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 Allow me, if I may, to give an example of what I mean by bias. This comes from Nick Ames speaking of Sheffield United against whom Arsenal play this weekend. “Against Arsenal they will probably be required to go with what they have got, but the same goes for their opponents given …
by Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have been drawn against Rapid Vienna, Molde (not to be confused with Mold which is quite a different place), and Dundalk in the group stage of the Europa League. Here’s a preliminary look at what these clubs have been up to of late. Rapid Vienna have been playing regularly since August …
By Tony Attwood Last night’s match confirmed the turnaround in Arsenal’s fortunes, in the club’s approach, in the desire and willingness of the team not to give up, and the inventiveness of the manager in the way he can re-organise the team and galvanise the players. Between August 2015 and October 2019 our record against …
Read More “Beating Liverpool is far more important than beating Liverpool!”
By Bulldog Drummond Liverpool got away with their fairly blatant intimidation tactics in monday’s game with the two very serious fouls only getting yellows, while ensuring that Arsenal realised that they would likely get punished far more aggressively by the referee if they retaliated with fouls of their own. It is a clever tactic that …
Read More “Liverpool! v Arsenal again. The team, plus we sign an exciting youngster”
By Tony Attwood We have previously run the fact that Arsenal need to sell before the transfer window just to avoid having players on their books who need to be paid, but who cannot play. But I’m going through this again because most of the media is simply ignoring this, and talking over and over …
Read More “Arsenal have to sell two just to get legal; more if we sign anyone else.”
by Tony Attwood A couple of weeks ago Gianni Infantino head of Fifa, a man on trial for corruption in Switzerland, met (not for the first time) with US President Donald Trump. this was when Infantino attended the signing of the agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the White House on …
Read More “Infantino looks sunk; but if he takes down Fifa as well, what replaces it?”
By Tony Attwood These are early days, but then again, early days can bring us a good warning of what is going to happen. Last season we saw Leicester develop – and for half a season get away with – a system of constant tackling without getting yellow cards. Then the system collapsed and their …
Read More “Which club is trying to emulate Leicester tackling game from last season?”
by Tony Attwood By giving yellow cards rather than red cards to two nasty fouls in the early part of the game last night referee Craig Pawson was giving all the players on the pitch notice that such fouls were within the remits of yellow cards and did not deserve a red. Or at least …
Read More “Message from the referee: clearly heard and understood – no reds today”
by Bulldog Drummond Of course we play Liverpool twice this week – once now and once in the League Cup. Presumably the teams on both sides will be different each time. The Guardian offers us Leno Holding Luiz Gabriel Bellerin Ceballos Xhaka Maitland-Niles Willian Lacazette Aubameyang There list of possible substitutes is not necessarily that …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal. The various predicted teams from around the media.”
by Bulldog Drummond The Guardian is running the headline “Arsenal ready to compromise under Arteta to get result at Liverpool” which contains the thought that “Mikel Arteta has admitted he and Arsenal have to compromise on some of their footballing principles to get results against the Premier League’s bigger clubs.” And yet despite the word …
By Tony Attwood Two stories in the media caught my attention today. One is the reporting of Understat’s xG table which apparently shows that in the 22 league games played under Mr Arteta, Arsenal has gained (the implication is “luckily got”) nine points more than the data would expect. The newspaper didn’t quite go back …
Read More “Arsenal are over achieving, and are due for a fall.”
