By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal continue to develop their own secret code
- Somehow the English media is playing down ManC’s situation. But in Europe….
If it is had been Arsenal, they would have “finally” and “at long last” managed a win in the Premier League” but no, this is a time of celebration:”Davies ensures Spurs off the bottom after first win of season against Coventry.” And interestingly the Guardian publishes line after line of potential substitutes but nothing to indicate the team that played for Tottenham.
Yes Tottenham have ratcheted themselves up to 16th in the league on points, which is outside the relegation zone after seven games, a mere 12 points behind Arsenal. And I am sure they have been dancing in White Hart Lane all night long while inventing new stories about the ways in which Arsenal cheat… stories which are then quickly fed to “Fleet Street” and reinvented day by day. There doesn’t seem to be any mention, once again, of Arsenal having the best defense in the league, but I suspect that got squeezed out with all the excitement of a Tottenham win.
Still the Telegraph has a new tale to release, to the effect that “Mikel Arteta came close to joining Newcastle before Arsenal” although when you come to think of it that is hardly news since the move to Arsenal was made in 2019. But that really is the problem with the Telegraph – a sort of temporal deviation which makes old news get the treatment of being made to look like something new. In fact I am sure one day I am going to look at the Teleg and read that in the beginning was the word…
But staying with Arteta’s choice of clubs, elsewhere in the Telegraph today there is “Revealed: The managers Arsenal considered before appointing Mikel Arteta”. Now “considered” is a bit of a dodgy word, since it could actually mean pretty well anything – including a couple of directors having a list of retired players in front of them as they sit down for the first whisky of the post match review after kicking out Emery in despair. “Arteta?” says one. “Nah” says the other. “There’s loads of the buggers out there… Contet, Stellini, Mason, Postecoglou, Frank, Tudot, De Zerbi., Mourinho, Pochettino…”
“That’s a lot of managers” says the first “who on earth would employ that lot?”
“Tottenham,” says the second. And he would be right because that is a list of the men who have been Totty managers since Mikel Arteta was appointed. Quite amazing really.
Mind you there is an interesting concept in the Telegraph today under the headline,
“Please Arsene Wenger, in the name of sanity, take on Gianni Infantino”
It continues, “As the clock ticks down to Fifa president running unopposed for a fourth term, former Arsenal manager is the one hope left.” And I can just imagine a couple of Tottenham supporters (yes they do have a couple still) chattering away about the possibility of Tottenham’s manager becoming England manager, and one says to the other, “Where did Tottenham come in the league last season?”
“Now you’re just being silly,” says Mr Wenger’s agent.
Anyway, it is good to know that during all this turmoil, the old routines are still running in Fleet Street or wherever the John Bull kits are stored these days, as the Mail says Graeme Souness labels Bukayo Saka a CHEAT: Liverpool legend claims Arsenal star ‘dives all over the place’
They’ve had that one on the back burner waiting for a really dull day in terms of football news, and now the moment has arrived. And if you think that is a valid point of view, then it is probably a good idea to stop reading Untold.
Anyway I thought I might round this little piece off by comparing Arteta’s performance at Arsenal as manager with that of some of our other great managers. And it was quite a surprising comparison.
Arteta has overseen 360 senior competitive games and under his guidance the club has won 220 of them drawing 67 and losing 73. Goals scored 675, goals conceded 337. So that is a win rate of 61.11%
Win rates – which only include competitive matches – are interesting to compare, and Arteta has the highest percentage – counting just competitive matches of course. Those just below his 61.11% are George Graham (48.91%), Herbert Chapman, (49.64%), Unai Emery (51.63%), and Arsene Wenger (57.25%).
So we do have in place the most successful manager Arsenal has ever known in terms of win percentages. True not the most successful manager when it comes to league titles, but then Wenger and the rest didn’t have to compete against Manchester City and their finance machine. If the league finally get around to imposing penalties on the ManCs for their financial activities we’ll undoubtedly have a few more titles coming our way.
But that does require action by the League, and I am not really that confident…..
