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 It is a perfect example of how the toxic blogs and newspaper sites build up their eternal story of mangerial incompetence – bringing on Aubameyang for the last ten minutes when Martinelli had been having a corker of a game. What an idiot that manager is. Get him out now!!! But David …
Read More “Why Aubameyang came on for the last ten minutes on Thursday”
By Tony Attwood Europa nights tend to be fairly relaxed at Arsenal stadium – at least at this stage of the competition. We expect to win, and we expect to see goals, and quite often we get what we expect. Not always of course, but sometimes, and the good games are the games to remember. …
Read More “This is what we came here for: a wonderful night at Arsenal”
by Bulldog Drummond Standard Liège are on a run: five straight wins as we can see below, although perhaps that has been a little helped by having played the last four games at home. Indeed their last defeat was on 1 September with a 1-0 away loss to Anderlecht. Here are the games… Date Comp …
Read More “Arsenal v Standard Liège: the team and the defensive decisions”
by Tony Attwood Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian on 1 October wrote a diatribe against Manchester United, in which he proclaimed that the game between Man U and Arsenal was of little consequence. The heading was “Manchester United v Arsenal felt and looked like a mid-table game.” Now if you have been reading my rambles …
Read More “Arsenal: Not even the best team in London? Well, today and historically, we are.”
By Tony Attwood It was quite a Tuesday evening. We drove to Peterborough for our first visit since 2003, and just as at the start of that wonderful season, we lost 1-0. And although this may not turn out to be another wonderful season, last night overall was rather fine. It was a young under …
Read More “Losing to Posh last night made insignificant when compared to the Tiny Totts”
By Tony Attwood Tonight we play the second game of the Leasing.com trophy in which Arsenal play their under 21 team (with the option of a couple of older players in the side) away to Peterborough United. It is a desperately sad reflection on the state of management of Arsenal.com that as I write this …
Read More “Peterborough United v Arsenal this evening: the match preview”
By Tony Attwood You will know that Arsenal have been drawn against Liverpool in the League Cup, and you may have heard that Liverpool have been charged with playing an ineligible player in the previous round. As a result of that indictment a number of media sources have started to say that Liverpool could be …
Read More “Will Liverpool really be thrown out of the League Cup?”
By Bulldog Drummond Of course not everyone has got the message that this is a moment to play down the regular negativity about Arsenal, as Gunners Town leads with, “The Man who promised a plan has no plan – Emery must GO without actually thinking very much about the fact that after a campaign of …
by Bulldog Drummond It has been a tough six years for Manchester United since Sir F left the arena. A club that seemed to think and indeed acted as if it had an absolute right to win everything has stopped winning the league and has slipped behind Arsenal in terms of the number of times …
Read More “Manchester Disjointed v Arsenal Rejuvinated. Maybe.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Anyone who knows their Liverpool history, will know that not only was it a city, like Bristol, centrally involved in the slave trade, but that it has a couple of football clubs close to each other. And it seems one of those clubs of that ilk has a thing about its …
Read More “Liverpool™ or Liverpool® – a spot of kerfuffle over who owns the name”
by Tony Attwood If you are reading Untold regularly, or even from time to time, you’ll know that I think that the extreme criticism of the manager and team that has been going on in the media and some blogs, is not only factually wrong, but also is hurting the clubs. Any player that might …
Read More “How does this season compare with recent years? Are we making progress?”
By Tony Attwood Having been at the Arsenal v Villa game I didn’t get around to watching the reporting of it on Match of the Day until a bit of spare time later during the week. But when I did I came across something that was very curious involving Danny Murphy and Alan Sheerer as …
Read More “Match of the Day goes highly misleading over Arsenal penalty”
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, head of psychology at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Thus far this has been a season of demands for the manager to leave, and for ceaseless criticism of the players throughout the Arsenal squad. Meanwhile the media has been continuing its Tottenham love-in and the …
Read More “Why early season booing of Arsenal was so dumb as Tots get AFC disease.”
By Bulldog Drummond If you want to see the sort of optimism that so many Arsenal fans now lack, it can be seen from the fact that 48% of Forest fans voting in a Nottingham Post on line survey agreed that of course Forest could spring a surprise and beat Arsenal. 42% said it would …
Read More “Arsenal v Nottingham Forest: teams, red cards and history”
By Tony Attwood I wouldn’t normally focus enormously on one particular blog and its commentary, but the headline today of “This is why we want you gone: these Arsenal fans can’t quite believe Unai Emery’s latest comments ” really made me wonder if there is any end to the madness, or whether it just goes …
Read More “Man U and Tottenham fans follow Gooners on the path of self-destruction”
By Tony Attwood In the classic approach, football is an event that is controlled by the club manager who influences the players. The players play, we have a result. It is all down to the manager and the players on each side. But it is self-evident that the crowd at the matches has an effect. …
Read More “How the League ensured that the media can only talk about football in a certain way”
By Bulldog Drummond Here are the injuries as always based on the report from physioroom.com Player What’s up? Notes Return date Playing v Villa Alexandre Lacazette Ankle/Foot Injury “Alex will need to rest and strengthen his ankle to regain full fitness. He is likely to be back in action in October.” 27 October None Ruled …
Read More “Arsenal injury news, teams and the notorious 2013 game between the two.”
by Bulldog Drummond When it comes to away form Aston Villa are one of two teams that have played two and lost two – the other is the other promoted team, Norwich. Arsenal at home have won one and drawn one. The two highlights of Villa’s season thus far have been a home win over …
Read More “Arsenal v Aston Villa: the form and prognostications”
by Tony Attwood As you will know, if you are a regular student of all things Untold, in the run up to the start of this season we ran a series celebrating 100 years of Arsenal in the top division, recording in detail how Arsenal were promoted in 1919, and dealing with the rumours that …
Read More “Aston Villa, the problem of staying up and of entering the top six.”
By Tony Attwood There was a factor highlighted through last night’s match that none of the media seems to have picked up on. Arsenal displayed the latest range of incredibly talented young players who have been escalated from the under 18s to the under 23s and now into the first team. And yet at the …
Read More “How Arsenal really are doing something right after all.”
By Bulldog Drummond With the attempts to undermine the very fabric of Arsenal continuing minute by minute across the blogs and newspaper websites there must be a little relief for the players who have been selected in the squad for the opening Europa game against Eintracht Frankfurt. Of course players become immune to some degree …
Read More “Europa starts again: can Arsenal overcome the continuing media assault?”
By Tony Attwood Virtually every Arsenal headline is currently ultra-negative, so it is hard to pick out one that is wilder, whackier and sillier than the rest at the moment, but I particularly liked “Arsenal’s Current Defending Reminds Me Of The Early 1960s” from The Online Gooner for taking us into different territory. Being of …
Read More “The wildest and funniest headline, and why fans don’t focus on those really to blame”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw Right let’s start with what you should not do – if you want Arsenal to do better on the pitch and rise up the table. You should not attack the players, because it never works in terms of making them better. If you feel this does work please do …
Read More “Arsenal are one point away from third. So what can we do?”
By Tony Attwood The hysteria is now off the scale and common sense debate, logical debate and reasoned argument has ended. (Although come to think of it actually it ended in the summer with the stuff about Arsenal only having a budget of £40m because some “accountant” analysed the books and said so). So, I …
Read More “So just how badly are Arsenal really doing, and what should we do now?”
by Tony Attwood To discover how much information the current league table gives us as to how the season will work out ultimately, I’ve taken a look at how the table has looked after five games in the last few seasons, in each case going down as far as need be to incorporate all of …
Read More “Why winning the first five games of the season is usually bad news”
