Untold Arsenal: Supporting the club, the manager and the team
"I believe the target of anything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art." A Wenger
By Tony Attwood Allegedly, in the summer of 2007, Arsene Wenger described Arsenal as a club that “makes superstars”, rather than buying them. At least that is what a wide range of media outlets say. Then, in March 2020, Daniel Levy commented that external perceptions of transfers can be different to the facts and also …
Read More “Are Arsenal about to buy another shedload of players? Or just sell Auba?”
To read about the free Arsenal video collection and about the new Arsenal Day by Day series, please see the note at the foot of this article. By Sir Hardly Anyone Bukayo Saka tipped to leave Arsenal as Mikel Arteta’s hardest task is spelled out So shouts the Daily Mirror, telling us that “Bukayo Saka …
Read More “The pundit’s need for his daily fix is football’s biggest enemy”
Could Mesut Özil soon to be a club owner? That is the question posed in the Swiss press today, in turn quoting Bild, the German newspaper. They say, (obviously in German) that “the former Real Madrid and Arsenal player, now at Fenerbahçe, would like to acquire Corum FK, a Turkish third division club.” Now Mesut …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Our last three defeats (Manchester United, Everton and Manchester City) have all been by one goal. This is in contrast to our first four defeats in which we failed to score and conceded 13 (Brentford, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool). So clearly Arsenal has improved. We are still sometimes getting beaten, but …
Read More “Why it could be a mistake for Arsenal to buy a new centre forward”
By Tony Attwood You may have noticed that over time I have often made the suggestion that in the Premier League no club should get the same referee more than twice in a season. And if you take the time to read the comments made on Untold you might have noticed that this has been …
Read More “More evidence to suggest PGMO is not acting fair with Arsenal”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Players have started to pack their bags, as tomorrow, 3 January is the day by which they are obliged to turn up at their national training camp for the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon. The government’s official website on travelling abroad refers readers thinking about being in Cameroon to …
Read More “It’s not the transfer window that’s the issue it is AFCON”
By Tony Attwood In our pre-game article we used the home/away analysis that is regularly included before a match, this time to suggest that the result might be closer than was generally considered by the pro-Mancunian punidts… Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 2 Arsenal home 9 7 1 1 17 …
Read More “Arsenal match Man City, but can’t beat the ref. But why do refs behave like this?”
by Bulldog Drummond According to the BBC website Arsenal don’t have a chance as they suggest, “As much as Arsenal have improved, and as good as their home record is – only Manchester City’s is better this season – there is still a huge gulf between these two sides. “The difference is not going to be …
by Bulldog Drummond Despite Manchester City’s near invulnerability since they gained the sponsorship of middle eastern oil money, took on the Premier League into an eternally rambling on court case about finances (which it seems will simply end by the court ruling that the League is out of time), took on Uefa who lost because …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City: the head to heads and historical comparisons”
by Bulldog Drummond The injury list of players that we have been running, ahead of each Arsenal game for years and years has never previously been like this, including both on-pitch injuries and cases of the pandemic. Nor can I recall when we last recorded a player being missing from a squad because he was …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City: are injuries related to the level of tackling?”
By Bulldog Drummond At the moment of writing this match is still on, with Arsenal’s touchline made up of skeletons (or to quote the Telegraph “Arsenal could host Man City with a skeleton coaching staff”) but with the way things are going, who knows what will happen. However on the basis that we are going …
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you will know that whereas when crowds were present, the home teams in the Premier League were likely to win games more often than the away team. Since games have been played without crowds present the reverse has been true. The explanation for this (as I’ve …
Read More “Are football journalists biased, lazy or just ignorant?”
By Tony Attwood Why West Ham can commit twice as many fouls as Newcastle, before getting a single yellow card. Yes it is true. The number of yellow cards received by a club, is not directly related to the number of fouls committed. Indeed the number of fouls clubs need to commit before seeing a …
Read More “Clubs that get most yellow cards are NOT clubs committing the most fouls.”
by Tony Attwood A little while back we looked at Arsenal’s chances of securing a top four position. But on 20 December the Telegraph ran the piece Premier League top-four odds: Arsenal overtake local rivals so I thought it time to look again. In fact that article in the Telegraph doesn’t actually say Arsenal are …
Read More “Exactly why we are predicting Arsenal to finish ahead of Tottenham in fourth.”
