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 Sir Hardly Anyone So far 84 players have been tipped to be coming to Arsenal this summer, and with the window nearly over it looks like being a very disappointing fantasy festival from the media, who in past years have managed to get the number past the 100 mark. Probably it was the fixation …
Read More “All the players tipped to be coming to Arsenal as the window creaks to its closure”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. There is a very fanciful story in the Telegraph from Robin van Persie who is about to become a BT Sport pundit. In the piece he talks about how he preferred being in Manchester with Utd to being in London. He says how nice the people were in Manchester, how …
Read More “Robin van Persie fantasy; another reason to avoid BT Sport; Rugani yes/no etc.”
By Tony Attwood Of course you’ll know the major tales of comings and goings, and you’ll know that our transfer budget was supposed to be so small we could hardly afford anyone at all. But strangely that appears to have been an invention by an over eager accountant. So just in a case you …
Read More “Who we’ve got and who we’ve lost – the 19 Arsenal players coming and going thus far”
By Tony Attwood. At least we know what will happen this season if the super whizzo super duper computer knows what’s what. For here is their prediction for the table at the end of the season that will shortly be under way. I have added at the end of each row the position the club …
Read More “There is no need to watch next season, we already know what will happen”
By Tony Attwood I have been looking at the document put out by a couple of supporters’ groups and supported by various web sites, under the heading “We care do you”. I’m going to wrap this little sequence of articles up now with one final issue. The statement in the We Care paper that reads, …
Read More “We care, but we don’t always make it to the match”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Chief econonononmics correspondent at the Toppled Bollard. The peace of the day was shattered by what appears to have been sixteen members of the anti-Arsenal Arsenal brigade falling over each other as they attempted to enter the Toppled Bollard simultaneously at opening time (or 5am as it is called in civilised …
Read More “Arsenal fans gloriously happy as doom mongers seek solace (satire)”
By Tony Attwood Continuing my little saunter around the WeCareDoYou docment which was put out by a couple of Arsenal fan groups and some blogs… I was interested in the phrase “…make Arsenal a place where fans have a real sense of belonging”. No indication was given in the document as to when Arsenal had …
Read More “We care do you part 3: A club that gives as sense of belonging?”
By Tony Attwood, This summer we have had some positive moments – beating Bayern, and a draw with Real Madrid (before the penalties) were both welcome results. There was a nice win over Fiorentina too. But we lost to Lyon in the Emirates Cup at home which wasn’t too clever. So can we draw …
Read More “How does pre-season 2019 compare with pre-seasons in the past?”
By Tony Attwood Continuing my little saunter around the We Care Do You document put out by Arsenal Supporters’ Trust and other groups and individuals, the second paragraph of the piece says that “Off the pitch, fans have never felt more marginalised, less listened to or valued.” Now the authors of the piece don’t actually …
Read More “We Care Do You Part 2: A certain latitude with historic reality”
“Nicolas Pepe adds welcome risk and directness to Arsenal’s shot-shy attack” So says an article in the Daily Telegraph. To find out how they justified this odd statement, if at all, one would have to pay the Telegraph a subscription fee, and at the moment I am trying not to give money to organisations that …
By Tony Attwood “The time for excuses is over”. So runs the opening of the Guardian’s preview of Arsenal’s season to come, in which they boldly predict that this season Arsenal will finish … sixth. There is fun had in the article at the expense of Ivan Gazidis for thinking that the days of the …
Read More “Arsenal to finish 2019/20 in sixth – the media’s demolition of AFC is in full swing”
By Tony Attwood In recent weeks I’ve written a lot about Arsenal’s situation when it comes to next season, and we’ve touched on a whole range of issues that will affect just how well the club will do in 2019/20. Issues such as the reality of there being a limit of £45m on transfer expenditure …
Read More “Predictions can be made emotionally. But adding in a few facts can help as well.”
