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
Ingenue1 / pixabay Arsenal’s first game after the international break will be against floundering Newcastle United. After an important 3-2 over Cardiff City, Unai Emery and Arsenal have a chance to capitalize on the down-and-out in Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle. Arsenal does have to reckon with the dreaded international break, something that affects Arsenal’s squad more …
By Ino Lotz, our correspondent on Certain Things. Serena Williams was fined $17,000 for by and large calling the referee a cheat. That comes out of the $1.8m she got for being runner up. So less than 1% of her income. She is not banned for five matches or anything else. In the media there …
Read More “If Serena Williams had played for Arsenal she’d be banned for a year.”
By Tony Attwood You may have thought that the days of EU rulings affecting UK football are coming to an end. Indeed we’ve recently been discussing exactly this: how the FA and the UK government might collude after the EU closes the door on the UK to restrict the right of non-UK citizens to play …
Read More “Brussels court lobs a bomb into football as big as Bosman. And it affects everyone.”
By Tony Attwood When the Premier League refused to join forces with the Football League over the issuing of fines for running up huge debts there were a few of us who noticed – and a few of the few who were disappointed. As a result of the PL’s decision not to get involved in …
Read More “The Football League is finally sharpening its teeth over the over-spenders. Maybe.”
By Bulldog Drummond If there is one thing we have known for a long time about Alex Iwobi it is that he was not good enough. Consider some of these headlines: Arsenal Fans Blast Iwobi – You Are Not Good Enough OwnGoalNigeria, 16 Feb 2017 Arsenal fans have descended heavily on Alex Iwobi over his poor performance in …
Read More “Mass positivity breaks out as fans and writers go for Arsenal love in”
by Bulldog Drummond While the international interruptions (the I I) are a pain in the a. and disrupt my own personal weekend routine of presenting the match previews, they do also give on a moment for reflection and a spot of looking ahead – and it was the latter which made me realise just how …
Read More “How the next three weeks will reveal Mr Emery’s plan”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, celebrating the good guys and the bad in this week of no proper footie. 1: Nacho Monreal “Nacho Monreal fiercely defends under fire Arsenal teammate” according to Gooner Talk and many other blogs. It was an outspoken defence of Ozil and a rare attack by a player on the media. “Ozil and Emery …
Read More “This week’s heroes and a round up of the bonkers”
by Tony Attwood “West Ham United use their stadium largely at taxpayers’ expense”. Yawn yawn, you’ve heard it before. Typical Tony Attwood boring rant. Except this time that sentence came from the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper generally associated with free enterprise, and read by rear admirals. But not any more it seems for they …
By Tony Attwood Could the PGMO squad of referees actually be getting something wrong? It is hard to imagine there is much they could get wrong since according to their own figures they are getting 98.5% of all decisions right and VAR would add another 2% to that. (Yes it’s funny, I know, but that’ …
Read More “Playing with the rule book, the stupidity of reading body language, the Europa squad”
By Tony Attwood “More talent, less minutes: English players suffering in Premier League”. That is the headline with no less than 11 Arsenal players are currently gallivanting around Europe and beyond ready to receive wounds which will very much be of their own choosing – after all they don’t have to go. These players are …
Read More “The bleating of the England camp and non-savvy journalists is a danger to club football”
by Tony Attwood Untold first raised the issue of the impact of the UK leaving the EU in an article published on 26 June 2016. I’ve run a few more articles since, and the response of some to suggestions that there have been problems with getting work permits and assurances have not met with acceptance. However …
Read More “UK leaving the EU: Premier League awakens to the dangers of an FA takeover”
To buy or not to buy That is the question every time the club launches a new range of replica shirts, for many Arsenal fans, although fans of the Gunners still remain the most loyal when it comes to decking themselves out in their second skin. Of course, the designs can sometimes influence the decision …
By Tony Attwood We’re at the international break with the newly fangled “Extragames Country Cup” which from my limited experience not too many people quite get, and since I’m persistently anti-international matches I’m not going to explain. But before the season began we made a prediction about who would win six different leagues in Europe …
Read More “The top of the league predictions across Europe: how are we doing”
By Tony Attwood After each transfer window I like to try and wrap things up with the publication of Arsenal’s list of 25 players registered with the Premier League and then separate them into home grown and foreign grown. But this year there is something fishy. For example Jeorge Bird, who is normally 100% reliable …
Read More “There’s something fishy in Arsenal’s official list of 25 players”
by Tony Attwood On the Star’s web site today this appeared from Garth Crooks. “The very suggestion Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang can’t play together as a pair at Arsenal sends me apoplectic,” Crooks told the BBC Sport. “The fact of the matter is Arsene Wenger lacked the nerve to play the two up front on a …
Read More “Did Wenger lack the nerve to play Aubamayang and Lacazette together?”
