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 The story about Mr Arteta wanting to play a 4-3-3 formation but not being able to do so because he doesn’t have the right people in around half a dozen of the positions to use that formation, has been doing the rounds since last November. Taking the failure of that opening of …
Read More “How Arteta gave us a hint of what he was about to do, but we missed it.”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal face several dangers next season. The first will occur when the summer transfer window ends, and the fans who have believed the media with their vision that Arsenal need half a dozen new first team players find they have not arrived But there is a second issue, and this could arise …
Read More “What will the PGMO do about Arsenal next season?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. The kindest thing to say to the increasingly desperate journalists and bloggers running the transfer rumours is, “you’re having a laugh”. The tragedy is they portray the image of deadly seriousness. The stunning success of Arsenal after the audacious tactical change that we’ve outlined so often everyone is now bored with …
Read More “Players tipped to come to Arsenal reaches 66: the full list”
By Tony Attwood Yellow cards are, to say the least, bloody annoying. When a player gets one in a match he knows he has to take it easy for the rest of the game for fear of a second. If he is a defender that can mean him not doing his regular job but instead …
Read More “Arteta’s revolution: the secret behind the post-Christmas improvement at AFC”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal are under attack on all sides in an unprecedented propaganda campaign that has nothing to do with reality but everything to do with de-stabilising the club and bringing it to its knees. The campaign is continuous, is repeated by numerous outlets, and is so simple that its aim can only be …
Read More “The appalling suggestion which is taking hold and could derail Arsenal completely”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The Daily Mirror has published its starting XI for Arsenal for next season, and it makes interesting reading. Not least because it includes Hector Bellerin, who the Mirror has been saying that Arsenal should get rid of, all summer. Because that is the opposite of what they have been saying over …
Read More “Mirror publishes 13 articles saying Bellerin must go – and then selects him to stay”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Football365 has published a really interesting review “ranking all 24 Premier League managers 2020/1” and so naturally I turned straightaway to Mikel Arteta. It’s a fascinating commentary. First off let’s see the Mr Arteta commentary from 24 March. 12 Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) Still a long road to travel, still mistakes being …
Read More “Why does everyone say of Arsenal “it’s a bit of a mess” when it is anything but?”
by Tony Attwood Consider this simple statement, “Football is a team sport and you’re only as good as your team.” First thing to say it is obviously true. But after that? Most normal people would see anyone saying that as either stating the obvious, or perhaps because they were being praised as a good player, …
Read More “Perhaps Mr Arteta could instruct Arsenal players never to speak to the media at all”
By Sir Hardly Anyone By and large the journalists agree, Arsenal need five or six new players this summer. As for example with Football.London saying, “Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is understood to want to strengthen his squad with five new signings this summer.” And what they don’t want you to ask is “in what way …
Read More “We brought in 7 players last season and sank to 8th. So why buy another 6??”
By Tony Attwood Allowing Arsenal fans to have shares in the club, or perhaps giving a supporters’ group a golden share, is one of the key demands of some fans. Some also demand a seat on the board of the club to represent fans. Of course this is nothing new for Arsenal – because the …
Read More “Should Arsenal’s owners give out shares to the club’s fans?”
