Chelsea v Arsenal: figuring out the team and Mr Emery’s two big questions

Please note that on Monday, Untold Arsenal will be unavailable for a while as we upgrade the site and move to a new server.  If the down time is more than for a short while we’ll publish articles and news on our Facebook page.  Please see the home page, www.untold-arsenal.com, for more details.   By …

Chelsea v Arsenal, the injuries and another player leaves, and the ed to ed.

Untold Arsenal will probably be down for some time on Monday.  There are details on our home page at www.untold-arsenal.com    We’ll keep up the chit chat on our Facebook page. by Bulldog Drummond And so the news keeps on rolling in.  The latest is that England youth international Stephy Mavididi has now departed these …

Chelsea v Arsenal: the keeper and left back and how many Chelsea men went on loan

By Bulldog Drummond It’s only Friday and we have some news.   In an interview Mr Emery has said he will continue to play out from the back and develop his new style, adding, “We didn’t lose because of our personality, our idea, our style.  We lost on other things. We can improve on other things, …

Matchweek 2 – The Match Officials and more problems for PGMO

Please note that on Monday this site may be unavailable for a while.  Full details are on our home page.  If you do find us gone you can follow us on Facebook. Matchweek 2 – The Match Officials and news of Bobby Madley By Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood Overnight we have heard that Premier …

The Arsenal Women – a Season Preview ahead of the game against West Ham

  By Andrew Crawshaw   Our Women completed their pre-season preparations by taking part in the Toulouse International Ladies Cup last weekend against three of the top teams in Europe – Montpellier and PSG from France with Bayern Munich being the fourth team involved. Like the Emirates Cup each team played two matches, we were …

Arsenal’s models of finance and the difficult road we’re travelling

By Tony Attwood There are basically five models of finance in English football at the moment. 1: The self-sustaining club The club which through commercial sponsorship, attendances at matches, TV revenue and advertising revenue makes enough money to keep going without the need of an outside investor.  This is the model of Manchester United.  Through …

What will happen if Arsenal lose to Chelsea this weekend?

by Tony Attwood Even the most dislocated and indeed dissolute newspaper football columnist will have recognised four factors about this season: a) Arsenal have a new manager. b) The new manager is working to instil a different style and approach in the players from that which has gone before. c) Five new players have been …

The 10 big Arsenal transfer updates and next weekend’s team

By Sir Hardly Anyone Welcome to the round up.   The out door is still open, so who is on the move?  Actually no one really seems to have much idea, or if they do, they are not telling. 1: Bielik According to the Sports Mole which has apparently been digging around  “Arsenal to send Krystian …

Why will Arsenal suffer a freeze on increasing its wage bill, as the media suggests?

By Tony Attwood Jeremy Wilson, deputy football correspondent of the Daily Telegraph newspaper and website has written a piece in which he says, “Unai Emery is facing significant restrictions with Arsenal’s wage bill during the next transfer window in January following a series of deals that have been agreed over the past year.” Immediately upon reading …

How we can tell there is still something seriously wrong with Premier League refereeing.

On Monday 20 August Untold may disappear for a while.  For details please see the home page.   by Tony Attwood In March this year, the Sky Sports website opened an article on refereeing with the comment by Keith Hackett that players and pundits criticising referees in the Premier League is “a little bit like …

What do journalists do when the window is cracked? Sir Hardly Anyone finds out.

By Sir Hardly Anyone, our man in the Toppled Bollard; watering hole of the football journalist. I don’t know if you have ever seen a tiger or wildebeest or tyrannosaurus rex or something along those lines, raising itself up to its full height in preparation of rushing at several thousand mph across the fauna and …

Critical safety systems: those rather annoying hiccups that get in the way.

By Tony Attwood From my perspective the move from Highbury to the new stadium went rather well.  It was only after we’d got there that I realised just how much impact it was having on the club in terms of its ability to compete in the transfer market.  And since we’d already had the phrase …

Ian Wright claims football media and the FA are both racist

By Tony Attwood Ian Wright made his comments last night on BBC Radio 5, and I think it is fair to say that it caused the chair of the discussion and the other guests a certain on the show an amount of discomfort and uncertainty as to how to handle the conversation thereafter. Unfortunately for …

Does the sponsorship of a club really mean that fans can’t criticise the sponsor?

