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 We’ve been here before, and before and before: the issue of the transfers of young players, and the way English clubs treat them. There have been warnings and fines for several clubs over time – Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City – I won’t go through it all again, as we have covered …
By Bulldog Drummond OK – three possible outcomes tonight… 1: We win easily and go through without any worries This implies a couple of early goals and then a third which means that even if an away goal emerged, it would be of no immediate significance. The reaction from the media would be Arsenal scrape …
Read More “Arsenal v BATE: three possible outcomes – and the reactions that will follow”
By Tony Attwood There is an article in the Daily Star which basically says that if Arsenal do not get off to a good start next season, supporters will be calling for the manager to be sacked. I don’t know if that is true at any level. A terrific run this season, after the …
Read More “Will Arsenal fans turn on Emery if next season starts badly?”
Sir Hardly Anyone takes a look at the latest gibberings from the media. Steve Sidwell says he is shocked at how events have unfolded at Arsenal since he left the club, with the expected progress having never materialised. That is interesting since after he left the club, Arsenal had an unbeaten season while winning the …
Read More “Arsenal a selling club, Freddie backs Eddie, next season’s team, Tottenham’s nickname”
by Bulldog Drummond Since the run of unbeaten games ended at Southampton on 16 December Arsenal have played 14 games. Seven have been lost, six have been won and just one has been a draw. Date Game Res Score Competition 16 Dec 2018 Southampton v Arsenal L 3-2 Premier League 19 Dec 2018 Arsenal v …
by Tony Attwood We have a national curriculum in schools in England which sets out the subjects all students have to study up to the age of 16. In that list of subjects is “science.” Now if you were taught science reasonably well, you might recall that included in that subject is something called “the …
Read More “Why won’t the media ever investigate the cause of referee errors?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone One of the key things to remember with football blogs is that a number of correspondents who, well, not to put too fine a point on it “correspond” with the blog, don’t actually read the series of articles on which they are commenting (nor even all of the most recent) as …
Read More “Sir Hardly Anyone’s update on Arsenal’s director of football quest and other tales”
By Tony Attwood We’ve been looking at different aspects of the new reign of Mr Emery at Arsenal and trying to see where it leads. Articles thus far include How to kill a player: the issues of Ozil So should we be supporting Emery, given the way things are going? Is Mr Emery getting …
by Tony Attwood I suspect that anyone who was present when Patrick Vieira came on as a substitute for his first appearance for Arsenal at Highbury, will never forget the moment. Young and inexperienced though he was, and with his manager on the other side of the world still working in Japan, and with a …
Read More “Is Mr Emery the right man for the job? The worrying signs…”
by Tony Attwood Yesterday Walter in his article How to kill a player raised the issue of how the club is treating Ozil, which itself raises the question, how does the issue of Ozil fit with our long-running banner headline “supporting the club the manager and the team.” It’s something I have been becoming increasingly uncomfortable …
Read More “Is Mr Emery getting Arsenal right, or is he leading us down the wrong path?”
by Blacksheep Hello everybody, I doubt you’ve missed me but it has been a very long time since I wrote anything for Untold. This is mostly because I’ve been busy writing non-football stuff but also because I’ve not really had anything to say. Like Tony I was initially quite encouraged by the recruitment of Unai …
Read More “So should we be supporting Emery, given the way things are going?”
