By Bulldog Drummond
Arsenal are playing in their 30th FA Cup semi-final – no side has ever played in more. They’ve reached the Final on 20 occasions, which is also a joint record (level with Manchester United for both). But where Arsenal stand alone is in the number of times the club has won the FA Cup. It is 13. No one has more.
Arsene Wenger has won the FA Cup seven times – more than any other manager in the entire history of the cup – 1872 to the present day. (Beware though, some anti-Arsenal websites don’t accept this. TheSackRace for example is up to date with its data but still says, “Scotland’s George Ramsay holds the record for the most amount of FA Cup wins with six, claiming all of them while in charge of Aston Villa.”)
The extent people will go to, to knock Arsene Wenger. Indeed it is quite amazing how much of this misinformation is out there. However here are the cup winning details by club down to Manchester City, who have just under half the number of Cup wins that Arsenal has.
| Club | Wins | First final won | Last final won | Runners-up | Last final lost | Total final appearances |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 13 | 1930 | 2017 | 7 | 2001 | 20 |
| Manchester United | 12 | 1909 | 2016 | 8 | 2018 | 20 |
| Chelsea | 8 | 1970 | 2018 | 5 | 2017 | 13 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 8 | 1901 | 1991 | 1 | 1987 | 9 |
| Liverpool | 7 | 1965 | 2006 | 7 | 2012 | 14 |
| Aston Villa | 7 | 1887 | 1957 | 4 | 2015 | 11 |
| Newcastle United | 6 | 1910 | 1955 | 7 | 1999 | 13 |
| Manchester City | 6 | 1904 | 2019 | 5 | 2013 | 11 |
Mikel Arteta has won the FA Cup twice, in 2014 and 2015. The top ten semi-final teams (excluding this round of semis) are shown here.
| Team | S-F Appearances | Won | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 29 | 20 | 9 |
| Manchester United | 29 | 20 | 9 |
| Everton | 26 | 13 | 13 |
| Liverpool | 24 | 14 | 10 |
| Chelsea | 23 | 13 | 10 |
| Aston Villa | 21 | 11 | 10 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 21 | 9 | 12 |
| West Bromwich Albion | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| Blackburn Rovers | 18 | 8 | 10 |
| Newcastle United | 17 | 13 | 4 |
In terms of semi-finals, Arsenal and Manchester United have both appeared in 29 semi-finals, and each won 20 and lost nine. Manchester City have appeared in 14 semi-finals and won 11 while losing three.
To give you some pleasant memories here are Arsenal’s semis this century
| Year | Winning team | Losing team | Score | Venue |
| 2001 | Arsenal | Tottenham Hotspur | 2–1 | Old Trafford |
| 2002 | Arsenal | Middlesbrough | 1–0 | Old Trafford |
| 2003 | Arsenal | Sheffield United | 1–0 | Old Trafford |
| 2004 | Manchester United | Arsenal | 1–0 | Villa Park |
| 2005 | Arsenal | Blackburn Rovers | 3–0 | Millennium Stadium |
| 2009 | Chelsea | Arsenal | 2–1 | Wembley Stadium |
| 2014 | Arsenal | Wigan Athletic | 1–1 | Wembley Stadium |
| 2015 | Arsenal | Reading | 2–1 | Wembley Stadium |
| 2017 | Arsenal | Manchester City | 2–1 | Wembley Stadium |
This of course is a tribute to Arsenal’s history as a club that has spent 100 years in the top division. But now we are in the days of unlimited money Manchester City have become a stronger club. Indeed we have lost the last seven meetings with Manchester City in all competitions, having only scored two goals in that period. If this were my Bob Dylan site I’d use the quote, “Money doesn’t talk it…”
We have had longer runs of defeats, but only two – and both of these runs were against Leeds.
If you are a regular follower of Untold you may have seen some of the posts that have come from people who profess to be supporters of Manchester City, questioning pretty much everything that has been written here about them, suggesting for example that CAS found Manchester City not guilty in their recent appeal, and also suggesting that Untold has never previously raised questions about CAS’ approach and the basis of its activities, before this case. The implication is that we are just questioning CAS now, whereas of course we started this long before Man City was any sort of an issue.
I’ve tried to answer the points which have been put without abuse, without multiple comments from the same person using different email addresses etc, all with equanimity, and spent some time providing the evidence that seems to me to be reasonable, but I think I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had too many people writing under multiple names and email addresses (one even arguing the toss with himself), and of course a huge level of abuse, which hasn’t been published. Indeed I think the majority of comments from Manchester City supporters are not being published now because they don’t abide by our rules on commenting. Of course I am not saying these are the majority of Manchester City supporters, but they seem to be the majority that come onto this site.
I don’t know why it is not possible to have a civilised debate on the topic of how CAS operates, and why it threw out the Uefa punishment, but it seems not to be. So probably best to move on.
