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 If a manager changes his tactics from one match to another he is either flexible and tactically aware, or unsure what his best line up is. But it has to be one or the other because everyone has to have an opinion. Because opinions, even when there are limited facts available and …
Read More “Fulham v Arsenal. Can Fulham make it 9 out of 56? And the teams”
By Bulldog Drummond Nothing too dramatic in the injury news so far: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has recovered from his illness and is available for the game. Of the rest of the injured, there is not much change – just some general progress… Ainsley Maitland-Niles expects to be back to full training in about a week. Petr Cech …
Read More “Fulham v Arsenal: latest injury updates and Fulham’s weakness”
By Bulldog Drummond We’ve talked so much about Arsenal’s current run of form, let’s have a look at what it has been like for our next challengers. Fulham at the Cottage. Here’s their form thus far… Date Game Res Score Competition 11 Aug 2018 Fulham v Crystal Palace L 0-2 Premier League 18 Aug 2018 …
Read More “Fill em up v Arsenal. A first attempt at the team and the home/away form”
by Tony Attwood “It feels like a new club,” said Héctor Bellerín in a recent interview. And I am sure he is right in many respects. Obviously I’m not there with the players, but Héctor comes across as a very intelligent and deep thinking young man and I can’t imagining saying that if he didn’t feel …
Read More “Arsenal were performing as though they thought the assignment was beneath them”
By Tony Attwood OK, let’s set the context. Arsenal have just won nine in a row. If you don’t want to count the FL Trophy, eight in a row. If you don’t want to count the League Cup or the Trophy, seven in a row. If you don’t want… well, that’s getting ridiculous. Seven in …
Read More “Arsenal’s 3 most utterly useless players at Qarabag; they should all go now”
by Bulldog Drummond Here’s the quiz. One point of utterly nil value for each right answer. 1: OK let’s start where we start, and ask the question no one asks… “Where is the game being played?” The Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium 2: What is the nickname of Qarabag? The horsemen. So when four of them …
By Bulldog Drummond There are two types of vision of football at the moment. One is to bash Manchester United in article after article, and the other is to say that Arsenal are flattering to deceive or to put it in techno speak “Arsenal’s underlying numbers suggest results are running ahead of performances.” In short …
Read More “Arsenal in Baku. The put downs and the likely line up.”
By Bulldog Drummond One of the many annoying things about Arsenal having slipped out of the top four for the last two seasons is that when one looks for news about the club on the websites of the English newspapers one finds the articles dominated by pieces about last season’s top four. The week’s European …
By Tony Attwood Just as the Mirror has told us that Arsenal are travelling without a backup keeper but with Ramsey, so other sources are telling us Ramsey has not travelled. It really is all very confusing. After all if we can’t trust our newspapers who can we trust? (That’s irony. The opposite of irony …
Read More “Tottenham complain about fixtures, but Arsenal have it worse. And Barce have no cash.”
by Bulldog Drummond There is the strangest thing on the Sky site today (at least at the moment I write this) in which they have a page which they proclaim as covering the recent results of Arsenal and Qarabag. What it should be called however is a “selection of results from the two clubs with …
By Sir Hardly Anyone These stories have all “broken” this morning. I thought you might enjoy seeing some old favourites. 1: Arsenal get more injuries than anyone else but now Tottenham are overtaking them Headline: ‘Nightmare’, ‘Turning into Arsenal’ – Some Tottenham fans react to reported season-ending injury. Source: This Is Futbol The tale: Luke Amos …
Read More “8 utterly extraordinary Arsenal stories circulating this morning”
By Tony Attwood I like statistics, and use them a lot. But they have to be statistics that are realistically related to the real world. Consider this for example from Statsbomb “Arsenal are conceding an eye popping 1.50 expected goals per match. The only five teams with worse defensive numbers than Emery’s team are Brighton, …
By Walter Broeckx This is the fourth and final part of our series on Arsenal’s training centre. The earlier articles were: Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney Arsenal players exposed to temperatures of minus 160 degrees. London Colney Arsenal training centre: virtual reality and tales of past recoveries …
Read More “Arsenal training centre: the under 18s and 23, and the man who made it happen.”
