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 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”
By Bulldog Drummond So what of today? We obviously don’t have Sokratis for several games, and although Koscielny seems just to have bruised his jaw rather than had it broken, I suspect he won’t be risked even if he feels fit. Meanwhile it may be just me but I am finding one or two of …
Read More “Arsenal v Cardiff: the team and the track record”
Caution and Liverpool Part 2 – Some Details By Gordon Haverland This article continues from the previous post The curious effect of referee actions on the top six clubs this season. Treatments There are two kinds of treatments, the ones where a physio does not come on to the field to bring the player off …
Read More “The curious case of the uneven effect of referee activity in the PL. Part 2”
By Gordon Haverland and Tony Attwood Is there really any evidence that Premier League matches are being rigged via referees? That is a question that we are often asked, and we have often replied that yes there is some evidence, but it is not definitive. However we also note how the PGMO which runs …
Read More “The curious effect of referee actions on the top six clubs this season.”
By Tony Attwood If the question above were posed as “What SHOULD Arsenal do now” rather than as it is written, the answer would undoubtedly be very complicated. But Arsenal commentators on football don’t do complicated – they like simple, easy solutions. And therein lies another problem. For the problem with simple solutions to complex …
Read More “Out of three of the four competitions already, what does Arsenal do now?”
By Bulldog Drummond I imagine that Petr Cech will play in goal, as that seems to be the arrangement and the player has to stay match fit as he is the backup for the rest of the season. In defence we could use the back four approach although obviously we don’t have Hector Bellerin for the rest …
By Bulldog Drummond As you will remember Arsenal are constantly being criticised in the media. And yet for a team which is being heavily criticised, especially for its defence, Arsenal’s home form remains unquestionably good… Home games only Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Manchester City 12 11 0 1 40 …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester United: FA Cup 4th round; the form.”
by Bulldog Drummond These two clubs – Arsenal and Manchester United – utterly dominate the FA Cup between them. Indeed the total number of finals that they have played in (20 each) dwarf other clubs as the table below shows. Club Wins Total final appearances Arsenal 13 20 Manchester United 12 20 Liverpool 7 …
Read More “The battle of the two evenly match Cup giants: Arsenal v Manchester United”
By Tony Attwood The Deloitte Money League which records the position of clubs from a financial point of view shows, for the first time, six English clubs in the world’s top ten football clubs, thanks to Wembley. Wembley is not a club of course but a source of additional revenue for Tottenham Hotspur. For with …
Read More “With the emphasis on profit against investment Arsenal finances slip”
by Robert Johnson Last season, Arsenal were looking like strong contenders for the Europa League. They drew the first leg of the semi-final against Athletico Madrid at the Emirates. However, their Europa League hopes were ended when Diego Costa scored the solo goal in the second leg of the semi-final. After beating Arsenal, Diego Simeone’s …
By Sir Hardly Anyone. There is a rambling article in the Daily Express website that contains this statement…”Arsenal currently sit fifth in the Premier League table but have once again struggled at the back this season.” Now I think a lot of people would go along with that, probably without even thinking about it too …
Read More “Arsenal have a worse defence than Newcastle. But strangely the media don’t notice”
By Tony Attwood First an apology for the delay in publishing through yesterday and this morning. Like many blogs, we’re run by volunteers, and we simply ran out of people yesterday and this AM. Hopefully getting ourselves back together now. And so what did we miss – well obviously Bellerin. So now we have three …
Read More “Replacing Bellerin, yet more transfers, and another goalkeeper.”
By Tony Attwood “Unai Emery is not at fault for Arsenal shambles – blame the board, Wenger and Ozil instead” So says a recent Jamie Carragher article. It is one of those pieces in which there’s not much point going beyond the headline, because he’s made his point, and you know he’ll just be reinforcing …
Read More “Before we get to the blame, shouldn’t we decide what makes a crisis?”
by Tony Attwood Because of the need to get back to the station for the return journey home, I left the stadium yesterday immediately upon the final whistle and so missed what turned out to be an interesting event. But fortunately my pal Steve who sits next to me in the East Stand did stay, …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: cheering Giroud and this impressive home form”
By Bulldog Drummond If we look back across the last three seasons we can see that Chelsea has been a tough, but not impossible opponent for us… 02 Aug 2015 Arsenal v Chelsea W 1-0 Community Shield 19 Sep 2015 Chelsea v Arsenal L 2-0 Premier League 24 Jan 2016 Arsenal v Chelsea L 0-1 …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea; recent results and the line up.”
By Bulldog Drummond According to the Telegraph, this game v Chelsea “is arguably the biggest game of the season so far. If Arsenal lose, they will be nine points behind the top four, while they can also be overtaken by sixth-placed Manchester United.” But then in a different article the same newspaper says, “Having inflicted …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea what the media are saying ahead of the game”
By Bulldog Drummond The Physioroom league table of injuries shows Arsenal in the lower reaches of the table, along with Chelsea. Top of the tree and out there on their own is West Ham on nine players injured. After that comes Newcastle on seven, Liverpool and Cardiff on six, Tottenham and Southampton on five, Bournemouth …
by Tony Attwood I’ve been dwelling on the perfidious nature of newspaper and blog commentaries on Arsenal for a while, because although on their own mostly they are fairly trivial and pointless, combined they can add up to a feeling of doom, gloom, desperation and incompetence; which it appears is their main purpose. Take this …
Read More “How football journalists are using the tactics of extremists to manipulate readers”
by Sir Hardly Anyone What is it a football journalist wants? Basically a story that writes itself, that needs no research, no insight, no drawing out of implications, no need to ask the pesky “why?” question, and a story that knocks the clubs they love to hate, while allowing them to heap praise on the …
By Tony Attwood The story is circulating that Manchester City have refused to reply to Uefa in relation to FFP allegations, on the basis that the multiple claims against them in relation to breaches of FFP regulations came from hacked or stolen emails, and therefore they don’t have to answer. This approach, that stolen evidence …
Read More “In a football crisis does the source of information affect procedure?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone There has been a consistent knocking of Mohammed Elneny of late, and an absolute torrent of abuse flowing upon Granit Xhaka. And I wondered what that must be like for the players. We do of course get our fair share of abuse on Untold and we by and large take …
Read More “Do players take any notice of blogs and newspapers?”
By Tony Attwood Although you might not know it from the daily blogs and newspaper websites Arsenal are one of the most successful teams in the Premier League. Not in terms of the number of times teams have won it – Manchester United are way out in front of everyone on that score; but by …
Read More “Just how far does Arsenal have to go, to get back to the top?”
