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 So how are we now doing after the Christmas and New Year rush, having played 21 games, compared with recent seasons? It’s a question that fascinates me, even if no one else wants to rush into the numbers. It seems to me to be a relevant question since the whole purpose of …
Read More “Now and then: Arsenal after 21 games compared with previous years.”
By Tony Attwood In our society there are many things that one doesn’t talk about. Notions that are considered so awful that they simply can’t be debated – at least not in public. Notions that, if we had the Thought Police actively working on the streets, would lead to instant arrest just for thinking about …
Read More “What we are not allowed to talk about concerning Premier League football”
By Bulldog Drummond Depending on which newspaper or blogetta you choose to read Arsenal will either play Ozil or he will be “assessed” prior to the game. And there is a general feeling that Monreal will be back as will Bellerin. And before we get too carried away with this being an easy match we …
By Bulldog Drummond Mesut Ozil will return it seems or at least he will be assessed before the game against Fulham. And if he doesn’t play – well there will be another outburst of rumours, all without a trace of evidence. In fact as far as we can tell the problem is a knee injury …
By Tony Attwood As you will probably have heard Peter Hill-Wood died this week at the age of 82. He came onto the board in 1962 and became chairman in 1982, serving until he stepped down through ill health in 2013. The Hill-Wood engagement with Arsenal goes back to the time of Sir Samuel Hill-Wood, the …
Read More “Peter Hill Wood and the end of the dream of an Arsenal owned by its fans”
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”
