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 I am not at all sure how long the Said & Done column in the Sunday newspaper the Observer has been running – although our logs show I did a piece critical of the column back in 2009, so at least nine years. And in one sense it is quite jolly fun. …
Read More “How the fearless “Said & Done” in the Observer censors the news that just don’t fit”
By Tony Attwood The first two words of that headline, “Xhaka sublime”, came from a blog, The Hard Tackle, which is not a source that I normally associate with such praise. The piece was a review of a Swiss interlull game and read, “The creative powerhouse for Switzerland, Xhaka ran the show from midfield, opening …
Read More “Xhaka sublime. But by anyone’s standards, Arsenal have had a poor season.”
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, chief psychologist at the University hospital of the North Circular Road It is self-evident that Arsenal have got completely the wrong group of people running the club. As an example of out to tackle problems we should take a good hard look at our government in the UK …
by Tony Attwood Many Arsenal fans, including myself, have always had a pride in the number of players who come up through the ranks to play for the club. By this I don’t mean that they necessarily join as a nine year old, but rather that they come along not in terms of a big …
Read More “The background revolution: young players are regaining control of their lives”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is not just that 97% of these rumours are likely to turn out to be untrue, but that there is other news of importance out there. The utterly wild and ludicrous claims by PGMO, provided without any of the evidence Walter and his team provided in the 160 game analysis, …
Read More “The fake news transfers: beware you are being conned two ways round”
By Robert Haynes Source: Liverpool FC via Facebook Every dog has his day and Arsene Wenger’s has been and gone. Three FA Cup final victories have boosted his stock as Arsenal manager but it is the right moment for the club to move on. Wenger failed to prepare his side for their Carabao Cup …
Read More “Would Brendan Rodgers Be a Good Replacement for Arsene Wenger?”
by Tony Attwood The trick for most fake news creators is a) To be able to write something that requires no research and so costs no money and takes very little time. b) To be able to benefit personally or corporately from the fake news. c) To ensure that the fake news is not …
Read More “The cause of empty seats for some Emirates games is the media not the fans.”
by Sir Hardly Anyone Yes the transfer window is not even open. Indeed the season is a long way from being concluded. And yet already we have 44 players tipped to be coming our way this summer. It is amazing where these people get their information from – and amazing how wrong …
Read More “The 44 players tipped to be joining Arsenal this summer”
By Tony Attwood I see that there is to be a match between Real Madrid Legends and Arsenal Legends. It is apparently the ninth edition of the Corazón Classic Match, which is described as a charitable game played with the proceeds aimed at helping children in need. This is organised by the Real Madrid Foundation and will …
Read More “Why there are some “charitable events” involving football that I have doubts about.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone First, the comment of the week, possibly the month, maybe the decade. I am grateful to the Daily Canon for this one. “People that understand football very well know that this project is a project that is very exciting because we are not a club that are going to buy trophies, …
By Tony Attwood, currently 35 miles from North Korea. (A first for Untold!) You may recall that over the years Untold has regularly reported on issues relating to the transfer of youngsters between clubs and the issues surrounding child exploitation. We also did a lot to cover the technicalities and legalities of the FFP regulations …
Read More “Fifa’s war with Manchester City is deepening but much depends on how CAS react.”
Stories are only appearing occasionally at the moment as I am travelling. A more regular service should be established by mid-week By Tony Attwood Florian recently provided us with an example of how real debate and argument works. In case you missed it, I have reproduced the illustration at the end of this piece. …
Read More “The hierarchy of debating the Arsenal; why some arguments work and others don’t.”
By Tony Attwood “The omnipotent broadcasters who bestride English football often seem to reserve as much regard for match-going supporters as McDonald’s do for their cows.” I like that comment. The fact is that in Spain if clubs allow TV cameras to show empty seats the club is fined – so it is encouraged to …
Read More “Now that us spectators are the product, we actually do have some power.”
By Tony Attwood As a simple one liner I thought it was brilliant. I don’t know what the journalists did in response but the follow up line from Mr Wenger wasn’t really needed. He’d made his point. “Your job is to get everybody to suffer,” he said, adding, “Our job is to get as few …
Read More “Wenger to journalists: “Your job is to get everybody to suffer.””
By Bulldog Drummond. Who would have thought it? Instead of being seen as a dire warning as to where a club should not go, the anti-Arsenal attacks on the club and Mr Wenger are being seen as a model that can be transferred to other clubs. Likewise the mainstream media’s constant attacks on Arsenal are …
Read More “Milan at home. An empty stadium? But is the media finally changing its tune?”
By Jacko Jones Germany, Switzerland and France. Three European teams with lofty ambitions ahead of the World Cup in Russia this summer. While Switzerland have considerable opposition with the likes of Brazil and Serbia in Group E, France and Germany will be looking further ahead in the tournament. Both countries have groups they are expected …
Read More “Three Arsenal Players who Could Light up the World Cup this Summer”
By Tony Attwood Let’s start with headline of the day: Arsenal vs. AC Milan: Be Weary of These Rossoneri AC Milan Offside Now you do need to know the difference between “weary” and “wary” to get this one, but once you do, it is rather amusing. However let’s move on… Fake News is odd. I mean …
Read More “Fake News: Extraordinary Stories surround Arsenal and the bonkers headline of the day”
by Tony Attwood Had Per Mertesacker been English I doubt very much whether he would have done the interview that he recently gave concerning the pressure he felt during career. Indeed he said he was glad that his playing days were coming to an end. Exactly the sort of thing that people who have never …
Read More “The pressures of being a footballer and the unremitting fear of getting it wrong”
By Tony Attwood Following events from overseas as I shall be for one more week, it is interesting to look out for signs of perspective in the media. The Guardian did it with “The Manchester City manager’s support for jailed Catalan leaders does not extend to political prisoners in Abu Dhabi, home of City’s owners.” And …
Read More “If working for the media always remember: never mention the context”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. Of course on the day when we have the headline that “Greek football match stopped after team owner invades pitch with a gun” things seem to get a bit fuzzy. OK I don’t go to matches in Greece, but even so. This is getting a bit unnerving. First West Ham after …
Read More “The laziness of the long distance myth maker and beware managers with guns”
By Tony Attwood I wanted to pick up on the story that Mauricio Pochettino claiming that Juventus are “specialists in football’s dark arts” and that they manipulated the refereeing in their Champions League game with Tottenham, when it happened, but being on the other side of the world, having an 11 hour time difference and wanting to …
By Bulldog Drummond Our piece about West Ham fans and the way they were seen by the media as being split, while Arsenal fans are treated as a unity of anti-Wengerianism, seems to have been apposite as the news broke of violence and protest at the so-called London Stadium. So the story rattles around the …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford, trouble at the London, and the home and away comparisons”
by Tony Attwood It is interesting to note from afar that West Ham have been having a little local difficulty with different fan groups attacking and fighting each other. True they have had a fairly grotty run of late… Date Game Res Score Competition 27 Jan Wigan Athletic v West Ham United L 2-0 FA …
Read More “How curious that the media reflect a split in the fan base at WHU but not at Arsenal”
by Sir Hardly Anyone The attacks on Arsene Wenger continue of course. The guy says that he has had a hard time personally over the recent defeats, and the response of The Transfer Tavern web site is to publish a handful of tweets abusing him. That’s probably par for the course these days. As Tony …
Read More “Arsenal transfer rumours: another 10 unbelievable stories (literally).”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. Our man who counts the numbers… Here is the update on players coming and going… and we know it is all true because every single one of these stories has been verified by a football journalist. Those who are leaving No Player Going To Source What’s the story Update Bellering Barcelona …