By Tony Attwood Each year as the transfer window meanders its merry way towards its conclusion I make various ill-advised attempts to work out how we are going to squeeze the players we have and the players we want into the 25 positions that there are available. And each year (it has become something of …
Read More “Arsenal’s 25 players list is over-full – we must lose some before we can buy”
By Sir Hardly Anyone You may be excused if you didn’t know, but Fifa has just held its 70th congress. The Fifa Congress is the supreme legislative body in football but the UK media won’t report on it because… well, its a bit dodgy and because FA pours money into Fifa via its membership fees, …
Read More “Infantino speaks at Fifa’s 70th Congress, but don’t tell the UK media”
By Tony Attwood Chelsea have so far in this transfer window had a net spend of £152.4m according to the Guardian. Supposing Mr Abramovich was suddenly taken out by a Russian mafia agent, and his funding of the club dried up overnight, would the rest of the Premier League feel moved to offer financial support …
Read More “Why Premier League spending should be much more carefully controlled”
by Tony Attwood The 2019/20 Women’s FA Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur will be broadcast live on BBC Two and the BBC iPlayer with a kick off at 17:15 BST on saturday. An early version of this article suggested Friday – a typical slip by me. Sorry. This game should have taken place …
Read More “Watch Arsenal on TV, and there’s no match fee to pay”
By Tony Attwood We have had seven domestic cup ties without defeat. In our last 11 games of last season we won eight, lost one drew two. This season it is four straight wins (five if you include the FL Trophy victory). But let’s leave that one out. We are currently on six straight wins, …
Read More “Athletic: if you a commenting on the law, please look at the law”
Logging on to the website Carabao.live was a lot easier than logging in to Now TV which was a nightmare. Here is the team Leno Holding Luiz Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Willock, Saka Pepe Nelson Nketiah Subs Runarsson, Bellerin, Saliba, Ceballos, Xhaka, Willian, Lacazette No team information on the actual TV site however, which is …
Read More “Arsenal stroll past Leicester … Watching it for a tenner.”
by Bulldog Drummond Today’s Leicester v Arsenal league cup match will not be televised live in the UK, but you can watch via the carabaocup.live website. The fee to watch on line is £10. Let’s hope their system works better than the utterly appalling NowTV service with its recent fiasco. We couldn’t get a …
Read More “Leicester v Arsenal: the predicted teams and the end of football as we know it”
By Bulldog Drummond As we have mentioned before, Arsenal are suffering a multiplicity of injuries at the moment – only Crystal Palace has more, and this situation has been running since the season started. While some clubs linger on one or two players out, we are consistently near the top of the injury table… Crystal …
Read More “Arsenal injury list makes a mockery of old anti-Wenger jibes”
By Bulldog Drummond Traditionally Premier League clubs don’t put out their first team squad to play in the league cup, as they did in days of yor, so working out what is going to happen in tomorrow’s game is going to be somewhat difficult. There having been no draws in the Premier League thus far, …
By Tony Attwood Looked at so far the season has been a rather jolly affair… Date Match Result Score Competition 29 Aug 2020 Arsenal v Liverpool W 1-1 (5-4) Community Shield 08 Sep 2020 Ipswich Town v Arsenal W 1-2 Football League Trophy 12 Sep 2020 Fulham v Arsenal W 0-3 Premier League 19 Sep …
Read More “Video of the recent game for Arsenal’s youngsters, ahead of the Leicester match”
By Tony Attwood What crisis? How can there be a crisis? Just look at the money being spent, and the transfer window still has two weeks to run (and you know what the last night before the window “slams shut” is like – at least on TV). Currently the net spending (ie the amount spent …
Read More “There is a crisis in football and PL adopts different rules from Europe”
By Tony Attwood The story so far… Self-evidently Untold Arsenal does not have its “man in Switzlerland” with inside knowledge of the multiple issues facing Fifa at the moment. All we do is look at Swiss, German and French newspapers and report (with the help of our European friends) what they are saying. And this …
Read More “Fifa starts to implode, and the strange case of lack of UK interest in events”
By Tony Attwood A UK exclusive for Untold! Back in the old days ex-US Justice Minister Loretta Lynch and the Swiss Federal Prosecutor Michael Lauber worked together to tackle corruption. As Attorney General of the USA, Loretta Lynch was keen on this idea of a united approach to fight the corruption that was obviously endemic …
Read More “Amazing unbelievable development in the Fifa battle; sadly not on UK news”
By Tony Attwood Today the Talk Sport web site says “A week on from their public bust-up at Fulham, Dani Ceballos and Eddie Nketiah combined to earn Arsenal victory over West Ham. Nketiah tapped in a goal late on – from Ceballos’ pass – to seal a 2-1 win for the Gunners at the Emirates …
Read More “It’s tough being a football journalist: what are they to say when Arsenal win?”