Physioroom has now got Arsenal second in the injury league with seven. Manchester City have three – only West Ham and Sheffield United have fewer with two each.
- Newcastle United: 9 men injured
- Arsenal: 7 men injured
- Leicester City: 7 men injured
- Aston Villa: 6 men injured
- Tottenham Hotspur: 6 men injured
We’ll take a look at the form and teams in the next article.
Arsenal and the media
- Is Santi Cazorla now outperforming EVERY Arsenal player except Aubameyang?
- The racist bias in football reporting and its implication for all commentary
- Even by their own awful standards, yesterday’s radio commentary was dire
- “Disgraceful;” “The worst refereeing performance I have ever seen”. TalkSport
- Journalist’s wild anti-Arsenal rant unravels after simple fact checking
What pisses me off is the fact that the match will only be shown on BT.
Yes a bummer it’s not on terrestrial TV in the UK but alternatives exist. Full sound commentary on Arsenal.com, text commentary via BBCsport, radio coverage BBC5 Live Sport or I’m sure there will be internet streams in various languages available.
I know, these City fans really are a deluded lot.
If you’re not dancing with joy at the mere thought of City being able to spend another BILLION pounds on players, that somehow means you’re bitter and jealous.
They simply refuse to entertain the notion that perhaps some of us out here cannot see any credit what so ever in winning trophies on the back of spending billions of pounds that’s been donated to them by an appalling human rights dodging regime.
And what’s more they seem to think that being given this money is somehow proof positive of what a fantastically run club they are, when in fact, prior to the arrival of this filthy money they were one of the worst run clubs in the league, somehow managing to go from a solid top 4 club in the late 60’s early 70’s, to being a yo yoing club, dropping as low as the 3rd tier of English football, and bagging just 1 league cup in 35 years. That’s some fall from grace. Yep a brilliantly run club.
The fact Man Utd and Arsenal, to name but 2, who have run their clubs well and earned their place amongst the elite, may want to protect themselves from these State Owned clubs, somehow makes them a ‘Cartel’ or ‘private club’ or some other derogatory term.
Well that simply isn’t and never was the case as Arsenal are currently showing. If we don’t get it right we drop down. We have no automatic right to the top 4, as has always been the accusation of these City fans trying to justify the spending of Billions or pounds of un earned money. We can’t simply just hold out our hand for another billion pound gift from our owners, and I for one wouldn’t want to.
Frankly I don’t care what any ‘Body’ concludes about the legality or otherwise of City’s spending, especially a body that’s been threatened with bankruptcy and faced with a wall of non co operation, because what they’ve done stinks.
City somehow went from almost bankrupt to posting a £350 Million pound Nett loss on transfers alone, in just 5 years. That’s some marketing department! Not only that but they continued increasing on that throughout the next 5 years upping transfer losses to a cool Billion pounds over the decade.
And we are supposed to believe that this tinpot little club that wallowed in the lower devisions for years, won one LC, and almost went bankrupt was suddenly earning that kind of money through legitimate marketing and sponsorship?
Only in city’s fantasy football World, not in any real World.
I am not a Man City FC supporter not a fan of the Citizens but a die hard Gooner to the core for life. And I can be jealous and become envious for Arsenal FC sometimes even get frustrated if any of their PL top-six rival club sides succeeded over Arsenal to win games and titles. However, I don’t unnecessarily go out of my mind to hate or despise any Premier League club sides for spending big or very big to improve their teams to win titles even if such spending a times looked to have ran out of control that breached the stipulated laydown guidelines and procedures which are put down to stop any extravagant spending to sign world class players unlimited to enabled winning titles always.
Uefa had faulted Man City for breaching the FFP rules and guidelines. But on an appeal to the Supreme Court – the Fifa’s CAS, the charge case against Man City was quashed by CAS. I think us Gooners should for the sake of orderliness and respect for the rule of law accept the ruling of CAS on this Man City’s latest indictment even if us Gooners don’t agree with the ruling by CAS that exonerated Man City of serious foul play of the Uefa’s FFP rules as charged and punished by by Uefa.
Bulldog, further to your comments regarding Manchester City fans, if either of my queries pertaining to, “What do they think in Germany about Manchester City and UEFA” caused offence at Untold Arsenal please accept my apologies.
Anyway, to try and get a better understanding of Untold Arsenal’s viewpoint I’ve been looking at the achieved material; so far I’ve only got to the end of 2010 but it has jogged a few memories.
I see several articles express concerns about the integrity of the game, from the match day officials right through to FIFA. It looks like the play stays the same only the actors change.
Regards,
Tim
I can’t seem to spell. In my previous reply it should, of course, read ” … I’ve been looking at the archived material …”
Regards,
Tim
Turning point was the unawarded penalty on Mustafi…I was sure we were done.
What a morale boost, a boost of the spirit that we might just accomplish things, not just this year but next year, too!!!
MOTM…Luiz…was fantastic!
Congratulation guys! Good luck in the final.