By Tony Attwood I must say I was singularly surprised by the large number of comments Untold received from Manchester City supporters after I commented negatively on the ownership of that club. Most of these comments were to my mind of very little merit being simplistic and/or crude, and so did not get published, and …

Manchester City’s two nil win should have come as no surprise to any Gooner

By Andrew Crawshaw My recent look at squad values using data from the website transfermarkt.com indicated a total value of the City squad as being well in excess of £900m whilst that of Arsenal was virtually £500m. To put this discrepancy into perspective mere are the stated values of the two squads starting 11s broken …

Arsenal v Manchester City: how the media continues once more to have no idea

By Tony Attwood Quite why some of the Manchester City supporters felt like singing “Only one Arsene Wenger” during this game, I am not too sure although I’ve never understood northern humour.  Perhaps it was not a recognition that one could win the League and FA Cup across a number of years without the input …

Arsenal v Manchester City Hoovers. Opening day blues for us and the champions

By Bulldog Drummond. This is the hardest game to select a team for, as we have not yet seen the manager in action when not testing out the players in the pre-season matches. Maitland Niles is the obvious replacement at left back,  and I suggest Monreal will not even make the beach so he is …

Arsenal v Man City: How it went in the past, and the new comers

By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal ended last season with a mixed collection a results Date Game Res Score Competition 08 Mar 2018 AC Milan v Arsenal W 0-2 Europa League 11 Mar 2018 Arsenal v Watford W 3-0 Premier League 15 Mar 2018 Arsenal v AC Milan W 3-1 Europa League 01 Apr 2018 Arsenal v …

Arsenal v Man City: the injuries and recent games between the two.

By Bulldog Drummond Coming back to the list of injuries after not having followed the details since the end of last season is something of a shock.  And unless you’ve been following the details I think you might be shocked too. Ready? As before I am using the Physioroom list.   And I would warn you …

Arsenal v the Hoovers. Background to Sunday’s game at Arsenal Stadium

By Lady Market Dominance In English culture, and maybe elsewhere, the domestic vacuum cleaner is often known as the Hoover, the Hoover being a dominant make of the product dating back to the early 20th century.  So dominant did it become in the market that the word passed into the language as meaning “to take …

Arsenal transfers – the full table of all 122 rumours, plus the view from White Hart Lane.

By Tony Attwood By the end of course it was getting truly ridiculous.  Indeed as Short Fuse announced, “Arsenal’s transfer window descends into farce as structural problems remain.”  What they didn’t realise was that the farce was created by the media as time and again they told us deals had been done, and were confirmed, when …

Transfer remnants: What exactly are Arsenal doing, and what is a Spurs fan saying?

By Sir Hardly Anyone We’re almost there it is almost done – at least in terms of the buying.  And as you probably expected, despite all the frantic suggestions by the People Regularly Engaged in Spurious Stories (or PRESS for short) nothing is happening thus far concerning Arsenal in terms of buying, although Perez looks …

The final night of transfer rumours: Sir Hardly Anyone in the home of the half baked

Sir Hardly Anyone reflects on another wasted night at the bar. I have generally thought most “reporters” who cover transfer chit chat to be half baked, but some of those I have met in this fenêtre de transfert don’t seem even to have made it into the oven.  And to hear the silly little people …

Why the panic? What’s going on? How this summer’s transfer market has turned itself upside down.

By Tony Attwood There has, I think, not been a transfer market quite like this one, and that for two reasons. One is that the Premier League summer market gets crazier every year, first because each year the media tries to do more and more to outdo whatever crazy things they got up to last …

Arsenal bid £100m for player in transfer rumour untouched by even The Hollow Men.

By Sir Hardly Anyone What happens to the bloggettas owned by newspapers when their computers get overheated in the, well, err, heat?   This morning, Wednesday 8 August, we find out as Foot Lond, the Daily Mirror’s endlessly automatic computer generated churning  bloggetta, runs the story,  “There’s less than a week left of the transfer window – …