nd 1st, at this very moment both Arsenal and Manchester City sit on 329 points each over that period.
Arsenal have won 99 matches and Manchester City 100.
Arsenal have lost 20 matches and Manchester City 22.
Manchester City’s GD is 9 better than Arsenal.
Over that period we have finished behind Man City twice, and ahead of them twice, which makes Arteta the only manager to of finished ahead of Guardiola on 2 occasions. No other manager has achieved that.
And don’t forget we entered this 4 season period following a 5th place finish on 69 points. Arteta was still in the rebuild phase. It’s arguable he was still doing that up to the start of this season. Man City entered this period with a fully formed title winning team and having come off the back of a 93 point season.
Yet Arteta and Arsenal have gone toe to toe with Man City the whole way.
And yet despite this remarkable transformation and ultimate achievement, all Talkshite and The Mail, to name but 2, can do is accuse us of cheating.
And some people wonder why we have a problem with the media.
Ive read we maybe in the 2029 club world cup for the money as Chelsea won £80m. i hope we dont go as i find it disruptive to the pre season.
@ Andrew
The UEFA detail on points for the club coeffiecient isn’t very clear at all. In places it says you get 1.5 pts for a win, in others it says 2.0 pts. Arsenal are currently on 118.0, so I guess we could make 120.0. However, the country co-effiecient could mean this becomes higher because of Villa’s win and even better depending on us and Palace.
What will really shoot us up the rankings is that as of next season, the 21/22 season will drop off since, as you say, it is based upon five seasons including the current one and Arsenal didn’t play in Europe that season whereas the six teams above us did. On that basis, and I could be very wrong, I think it is possible we could be ranked number one if the counytry co-effiecient increases too. What seems certain is that we will be the top ranked English side……which is nice!!
@ Nitram
Another great bit of research. Well done.
I particularly like your conclusion in the final sentense!