by Bulldog Drummond Arsenal’s commentary on the injured shows us Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang In full training. Mesut Ozil In full training. Sokratis In full training ahead of schedule. Granit Xhaka In full training. Aaron Ramsey Right knee. Being assessed ahead of BATE Borisov (a). Whether they will all play or not is another matter of course, …
Read More “BATE v Arsenal: ruminations on the team, the injuries and BATE’s potential”
By Tony Attwood I have not kept exact records over the years on the issue, and sadly I don’t have the spare time to go back and check, but I get the impression that there are more articles in the mainstream media about referees these days than there were even just one year ago. It …
Read More “How the media comes daily to the rescue of the referees”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is rarely difficult to distinguish between a football journalist with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, and that is certainly the case in the aftermath of the latest wild ranting and raving from Jamie Carragher. Take for example the Daily Express’ approach with its headline “Chelsea news: Jamie Carragher …
Read More “Sir Hardly Anyone reviews the opinions of Jamie Carragher on Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood There have, for many years, been certain clubs that are apart from the rest, because of their crowds and their historic results. The exact list of such clubs has changed over time, but it has, since the end of the first world war, included Manchester United and Arsenal, because of the consistently …
Read More “Arsenal are quite clearly a top four club, but there’s just one problem”
by Tony Attwood Arsenal have now finally improved on last season’s awful away record. Here’s the current table for away games only Pos Team P W D L F GA GD Pts 1 Tottenham Hotspur 13 11 0 2 30 13 17 33 2 Liverpool 13 9 3 1 24 8 16 30 3 Manchester …
Read More “Arsenal beat the away barrier, but it is still not enough”
by Bulldog Drummond Unai Emery has put forward the view that the poor away form of Arsenal is a psychological issue, and of course there may be something in that. But the interpretation put on the remarks by journalists has as always been very short term, rather than looking back over this season and last …
Read More “Huddersfield v Arsenal and the issue of away form”
by Bulldog Drummond Huddersfield must know that they are going down – it would be one of the all time escapes if they didn’t, and there is no sign of a turn around in recent games… Here is their league record since 1 December. Date Game Res Score 01 Dec 2018 Huddersfield Town v Brighton …
Read More “Huddersfield v Arsenal: injuries; the awful away form and the team”
by Sir Hardly Anyone You need a certain type of mind these days to be a football journalist. A mind not cluttered with issues of reality or the detail of mere fact. A mind that is allowed to run free hither and thither, gambolling across great swathes of fantasy unhindered by any notion of reality, …
Read More “Mindless twaddle: Sir Hardly Anyone’s roundup of Arsenal media inventions”
By Tony Attwood With Arsenal sitting in sixth position, where they were at this moment last season, and with just the one loan signing in January, many of the pundits have given up on the club as a source for news or indeed a source of knocking copy. Instead they are looking around for …
By Tony Attwood One year ago after 25 games the league table in Mr Wenger’s final season had Arsenal 6th on 42 points. We were eight points off fourth place and the much derided (at the time) challenge for a Champions League place. Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Manchester City …
Read More “This year last year: how Arsenal have progressed under Mr Emery”
By Bulldog Drummond.You don’t need me to tell you that Arsenal’s form of this year has been erratic following the hammering by Liverpool. Date Game Res Score 01 Jan 2019 Arsenal v Fulham W 4-1 05 Jan 2019 Blackpool v Arsenal FAC W 0-3 12 Jan 2019 West Ham United v Arsenal L 1-0 19 …
Read More “Manchester City v Arsenal. Who blinks first and the teams.”
By Tony Attwood It was nearly ten years ago that Chelsea were banned from signing any more youth players – a ban that was eventually overturned on appeal. But now Chelsea are once again waiting to see how an enquiry by Fifa into their transfer dealings in the youth market will pan out. But this …
By Tony Attwood Without playing Arsenal have moved up to fourth in the league – the much sought after “not a trophy” position. Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Liverpool 24 19 4 1 55 14 41 61 2 Manchester City 24 18 2 4 63 19 44 56 3 Tottenham …
Read More “Denis Suárez joins Arsenal as we get to the “not a trophy” position.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone So far this transfer window the grand net spend or profit of the bigger clubs are Arsenal – nothing Chelsea – £49.1m net spend – Christian Pulisic who was immediately loaned out. Liverpool – £17m net profit Man City – £15m net profit Man U – nothing Tottenham – £11m profit. So …
Read More “Transfer updates: who has spent and who we are getting today and tomorrow”
