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 We have been pondering whether there are any regulations at all in the Premier League about the quality of the pitches the PL matches should be played on. Judging by Tottenham’s game against Manchester City the answer is an extremely big “no”. You can play on gravel if you like. Or sand. …
Read More “Uefa takes more care than the Prem Lge, plus more rule changes proposed”
by Tony Attwood 1: The AAA are moving from player to player The Anti-Arsenal Arsenal – those fans who pretend to be Arsenal fans but actually just spend their time criticising the club, the players and the manager are moving on from player to player. At the moment they are having a go at Ramsey. …
Read More “The ten things we have learned about Arsenal ahead of the Liverpool game/”
By Tony Attwood Here’s the premise. Fifa is a corrupt organisation which enables fraud and money laundering to be at the very centre of international football. Pathetically, national organisations such as the Football Assocation bow down to Fifa, throw millions of pounds at it, and no matter how often they are humiliated continue to want …
Read More “You know the one about Fifa doing something bonkers? Well, try this…”
By Tony Attwood It has taken Arsenal.com quite a long time to realise that it is a website used by Arsenal supporters in a media environment in which everything Arsenal does is considered to be appallingly awful, mismanaged, stupid and quite often pathetic. The media achieve this of course by focussing on Arsenal slips and …
Read More “Arsenal v Blackpool, being there and pondering the next round.”
By Bulldog Drummond It is surprisingly hard to pick up definitive team news at the moment. The latest story is the Elneny has a thigh injury that will keep him out for a couple of weeks, and we know that Cech is going to play in goal. Other than that we can expect a mix …
By Bulldog Drummond I have left the issue of the crisis at Blackpool FC until now in the vague hope that I might be able to discover a definitive report or two but I’m struggling to know exactly what’s what. So if there are errors in this, please do put me right, ideally with some …
Read More “Arsenal v Blackpool: the current state of Blackpool FC and its owners”
By Bulldog Drummond We are now back up to third in the injury league table with five men reported down and out. Top of the league are the tax payer funded West Ham with nine, Watford with six, and then a whole bunch of clubs including us with five. I have a thought about West …
By Bulldog Drummond Well, my famed analysis of home and away form to give a prediction of the result didn’t work out against Palace, where everything pointed to another Arsenal win. But I like to take a broader approach to things, and just because that prediction went wrong it doesn’t mean I am going to …
Read More “Arsenal v Blackpool: team selection thoughts and our opponents”
By Tony Attwood Whenever I start chattering away about matters other than at Arsenal we always get a few people writing in telling me to shut up and focus on my own club. I write back and say that for getting on for 11 years the banner at the top of the blog has …
Read More “Funny ol game, funny ol pitch, and why don’t we have a say in how Wembley is used?”
By Tony Attwood To many people the art of commenting on football is the art of picking one or two incidents out of the tens of thousands that take place across 90 minutes and then draw conclusions from those. Indeed one can always find a few events that will support a conclusion, not matter how …
Read More “Context is nothing; how football reports are biased towards individual events”
‘By Bulldog Drummond Quote of the day: “It’s about what we do on the field.” Roy Hodgson. First a spot of news about a player definitely not playing: Maitland Niles played for the under 23 on Friday so wont be in squad. But that could well put him into the team for the game next …
Read More “Palace v Arsenal. Hodgson v Arsenal. The teams & Auba’s incredible record,”
by Bulldog Drummond “Ozil will be going back to Real Madrid in six months time if he continues to play as he did against Leicester,” according to Paul Merson in his latest and one of his most bizarre and incoherent rants. Much of what he said was difficult to fathom, as when he continued on …
Read More “Merson in weirdest anti-Arsenal rant yet on Sky as Nicholas discovers rotational fouling”
By Bulldog Drummond. So let us move on to the question of matches between Arsenal and Palace across the years. Here are the last 20 games between the two teams… Date Game Res Score Competition 10 Mar 1993 Arsenal v Crystal Palace W 2-0 League Cup 08 May 1993 Arsenal v Crystal Palace W 3-0 …
Read More “Arsenal at the Palace; the last 20 games meetings and the home/away split”
By Bulldog Drummond. This weekend we are off to Palace, and once again there is a story of a stadium to tell. And indeed a story of club PR mismanagement – or (I must add) so it seems to me as an outsider looking in. Of course we’ve followed the story of Tottenham Nomads who …
Read More “Crystal Palace v Arsenal. A lesson in how a club should NOT treat its core fans.”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, senior psychiatrist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. “The massive Premier League rule changes which could affect Arsenal, Chelsea & Spurs next season” That is the mega headline in Football London today – the Daily Mirror website that churns out about 40 Arsenal stories every …
By Tony Attwood Well I woke up this morning, man on the radio moaning about the Arsenal back four Yes I woke up this morning, heard a man moaning about the Arsenal back four He said, “They won’t win anything playing like that, no matter how many they score” (Traditional Northamptonshire blues, circa 2018) I’m …
Read More “Sporting v Arsenal. I got the blues, cos even when we win it ain’t real.”
