By Sir Hardly Anyone Both George Lewis and his agent are claiming he’ll sign for Arsenal this summer. Lewis has openly stated that he is joining Arsenal and Jeorge Bird, who generally knows a thing or two about the kiddies, says that Lewis’ agent says he will sign for Arsenal before the next season starts. …
By Tony Attwood Fifpro, the union of professional footballers which is established across the world (although rivalled in England by the PFA) conducted a survey of some 1,600 footballers (1,134 men and 468 women) from England, France, Switzerland, South Africa and the United States from March 22 to April 14. According to his results, “22% …
By Tony Attwood On 17 April Untold Arsenal ran the headline, “Football is being taken over by those fighting their own wars. Can Arsenal survive?” In the subsequent article we set out the battle that was now being fought between Arabic countries with football as the battle ground. Here’s the simple table we ran… Club …
by Sir Hardly Anyone It is extraordinary that in a time when we don’t actually know when football might begin again, let alone how much money clubs will have, at a time when players are being asked to give up their salaries, and clubs are starting to talk about not being able to continue unless …
By Tony Attwood To begin, what do we know about Mesut Ozil? We do know, because there is a lot of evidence for it, that he has paid for 1,0000 vital operations for children across the world. We also know that he is paying to fee 100,000 homeless people at 16 refugee camps in Turkey …
By Tony Attwood For most journalists, there is no “why”. Their job is to report the facts, they will tell you. Unfortunately, this leads to the notion that there is no change, except for the occasional movement of a player from one club to another. Life goes on. Because of this the fundamental as always …
By Tony Attwood The Guardian has an interesting piece: “Newcastle United: seven priorities for the potential new owners” in which it takes a pragmatic view of what the new owners at Newcastle will do. It comes in a series of headlines, all of which are valid from one rather narrow point of view Make a …
by Tony Attwood People who like to think they have power but who actually don’t are prone to making crazy pronouncements which cannot be seen through, without any thought as to practicalities. It is rather like the fable of King Canute (which is actually the reverse of the truth but is passed on down through …
By Tony Attwood OK, you might be expecting me to argue in a piece about what is wrong with football, that the force blocking all change is the notoriously conservative Football Association, and yes’ I’d go along with that. But there is another force acting against all change, and they are much more powerful than …
By Sir Hardly Anyone A quick peek in through the shuttered windows of the Toppled Bollard (favourite drinking house of football journalists across London) reveals the awful truth. It’s shut. Which is why the rumour mill has gone into hyperplus overdrive as those who make up the summer transfer tales eschew their normal drinking hole …
By Tony Attwood It has probably never been said before, but Facebook and Google’s sales look like they are going down as a result of the virus crisis. However since most other companies are seeing revenue falls at about 10 times the amount of Facebook and Google, it probably doesn’t bother anyone too much. Travel …
By Tony Attwood Of course no one knew coronavirus would happen now, but anyone who ever studied the history of the Earth would know it, and other disasters like it, will happen. Just because the last pandemic that totally took our society apart happened 100 years ago, it doesn’t mean human pandemics just don’t happen …
by Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Mike Ashley bought Newcastle United for £134m. He bought it in stages, making use of UK law that says that once a single person or company owns over 30% of a listed UK firm, he or it …
by Tony Attwood Slowly very slowly football clubs in England are starting to realise that there is not going to be a return to the old ways, at least not any time soon. There are too many problems – the current season running past the end of contract date, actually finding time to finish the …
By Sir Hardly Anyone A quick peek in through the shuttered windows of the Toppled Bollard (favourite drinking house of football journalists across London) reveals the awful truth. It’s shut. Which is why the rumour mill has stopped milling – or at least has reduced its normally feverish output to the merest trickle of drivel. …
by Christophe Jost I feel good. Yep, that is how a feel about Arsenal. Really. No kidding. No sarcasm. And I am not day-dreaming either, I think. Let me explain. The team As I mentioned the other day, Arsenal have 4 contracts expiring this summer. One is an Arsenal player, Matt Macey. the 3 players …
By Tony Attwood Somehow we expect the German League to have everything sorted, done and dusted when it comes to getting the pesky virus out of the way. We imagine them having a plan so that this season dis quickly dealt with and then its full steam ahead up to the next season. While the …
by Tony Attwood “The most important week in the history of the Football League – act now, or risk carnage”. So said Mark Palios, the former FA Chief Executive. It doesn’t really matter when he said it, because it is always the most important week. But this week is a special week in the history …
By Tony Attwood You might not know if from reading the English blogs and newspapers but yes, decisions are being made, and proposals are being put on the table. OK these things have not worked out well in Scotland, where, as we noted last time around, a certain local difficulty has been encountered. But elsewhere …
by Neil Down / Ann Weep We have held back on doing an Untold report on Scottish football despite frantic emails from Tony asking for a piece which clarifies what the F*** (to use the technical term) is going on, simply because despite being the designated news feeders to Untold for football in Scotland, we …
By Christophe Jost As I explained in my previous article on The Last Pandemic, the end of the pandemic was just the beginning of a new set of problems. Those who survived had a whole new set of issues to face. As different countries approach a stage in which the curve representing the number of …
By Christophe Jost It is possible that in recent days you may have wondered a little about the competence of all those sports reporters who are seemingly totally unable to start telling the real story of the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of its effect on football. So, given that our colleagues who actually get paid …
BY Don McMahon Don McMahon is a retired senior referee Every week, for countless years, I have read endless and repeated complaints about the PGMOL and its members, the ¨Professional¨ officials who make up its herd. I am now going to propose a possible set of solutions to the PIGMOB and its head swineherd Mr.Riley. …
By Christophe Jost and Tony Attwood History teaches us that often things happen that are a repetition of previous events. And as a result, we can learn from the past and do it differently this time. So it is reasonable to consider going back 100 years to the last time a pandemic swept across Europe …
By Tony Attwood When you think about it, West Ham have it all. So much in fact that it probably makes every other club green with envy and puce with anger and probably maroon with something else. In 2017/18 (the last season for which figures are available) WHU had the eighth highest turnover in the …