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 During the past two seasons there was a fair amount of talk, not to mention poster waving, along with a spot of aircraft flying and marching, concerning the future of Mr Wenger. Not particularly to deny what he had done for the club in the past, but rather to question what he …
Read More “Why the failure against Liverpool was inevitable, and what Arsenal need now.”
by Bulldog Drummond A win in this game would be an absolute miracle or a reason for the media suddenly to discover the dark forces that exist within the footballing underworld. Or if they don’t want to admit anything might be odd in the world of football it might be simply “inexplicable”. At least we …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal: the teams and the possibilities”
By Tony Attwood The regular daily praise of Liverpool FC piece in the press today has taken a new twist, as shown in this comment in the Telegraph… When Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool in 2010, John W. Henry reserved particular praise for one English club. “I admire Arsenal very much,” Henry said, citing Wenger’s …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal. All change at Liverpool, or more of the same?”
By Bulldog Drummond Here is the injury list for the top of the injury league 1 10 West Ham United 2 7 Tottenham Hotspur 2 7 Arsenal 4 6 Manchester City 4 6 Liverpool 4 6 Watford 7 5 Chelsea However one thing to remember is that clubs do far fewer updates than normal …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal: the injuries and the title winners predictions”
by Bulldog Drummond At the end of last season Untold boldly predicted that this season Manchester City would win the League again, quite simply because they would spend, spend, spend and spend, and do everything they could to ensure that they would stay top. In fact we were wrong, they didn’t go on another mass …
by Tony Attwood Consider this headline Arsenal ‘willing to pay’ €16m to make transfer happen, decision now rests with player That seems quite straightforward, except that the player is Keylor Navas of Real Madrid. So let’s see if the “Willing to pay” story hangs together. 1: Do we need another goalkeeper? In their ultimate …
Read More “Reality can be very boring but can be quite useful in football”
By Tony Attwood Last season the media and some fans made a lot of noise about getting rid of Mr Wenger as manager. Within the noise there were claims that Arsenal were clearly not keeping up with the rest of the league, and demands that at the very least Arsenal should be challenging to win …
Read More “How is Arsenal doing compared with half way through previous seasons?”
By Bulldog Drummond Looking at Arsenal, as we have noted throughout this season, the away form is key to taking us up the league (not least on the grounds that it would be hard to improve on last season’s home form). If we can beat Brighton, that will take us to five away wins – …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal, the teams, the possibilities, Koscielny”
By Bulldog Drummond Brighton’s season has been somewhat erratic not helped by having three players sent off in seven days of playing football. This might well be having an impact on them – the manager telling the players to reign in some of the aggro. Looking at their performances through the season we find these …
By Bulldog Drummond If it is Arsenal it must be an injury crisis, so let’s take a peek…. and yes this time they are right we are second in the injury league behind Watford. Crisis, crisis, crisis. But is anyone calling for the head of the Watford manager because of their injury crisis? I can’t …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal: the injury crisis (part 94), kettles of fish and runs.”
By Tony Attwood This time it is Keith Hackett who does it, but it could have been any of the commentators who tell us that refereeing is really ok and jolly good and everything is fine and there is nothing sinister about having an organisation so secretive that it makes the masonic lodges look like …
Read More “The great referee con, played on us poor punters over and over again”
By Tony Attwood The prime objective of this season for many supporters was, I think, to see Arsenal get back into the Champions League, where Mr Wenger had kept the club for so many years (a run, as I have mentioned before, which has only ever been exceeded by Real Madrid). I made the comment …
Read More “How likely are Arsenal to get into the top four by the end of the season?”