By Tony Attwood Fake news needs someone to believe it, otherwise it is laughable and of course completely pointless. In much of life the credibility level people impose on stories can be quite high – for many simply won’t believe the stories they hear because the everyday evidence and past experience suggests they are nonsense. …
Read More “How fake news took over football journalism – and it is about to get far worse”
By Tony Attwood Over the last 10 years Man City have spent £1.3bn (or for the mathematically challenged, £130m per year.) During this time they have won 3 league titles 3 league cups 1 FA Cup That works out at £429m per league title. If we include the FA cup it is £325m per trophy. …
Read More “How much does the League title cost, and what power do mere supporters have?”
By Tony Attwood I cancelled my Sky subscription just over a year ago, because of my ever growing frustration at their authoritarian approach of knowing what was right and what was wrong, what I thought and what I didn’t, their patronising of me as a viewer and paying customer, and my frustration at what they …
Read More “Cardiff v Arsenal; beware Now TV, Sky’s commentary, and Tottenham Nomads.”
By Bulldog Drummond It appears that Untold is now fully https (whatever that means) and has a new server. Lots of cheers and celebrations somewhat akin to a Nasa spacecraft entering the magnetic field of Jupiter. We know how to celebrate! And here’s a thing, since we started highlighting the insanity and arrogance of “all …
Read More “Cardiff v Arsenal, teams, 9 year old signs, drama at Southend, Eddie, running.”
By Bulldog Drummond Thus far, as we can see, Cardiff City have not been doing too well. With two goalless draws and a 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth, plus a league cup defeat to Norwich. In short, they have quite simply been finding life harder than it was in the Championship. And in a way, to …
Read More “Cardiff v Arsenal. It will be 0-3 to Arsenal but Cardiff will score.”
By Bulldog Drummond The story thus far… Cardiff City v fresh orange juice and a touch of the Arsenal How journalists knew Özil was not ill, Mkhit’s travel issues and Cardiff v Arsenal Premier League Matchweek 4 – The Match Officials, the downfall of Madley and Cardiff v Arsenal Cardiff have picked up a couple …
Read More “Cardiff v Arsenal: culture shock, playing against 10 men, ground size, and no goals”
by Bulldog Drummond Yes the story that Arsenal players are only allowed fruit juice that has been freshly squeezed has taken the media by storm, with journalists never having heard anything like it before. No beer at breakfast? Are these not men? However there are a few who are still playing the Ozil card. I …
Read More “Cardiff City v fresh orange juice and a touch of the Arsenal”
by Bulldog Drummond According to the latest revelations in the press conference last week Mr Emery was asked about Özil and constantly said he was ill, without giving any other suggestion of any reason for him not being in the team. But then, it seems, there was the question “When you spoke to him [Özil] …
Read More “How journalists knew Özil was not ill, Mkhit’s travel issues and Cardiff v Arsenal”
by Tony Attwood Shock horror, for if it is Arsenal it is a problem. And the problem is Arsenal have to travel to Qarabag in Azerbaijan and FC Vorskla in Ukraine. (And of course to Lisbon to see Sporting but even the most rabid anti-Arsenal journalist is struggling to find that journey a problem). But for …
Read More “Arsenal in the Europa League. It’s a long way to go.”
By Tony Attwood Of course it is not always easy to determine what is fake news and what is not. For example just five of the 122 transfer rumours associated with players coming to Arsenal this summer were real, and I suspect most of us would have been able to spot 90 or 100 of the …
Read More “Away from the fake news: Team for Cardiff, Europa draw, Tottenham-land (the experience),”