By Tony Attwood This series began with the article “This season Arsenal celebrate 100 years in the top division” and here we reach the conclusion of the series. And here, as the final point, we move on to the issue of why so many clubs voted for Arsenal rather than Tottenham as the additional club …
Read More “Arsenal’s 100 years in the top division: the final chapter”
By Tony Attwood Way back on 21 October 2014, the Evening Standard ran the story that “Arsenal have £42m to spend in January, claim ‘frustrated’ Supporters’ Trust “ That may look a rather familiar tale given that through this summer we have been hearing that Arsenal only have a £40m (or sometimes £45m) transfer kitty. …
Read More “How AST promoted the notion that Arsenal had a budget of £40m for transfers”
By Sir Hardly Anyone When I was invited to write a piece on the silliest transfer rumours so far this summer I didn’t actually think I would be taking them all from one source, for I searched low, high, and then even lower to find the most ludicrous tales. But two things happened. I found …
Read More “The most bonkers transfer rumours this summer & all from the same source!”
By Tony Attwood Until the Arsenal supporters club meeting with Arsenal directors at the stadium on 25 July the story was everywhere: Arsenal had a budget of £40m or £45m. Anything else had to come from player sales. Indeed so hard up is the club (so the story went) Ozil was going to be transferred …
Read More “One day it’s £45m total budget, now Arsenal are spending £75m on one player”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Untold’s regular round up of the ever more desperate fantasy make believe of England’s semi-skimmed journalists. “Unai Emery’s summer transfer budget is not restricted to just £40million, according the Arsenal’s managing director Vinai Venkatesham.” That’s in the Metro today. And was on Untold Arsenal yesterday. Never mind. At least they didn’t …
Read More “Incredible journalist makes predictions over Arsenal transfers (satire)”
by Tony Attwood This article carries on the series of pieces looking back over the events that led to Arsenal’s election to the first division in 1919, and dispelling the many myths that surround the issue. From January 1919 onwards there was an almost constant state of discussion going on within the Football League over …
Read More “Arsenal’s 100 years in the first division: the debate begins”
By Tony Attwood By no stretch of the imagination has this been a transfer window that could be called “one hell of a rush to spend money” – at least not so far as the top six from last season are concerned. At the moment of writing the table of all the players in and …
Read More “Arsenal directors make it clear that £45m transfer limit is a newspaper myth”
By Tony Attwood. Of course this might not be the first time one of the national papers in England has taken up my theme, but it is the first one I have seen: the idea that Arsenal deliberately play a different line up at home and away. The newspaper in question is the Daily Telegraph …
Read More “The home and away issue – the player who can solve the problem”
By Tony Attwood In the first part of this series (Arsenal celebrate 100 years in the top division) I mentioned the match fixing episode involving Liverpool and Manchester United, as a result of which Chelsea were relegated in 1915 However this was not the only match fixing that was alleged during the last few years …
Read More “Promotion in 1919: celebrating 100 years in the top division”
By Tony Attwood Are there cover ups in football? Cover ups of corruption, incompetence, match fixing, the old boys network looking after each other, abuse of money, abuse of power, that sort of thing…. Certainly in the case of the child sex abuse scandals that have swept across English football in recent years it …
Read More “Why does everyone in football seem to have something to hide?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone I know how tough it is to have to plough through line after line of bland gibberish at the start of each article telling you for the 93rd time this week that Arsenal are desperate to sign players after missing out on the champions league at the end of last season. …
Read More “All the players being tipped today by journalists as coming to Arsenal – and the team.”
by Tony Attwood 100 years ago, at the start of the 1919/20 season, Arsenal started the new campaign back in the first division, after an absence of six years – that break made up of two seasons in the second division and four seasons when the league was abandoned due to the war. 100 years …
Read More “This season Arsenal celebrate 100 years in the top division”
By Tony Attwood There is not too much being written about the differences between last season and the 2019/20 campaign – but there really are a number of interesting twists which are, I suspect, going to take a few players, and commentators, by surprise. There are changes to the rules on free kicks, substitutions, goal …
Read More “Time to get ready for this season’s rule changes”