by Tony Attwood Sean Dyche made a number of serious accusations against Arsenal players in particular, the Arsenal team in general, after the match yesterday and complained about the behaviour of the referee in this match and referees in general through commenting on the fact that (he claims) Burnley do not get given penalties. The …
Read More “Official reactions to Dyche will show us how the authorities are thinking”
By Bulldog Drummond The last time we did lose to a bottom three club at home was with a 1-0 loss to West Ham way way way back in April 2007. And to make this sound even better we have won the last 27 home league matches against sides in the drop zone since a …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley: the teams now and the last time we lost to Burnley”
by Bulldog Drummond. We have beaten Burnley 51 times throughout history, and lost 33 times, with 21 games being draws, and the last ten give no cause for concern. But that problem of recovering from the first defeat in a while is always lurking around. Here are the recent Burnlian results… Date Game Res Score …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley recent games, and the holiday season run in”
By Bulldog Drummond Physioroom now has us on six injuries – equal with Man City, Tottenham and Southampton and two behind West Ham. Burnley are on five. The latest news is Bellerin: a major doubt for now but probably back by Boxing Day Mkhitaryan: ankle injury – no return date set Kolasinac: a doubt for …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley: injuries, Burnley recently, the problem of the end of a run”
By Tony Attwood Research appears to show that match officials in England are maybe seven times more likely to suffer verbal abuse than those in France and the Netherlands. I say “appears” and “maybe” because although some who are quoting this research are giving that figure as a fact, the research in England has been conducted …
Read More “New referee research is valuable but is still fundamentally flawed”
By Tony Attwood You might recall that I have often passed comment on the way that Football.London – the Daily Mirror’s website, churns out an Arsenal story every 10 minutes. I meant that as a warning, but sadly some have now taken it as a blueprint. This is the log this morning from the bloggetta …
Read More “There might be a clue here as to why we shouldn’t trust the media”
By Tony Attwood The rules are quite simple: anyone with a season ticket at Arsenal can apply for and get a ticket for League Cup games. The price is £10 to sit downstairs, £20 to sit upstairs, with a 50% discount for the over 65s. But despite the low price and the fact it is …
Read More “On not going to Arsenal v Tottenham, and do we really need journalists at matches?”
By Bulldog Drummond At the time of the third round draw for the FA Cup, there were still a couple second round ties unresolved – including of course the one to resolve who Arsenal would play. Now we know, as Blackpool have finally beaten Solihull Moors, and so we will play Blackpool for the second …
Read More “Arsenal get Blackpool (again) but first here’s the team against Tottenham”
By Bulldog Drummond Apparentlhy some of Arsenal’s squad posted selfies after their 4-2 extermination of Tottenham and the Tiny Totts manager said such activity as this should be saved for winning trophies. That must mean that they have only have two occasions for doing that in the past 25 years, although of course camera phones haven’t …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: the problem with selfies and the injury news”
By Tony Attwood José Mourinho became manager of Manchester United in May 2016. In five transfer windows he spent around £400m on 11 players. The media men on the inside say that in each case the choice of player was his. The Guardian is saying that not only are the results poor from the first team but that …
Read More “What’s £400m between friends? How some clubs have upped the game.”
By Bulldog Drummond And so the world of football rambles on. “How can a sport be worth billions and spend just a pittance on fighting racism?” asks the Guardian while “Police investigate allegation of historical racist abuse in youth team” at Chelsea. The Telegraph meanwhile has an exclusive telling us the Mourinho and the Man …
Read More “Criticising the clubs while whipping up a storm. Arsenal v Tottenham”
By Bulldog Drummond Apparently we have an injury crisis – in defence. Which seems to be the story we were running before the Southampton match – and wouldn’t you know, it is still with us. No one is out of action because of too many yellow cards but we are told that Shkodran Mustafi has …
Read More “Have you heard the one about the Arsenal team to face Tottenham?”
By Tony Attwood Well, that draw wasn’t too painful was it? We toddle off to Belarus to play Bate where our old chum Alex Hleb still plays I think. The first leg is away on 14 February and the second is on 21 February at Arsenal Stadium. The last time we played them we won …
Read More “It’s BATE again. Remembering the last time, and comparing with past seasons”
