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 Sir Hardly Anyone In the previous article the point was made that the Guardian report of yesterday’s game was ludicrously negative. But of course it is not just them that takes this approach to Arsenal. On Match of the Day Gary Lineker was critical of Arsenal players in the match against Liverpool. Is that …
By Tony Attwood Newspapers and websites love to present themselves as the neutral reporters of events. The world is out there, they suggest; they merely tell their readers about it. But in fact newspapers and websites are the opposite: they are the manipulators of reality, manipulating the stories they tell in order to maximise their …
Read More “The utterly manipulative way in which one paper reported Liverpool v Arsenal”
By Bulldog Drummond There was an excellent article in Goonernews recently which made the point that “Liverpool have not lost at home in 40 matches in the Premier League. You have to go all the way back to April 2017 when they succumbed to Crystal Palace in the league.” The article also points out that Liverpool “have …
Read More “Arsenal injury news and team selection ahead of Liverpool”
By Tony Attwood Just in case we don’t get a chance to say this again for an Arsenal match – here we have the top club against the second in the league.. Liverpool’s results thus far have been fairly impressive as we would expect from the team that ran Manchester City close last season… Date …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal. Liverpool’s doings and the recent past.”
By Tony Attwood I was interested to see how much interest my little piece Why the media are desperate to see Liverpool thump Arsenal next weekend attracted and I thought the comments on that piece were really interesting. And having read the comments another thought struck me. I am generally quite a positive person, and despite …
Commentary by Tony Attwood, analysis by Nitram I mentioned in a recent article that PL statistics include virtually everything you can imagine except fouls. Which is rather odd given the importance of the award of fouls by referees can be in a match. Which made me wonder why this is the case. Why, when the …
Read More “The fouls analysis: how Liverpool and Arsenal are treated by referees”
by Tony Attwood So, looking back at the opening of other seasons… 2018/19: The opening two games resulted in two defeats and Arsenal were 17th. We ended the league in 5th, 1 point off 4th place. 2017/18 We started with a 4-3 home win over Leicester followed by a 1-0 away defeat to Stoke. We …
Read More “Does the start of the season predict anything? Here are the facts.”
by Tony Attwood All statistics that are taken after just a couple of matches in a season need to be handled with some caution, and one cannot draw absolute conclusions from them, but nonetheless figures this early in the season, taken in comparison with recent seasons, can be indicators of how things will go. Yellow …
Read More “How Arsenal are being targeted by referees this season: the stats”
By Tony Attwood According to the rampantly anti-Arsenal website Football.London, “Arsenal undersold Alex Iwobi by almost £19million… according to new data published by a UK-based investment company.” That investment company is Carteret Analytics, who, FoLo says, believe Iwobi had a value close to £46.3m – but Arsenal were willing to deal with Everton for only …
Read More “How Arsenal allegedly wasted millions by not demanding right price for one player”
By Tony Attwood At the end of 2018 we ran an article with the headline “How four clubs commit fouls with impunity, while others constantly get punished” It was a unique piece of research by Andrew Crawshaw which shone the light on the variations in the ways referees handle different clubs in different ways. I …
Read More “Arsenal already getting more yellow cards for far fewer tackles than other clubs”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Recently a Crystal Palace blog “ReadCrystalPalace” celebrated the way that Palace fans had turned on the Sun for generating fake after Andros Townsend called out the Sun newspaper for reporting fake news on a ‘sensational team meeting’. During the transfer window, Arsenal fans were insulted daily by stories of players for …
By Tony Attwood If ever proof were needed that the media really does like to knock Arsenal but finds it nigh on impossible to be positive about the club we only have to look at the coverage of Arsenal these last few weeks. By way of background we might remember that last season when Arsenal …
Read More “Why the media are desperate to see Liverpool thump Arsenal next weekend.”
By Tony Attwood This is one of the regular complaints from some bloggers, complaints which are then often taken up by journalists. Why does Arsenal recruit all these fabulous youngsters and then let them drift away? Various names are mentioned: Serge Gnabry, Jeff Reine-Adelaide Ismael Bennacer, Krystian Bielik are just the most recent. And …
Read More “Why do Arsenal let so many talented youngsters get away?”