by Bulldog Drummond There is a little debate going on about whether it is better to be in the Europa League and have a chance of winning something, or be in the Champions League knowing that we are not a strong enough team to beat the likes of Real Mad, Barcelona and Bayern – but …
Read More “Sporting v Arsenal: the teams, the money, the teams, Reiss Nelson, the teams”
By Bulldog Drummond Of course Mr Wenger never repeated the saying attributed to Louis XV, nor the variant Après nous le déluge – which Madame de Pompadour is supposed to have uttered. He made no comment as far as I know about what might happen after he left Arsenal. Nor did Untold, save to point out …
Read More “Après moi le déluge – Sporting v Arsenal and the record run of wins”
By Bulldog Drummond We have currently rushed up to equal third in the Physioroom injury chart with no fewer than six players out, or not quite in. Here’s the list… (The headings as always are Untold’s; physioroom is much more serious about these things). Who? What? When back? What’s the latest? Doubtness Monreal Tight Hamstring …
Read More “Sporting v Arsenal: the injuries, previous games, and the team”
By Tony Attwood The question was raised a day or two ago about Ozil: does he disappear in crunch matches? What does the statistics say? Here are the basic figures… Year Matches Goals Assists Lge pos 2017-18 26 4 8 6 2016-17 33 8 9 5 2015-16 35 6 19 2 2014-15 22 4 5 …
by Bulldog Drummond In the midst of all these calm and relaxed preparations for tomorrow’s game, as described by Sir Hardly and his investigative team, how have Sporting CP been doing of late? Not too badly it seems… Date Comp Home Away Res Score 24/09/18 League Sporting Braga Sporting CP L 1-0 29/09/18 League Sporting …
Report by Sir Hardly Anyone. Additional dirt provided by Marianna Trench. “Untold Arsenal” tries to live up to its name – covering aspects of football that other people don’t, won’t or can’t write much about. And of course that can give us a tough task because sometimes it is hard to find that much …
Read More “This Thursday Arsenal play the Donald Trump of European football.”
by Tony Attwood The Daily Mirror published a piece after the Leicester game in which they went into a rave about the “brilliant new Torreira chant” that they had just noticed. It begins Torreira oh oh, and if you have been paying attention you’ll know just how out of date the Mirror and its writers …
by Tony Attwood OK we have to keep a sense of perspective. The most consecutive wins in the Premier League is not yet within sight, as that was 18 achieved by Manchester ££££ last season. We’re a long way from that, but oh the sheer joy of another win last night was just something special, …
Read More “It may not be a trophy but it sure as hell is fun. The “being there” report.”
by Bulldog Drummond A foreshortened final piece in our review series for this match as some of us are off to London for jolly jaunts and exhibition visiting. So straight into the teams… And speaking of which let us not forget that we also have a game on Thursday, so we’ll be pacing players and …
Read More “Arsenal v Leicester: The teams, the roadworks and Dr Evil”