By Tony Attwood I don’t get to see that many under 23 games since every Arsenal first team home match involves a 175 mile round trip in the car, plus a train journey at the end, but when the game is not too far away and there’s someone else to go with then yes, I …
Read More “Leicester 1 Arsenal 2: last night’s match at Holmes Park with Freddie Ljungberg”
By Tony Attwood Two of us went off to watch Arsenal at Coventry recently in the Checkatrade Trophy. Now its time to go and see the club in the under 23s league, known as Premier League 2 as tonight they are playing at Leicester. I occasionally use these games as a riposte to people who …
Read More “Arsenal under 23 v Leicester under 23. Another match to go and see.”
Recently Walter Broeckx, Untold’s regular correspondent and chair of Arsenal Belgium was invited by Arsenal to look around London Colney. The first parts of his reports appeared here Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney Arsenal players exposed to temperatures of minus 160 degrees. London Colney part 2. Now the …
Read More “Arsenal training centre: virtual reality and tales of past recoveries”
By Marianna Trench, our in depth investigator What anyone reading a report of a match in a newspaper or on a blog has to realise is that football reports contain a lot of editing. And the editing is not so much of the copy that is published, but of the reality that preceded it. “Arsenal …
Read More “How Arsenal’s win v Watford was re-written to fit with an alternative reality”
By Tony Attwood As you will know we have won seven League, Europa League and League Cup games in a row. Or just in case you didn’t know here’s the list… Date Game Res Score Competition 25 Aug 2018 Arsenal v West Ham United W 3-1 Premier League 02 Sep 2018 Cardiff City v Arsenal …
Read More “Bonkers drivel, start of World War III, and a load of complaints. What the papers say.”
By Bulldog Drummond There are some newspaper and blog headlines that are so bonkers it is hard to know if they are deliberately funny or just the result of a bot going haywire. Take this for example Arsenal v Watford preview: Gunners can leapfrog high-flying opponents Now this whole notion of leapfrogging the high-flyers raises …
Read More “Arsenal v Watfor. The teams and leapfrogging the high-flyers”
By Bulldog Drummoind Here’s a commentary from a newspaper reporter about Arsenal. “Things are not quite clicking with the ball and for now they may have to be grateful for flourishes like Alexandre Lacazette’s super goal against Everton or Granit Xhaka’s free-kick at Newcastle. Watford will hope their run of good fortune does not last; …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: how Arsenal continue to win on pure luck”
by Bulldog Drummond So let’s have a look at Watford’s flying start that got all the chattering bots chattering away with much excitement. Date Match Res Score Comp 11 Aug 2018 Watford v Brighton and Hove W 2-0 League 19 Aug 2018 Burnley v Watford W 1-3 League 26 Aug 2018 Watford v Crystal Palace …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: a word from their boss, the results and the head to head”
By Bulldog Drummond Watford, as you may recall if your long term memory is still functioning in this hyper-active full speed non-stop go-go-go world, started off with a real flourish this season, winning four league matches and a League Cup game all in a row. As they roared towards the top of the league (“roared” …
Read More “After the Bees, the Hornets. Arsenal v Watford and that home and away thing”
By Walter Broeckx As the chairman of Arsenal Belgium supporters club I had the honour of visiting the Arsenal training ground at London Colney. Our liaison person at the club had organised this trip in order to give the official supporters clubs a bit of a bonus for all their hard work. I cannot thank …
Read More “Untold Arsenal (and Arsenal Belgium) get the VIP treatment at London Colney”
By Tony Attwood Trying to get to Arsenal during a Piccadilly Line strike is fortunately not to hard for us since Blacksheep lives near one of the overground stations on the line into Finsbury Park. But what we did spot which was interesting (if you are a long time Londoner and remember these things), was …
by Bulldog Drummond Sometimes the morning headlines are just so depressingly predictable, it seems impossible to know what to say. Take this morning with the statement “Qatar migrant workers are still being exploited, says Amnesty report. Charity says promised government reforms to ‘kafala’ system have not taken place.” You’d have to be blind and ignorant …
Read More “Arsenal v Brentford: the team, the news from Qatar, and the issue of moving seats”