By Tony Attwood I am very grateful to Untold reader Segun Lawson for his help in compiling of data for this piece on Arsenal’s finances and accounting procedures. The opinions however are mine. The story is this: Arsenal wanted to buy Tierney. Celtic were willing to sell, and there was the normal coming and going …
Read More “Why did Arsenal pay for Tierney upfront when the player was injured?”
by Bulldog Drummond Carrying on from our thoughts yesterday afternoon, with our very positive home form, this should be a home banker. But although Burnley were poor last season there was an excuse for Burnley last year – they started in the Europa League very early as the team placed 7th in the league the …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley. The form and team predictions”
by Bulldog Drummond As you most likely will have heard ahead of this game, Ozil and Kolasinac are both available to play in this match, but the general feeling is that they might not be starters. Meanwhile at the other end of the salary scale the Arsenal Youth website say that “Arsenal have confirmed that …
Read More “Arsenal v Burnley: It is over 40 years since they beat us in the league”
By Sir Hardly Anyone What with the window cleaning season being over it is now time for me to take a peek at what our fellow commentators have been saying in the last couple of days. These come in no order but surely… 1: Motherwell pub boss backs grounded Kieran Tierney to shine at Arsenal …
Read More “The craziest, funniest and most bizarre Arsenal headlines of the week”
by Tony Attwood Nine years ago I sat at my desk one dull, non-football weekend pondering why some countries do so well in international football competitions, and others do so badly. The FA were telling us then, as then tell us now (with the help of a compliant newspaper industry) that the answer is that …
Read More “How to fake football data: Telegraph and FA give the perfect example”
By Tony Attwood The transfer window is far from over in Europe, but with the exception of taking on out-of-contract players, the Premier League is done and dusted. So I thought I might put together a state of play index showing all the Premier League’s clubs along with a few of the major European clubs …
Read More “Arsenal had 2nd largest transfer spend in England, but how does this rank in Europe?”
By Tony Attwood According to Football London, that laugh a minute, 45 articles a day drainpipe (sorry outlet) owned by the Daily Mirror, the four players most likely to depart in the remaining days of the transfer window are Shkodran Mustafi, Mohamed Elneny, Emile Smith Rowe and Nacho Monreal. It is of course possible that Arsenal …
Read More “Who can Arsenal sell in order to buy further players?”
by Tony Attwood According to Teamtalk there is a strong chance of Arsenal signing another player this transfer window. Now yes, I know the window has “slammed shut” but the rule is that players who are without a club can still transfer into PL teams until the end of the month (or at least that …
Read More “Why Arsenal can’t sign any free contract players from overseas despite rumours”
By Tony Attwood The reports doing the rounds suggest that Emile Smith-Rowe will play for Arsenal under 23s tonight against Blackburn and that Rob Holding has travelled with the squad. Others in the squad whose names have sneaked out are Coyle, Olayinka, Hillson and Clarke. The news of Holding’s inclusion is particularly good, as it …
Read More “Blackburn Rovers v Arsenal tonight: under 23 team news”
by Tony Attwood Although some further transfers can be allowed during the rest of the time that other countries have their windows open (it is obviously sunnier where they are), the bulk of our transfer dealings have been done – perhaps all of them. As ever the next step is to see where we stand …
Read More “How Arsenal are handling this season’s “25 player” rule? We’re two short!”
By Tony Attwood To say that the line up on Sunday was not what we had initially expected was an undertstatement. Maybe half this team would be expected to be in the side if all were fit. And so to get a win away from home and equal last season’s record of the number of …
By Bulldog Drummond The news that arose at the start of the weekend was that Mesut Özil and Sead Kolasinac had been withdrawn from the squad over fears for their security. With Hector Bellerin not back for a while yet many commentators are suggesting Ainsley Maitland-Niles will be at right-back. David Luiz is thought …