Each summer journalists and bloggers report over 100 players that Arsenal are planning to buy – and that number excludes players who the bloggers and journalists suggest Arsenal ought to buy. Usually only about three or four of these rumours turn out to be true. Also, usually, these truthful rumours normally only emerge a few …
Read More “The 58 players tipped to join Arsenal so far this summer”
By Tony Attwood Still puzzling over the anomalies of last season I’ve had a quick peek at the figures of Leicester, comparing them with Arsenal. And something rather interesting has cropped up. Looked at in the most obvious way, Leicester outdid Arsenal last season. Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 5 …
Read More “How different clubs use the rules in different ways, with different results”
By Tony Attwood Over the last ten years Arsenal have won the FA Cup four times, and had a runners up places in the league, the league cup and the Europa. And that’s it: four trophies and three second places. F A Pts Pos FAC LgC Europe Eur 2011–12 74 49 70 3rd R5 QF …
Read More “How Arsenal resolved their problems while Tottenham carried on as before”
By Tony Attwood Seven teams have played in the Premier League in every season since it was founded: Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. Five of those clubs have won the Premier League at least once – the odd men out of course being Tottenham Hots and Everton. But although …
Read More “Prem League refs desire to wave yellow cards has been reduced by VAR”
By Tony Attwood In the days of Mr Wenger, Arsenal was regularly mauled in the press because of the number of players the club had out injured. Arsenal was rarely at the top of the injury league (except when one “outlet” managed to count some players twice) but the club was in the upper reaches. …
Read More “How Arsenal’s injuries were reduced to one third of the level of Liverpool injuries”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The journalistic and blogging world has been praising Aston Villa for getting Buendia as being exactly the man they wanted. At the same time Arsenal are being criticised for not trying hard enough. Buendia is a winger who scored 15 goals last season for Norwich in the championship. Now Norwich are …
Read More “Were Villa really bright and Arsenal really stupid about signing Buendia?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone “Aston Villa deal Arsenal huge blow as they close in on club record signing of Emiliano Buendia after agreeing £40m deal with Norwich… as midfielder has medical in Argentina after agreeing personal terms.” So sayeth the Daily Mail, and of course they have to say that because all through the last …
Read More “All 48 players tipped to be coming to Arsenal and 22 tipped to be going.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone If you have been here before you’ll probably have seen that we’ve spent ages researching and explaining the incredible tactical turnaround that Mr Arteta created last season at the club, which resulted in very poor results in the first third of the season as the change was implemented, and stunning results …
Read More “48 players tipped to join Arsenal? The media suddenly changes its mind!”
By Tony Attwood The Daily Telegraph is reporting this morning that Manchester United have announced that they will allow fans to buy shares in the club. Shares that will have full voting rights. Which I am sure will make some Manchester United fans claim a victory and some Arsenal fans who support the Arsenal Supporters …
Read More “Man U in meaningless share sale; Tottenham jogging along with the debts”
By Tony Attwood The differences between Mr Wenger and Mr Arteta seem so obvious: Mr Wenger was a player of modest proportions who had had significant experience and success as a manager before coming to Arsenal. For Mr Arteta there was success as a player in Scotland and England. But people forget, Arsene Wenger knew …
Read More “Wenger and Arteta: two revolutionaries each under ceaseless attack”
by Tony Attwood Speaking generally, there are two ways to express an opinion on a football club. One is by providing lots of facts and comparing how the club is doing with other clubs. That’s the traditional method. The other is the Trump method, which is simply to assert something and then just treats it …
Read More “How the English media followed Trump as a way of attacking Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood More details are being added to Arsenal’s summer, and the summer break looks shorter than ever before. Players involved in the Euros should be back in training by the time the season starts, but whether they will be fit and ready to play is a different matter. Worse we could lose some …
Read More “Here comes insanity: Arsenal likely to lose players galore at start of season”
By Bulldog Drummond They don’t come much better than that. Edu takes his shirt off. With American owners it is not too surprising that our pre-season tour for 2021/22 will start in the USA. In this case in Orlando, where we shall be playing a game against Inter Milan and then one of either Everton …
Read More “Season starts next month with a game against Inter. This video brings back memories!!!”
By Tony Attwood As we have seen of late Arsenal have been working on a stunningly revolutionary approach to football in the past 18 months. One that involves cutting our yellow card haul in half, creating what throughout the whole of last season (not just the last two thirds) was the third best defence in …
Read More “The enemies of Arsenal, and how they are attempting to bring about our fall”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Ask most people what they thought of maths at school and they will tell you it was boring. Or they hated it. Of course some quite liked it, but these people generally keep quiet about that, because they get to be called nerds and are told (by people who have no …