By Tony Attwood Thomas Tuchel has been strong in his criticism of the Premier League for sticking with its schedule and its Christmas / New Year scheduling of games; a tradition that goes back to the expansion of the league in 1919. And ok, maybe we can agree that occasionally the game needs a voice …
Read More “How a manager’s comments are not always what they seem”
By Tony Attwood Just because people make a lot of noise about an issue, that doesn’t mean that the issue is important. Take for example the issue of Aubameyang and goal scoring. We know Mr Arteta seems to want to emphasise authority, and seemingly he is doing it again here. Very different from the public …
Read More “Why having a scoring centre forward is not always essential.”
By Tony Attwood Way back in August the Daily Mirror announced that “Arsenal’s fanbase has been riddled with arguments and in-fighting in recent years.” What they didn’t add were two key points. One was that a lot of the stoking of the discontent was the doing of the media, and the other is “and by …
Read More “Transfer system is in chaos – but Arsenal are getting away comparatively lightly”
According to Sky, Arsenal were the top spending team last year… Arsenal: £156.8m Man Utd: £133.7m Man City: £100.0m Chelsea: £97.5m Aston Villa: £93.0m West Ham: £63.3m Tottenham: £57.1m Leicester: £55.0m Leeds: £43.0m Liverpool: £36.0m Each squad contains no more than 17 players who do not fulfil the “HGP Player” category The rest of the …
Read More “How many spare places do we have in the squad for purchases in January?”
By Tony Attwood If it is anything, Football Commentary in England is unidirectional. It is not that all commentators agree on everything – clearly they don’t. But they agree on what are the key topics that are worthy of debate. Now of course Untold Arsenal does this too – we define the topics we are …
Read More “How free thinking and alternative visions for football are constantly suppressed.”
By Tony Attwood The results of course tells us all about where Arsenal are… five straight wins scoring 19 goals and conceding two. Which is actually rather fine. OK we have not been playing the top four of last season, but a lot of pundits were talking up West Ham for this season And so …
Read More “What the 5-0 Feast in the East means to Arsenal’s chase for the top four”
The team: Ramsdale; White, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney; Partey, Xhaka; Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli; Lacazette On the beach… Leno, Tavares, Mari, Elneny, Patino, Lokonga, Pepe, Smith Rowe, Nketiah The current table before the game. And one thing is certain, we will be in fourth after the game, no matter what happens. Before the start it was …
By Bulldog Drummond This game comes two years to the day since Mr Arteta’s first game as Arsenal manager. As we have noted before he has the third best win percentage of all long term Arsenal managers, behind Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery. The BBC tell us that “The Gunners have lost just two of …
Read More “Norwich v Arsenal: the Arsenal team and the prognostications”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have played Norwich 61 times in competitive games, winning 30, drawing 20, and losing just 11. Taking in the last 21 of these games we find that the results have been: Norwich wins: 1 Drawn games: 8 Arsenal wins: 12 Here are the details… Date Match Res Score Competition 03 Mar …
Read More “Arsenal v Norwich: head to head, recent games and tactics”
By Bulldog Drummond Before the details, there was a notice before on Christmas Eve on the Norwich website proclaiming that tickets were available in the away end – the most expensive costing over £90, which is considerably more than Arsenal charge visiting fans. That seems an outrageous price to me, unless they really are nice …
Read More “Norwich v Arsenal: the referee and how the PGMO handle the two clubs”
by Bulldog Drummond So as we have seen Arsenal are in a much stronger position now than when we played Norwich for the first time this season, after the three home defeats in the league. The cause of those early defeats of course was the import of a completely new defence and the fact that …
Read More “Norwich v Arsenal: a huge upturn in injuries and the gap between the leagues.”
