Car Thief Week ends for once with a degree of success as we prepare for departure from everywhere.

By Tony Attwood Car Thief Week – that regularly returning  week in which there are two international matches scheduled for lots of countries, and in which the country managers behave like car thieves who nick your car, run it into the ground and then return it with a demand that you pay for the repairs …

Marvin Plattenhardt: Don’t tell anyone but we think he’s Arsenal’s new left back.

By Sir Hardly Anyone There are all sorts ways of entering the rankings and then become someone who might just make it to the world cup.   You can score goals, you can give assists, you can play through balls that no one else in the stadium can see. You can win almost every tackle and every …

Why Arsenal moaners are, and remain so depressed, while the rest of us are happy.

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Moaning almost never works.  It rarely makes life better. But people still do it, basically because moaning, moaning and moaning again acts psychologically as a way of embedding the notion that “it is not my fault”.   It …

Why international football managers are just like car thieves

By Sir Hardly Anyone Interlull news in the UK rarely captures much of the “fun of the fair” type of excitement of normal times, largely because few people in England expect the country to do very much in the WC and Scotland are not there.  Nor Wales nor N Ireland.  Nor the Isle of Man, …

Amazing shock horror, it seems it is crisis time in football EVERYWHERE. That makes a change

By Billy “the Dog” McGraw.  Head of psychiatry at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Of course not everyone is engaged in crisis talk.  The Daily Canon has the headline “Arsene Wenger denies trying to bribe midfielder,” but well, it’s the Canon. However these days they are being rivalled by West Ham’s …

Arsenal’s next manager puts his head over the parapet

————-  By Tony Attwood Bayern Munich thought they had their next coach lined up.  But now it seems they don’t.  Because although Jupp Heynckes will leave the club in the summer as has been clearly agreed, Thomas Tuchel (the man who was thought to be coming in to replace him) is definitely not going to …

How the fearless “Said & Done” in the Observer censors the news that just don’t fit

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.  …

Xhaka sublime. But by anyone’s standards, Arsenal have had a poor season.

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 …

Arsenal has got completely the wrong management team. This is who we should have at the club

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 …

The background revolution: young players are regaining control of their lives

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 …

The fake news transfers: beware you are being conned two ways round

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, …

Would Brendan Rodgers Be a Good Replacement for Arsene Wenger?

  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 …

The cause of empty seats for some Emirates games is the media not the fans.

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 …

The 44 players tipped to be joining Arsenal this summer

 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 …

Why there are some “charitable events” involving football that I have doubts about.

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 …

Arsenal to transform the entire squad for next season. Plus a very funny quote from Mr Quote.

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, …

Fifa’s war with Manchester City is deepening but much depends on how CAS react.

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 …

The hierarchy of debating the Arsenal; why some arguments work and others don’t.

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.  …

Now that us spectators are the product, we actually do have some power.

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 …

Wenger to journalists: “Your job is to get everybody to suffer.”

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 …

Milan at home. An empty stadium? But is the media finally changing its tune?

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 …

Three Arsenal Players who Could Light up the World Cup this Summer

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 …

Fake News: Extraordinary Stories surround Arsenal and the bonkers headline of the day

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 …

The pressures of being a footballer and the unremitting fear of getting it wrong

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 …

If working for the media always remember: never mention the context

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 …