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 Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road with apologies to China Miéville. There are two Arsenal’s: The Arsenal and The Arsenal. They sit next to each other but to each the other does not exist. You cannot be in both and cannot easily travel from …
Read More “The Arsenal and The Arsenal: two realities, no communication, worlds apart.”
By Tony Attwood It’s funny to think that the draw for the opening round of the European competitions has already been made, while the WC is plodding along as the media and governments make it clear they have no concerns about the corruption and fraud associated with the organisers. Anyway in exactly one week the …
By Bulldog Drummond If you have been reading Untold regularly you’ll know three things about Untold and international football. The first is that we don’t care for it because of it is run by the mafia-like Fifa and allows the mainstream media to idolise corruption, theft and violence – all of which are associated with …
Read More “England v Sweden: the Untold prediction. Will our run of correct predictions continue?”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw There is something odd about the way the bloggettas work. The march not exactly to one beat, but with an emphasis that they all seem to understand. Then almost without a clear sign the beat changes and positivity moves to negativity. So it has been in the last few …
By Tony Attwood I don’t follow World Cup football largely because I don’t approve of Fifa. Not some high and mighty one man boycott so much as the fact that I don’t feel drawn to the whole thing. But Blacksheep texted me to say that all the Arsenal players apart from Danny Welbeck are now …
Read More “Squad news plus Emile Smith Rowe – another name to add to our Cup team”
By Bulldog Drummond Doing predictions of scores for England international matches is not exactly what Untold is about – after all we’ve railed against the FA, its ineptitude and its catastrophic spending of taxpayers’ money for ten years. Not to mention the campaign against Fifa which the FA continues to fund and support, exactly as …
Read More “Untold’s predictions for England results and scores: five out of six right.”
by Tony Attwood I have been writing a few rambling pieces of late about the defence, reflecting the arrival of our new men. My general point is that playing four at the back we have a wide choice of players – enough to cover for injuries, and to put out a different but still very …
Read More “So the defence is sorted. Now what about Arsenal’s attack and midfield?”
by Tony Attwood Arsenal have apparently completed the signing of Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Borussia Dortmund for a fee of €20m. He was, as you may have read, at Dortmund with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and on his signing Sokratis said, “They said to me the best things about this club, that it is one big family and …
Read More “The deal is done: so what does that mean for Arsenal’s defence?”
by Tony Attwood As we know from keeping tabs on player transfer rumours in recent years the mongers go on mongering inside and outside the windows, irrespective of how many players we have in each position. They are also (as in previous years) talking up more and more stories without any regard to either the …
by Sir Hardly Anyone Journalists who announce transfer rumours as the truth, researched by themselves through utlilising their deep rooted set of contacts are, in my view, not to be trusted as far as I could throw them, and I am a poor thrower of people, lacking both distance and control. These fellas have cold, …
Read More “Number of players tipped to be signing for Arsenal this summer reaches 101”
By Tony Attwood The World Cup is wonderful. OK it is run by Fifa one of the most appalling groups of gangsters and crooks operating on a worldwide basis. But that aside, the World Cup is wonderful. OK the English team is run by the FA, an organisation that has consistently refused to say where …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Can you imagine the mind of the journalist whose job it is to invent football transfer rumours and pretend then that he is reporting reality. He must delve into his subconscious hour after hour to make up this goo, and believe me the subconscious of a journalist is not the place …
By Tony Attwood There is something horribly invidious about a newspaper commentating on the punditry of TV stations. It seems to imply that a) punditry is necessary b) punditry is good c) a newspaper can judge a TV station d) TV and newspapers vie for giving the real view, the view that matters, about footballing …
By Sir Hardly Anyone and some mates. So just as one group of youngsters leave – with no one unexpected and no nasty surprises on the departure board – the word is out about new teenagers coming in, and one player signing a new contract. The new kiddie, the one Arsenal and Liverpool are said …
Read More “The strange tale of Dragomir and Fortune’s departure. What are we not being told?”
By Tony Attwood You will recall that we have tried a few times so far this world cup to predict the score of a specific game. There’s been some success but I think I would be exaggerating a little if I claimed that we were always getting it right. Nevertheless here’s another go… and I’ll …
Read More “England v Columbia: how to work out what the score is likely to be”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, knight in the shires (daytime in bed) It is a good rule for the football commentator never to apologise. The right of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort only take a mean advantage of your discomfort when you utter the words “I got it wrong”. Such is the …
By Sir Hardly Anyone But no, it turns out that all this time he hasn’t been an Arsenal man at all, and we’ve just been keeping on keeping on. And on. And… well you know what they journalist johnnies are like. But no, lo! and behold! yes, the Telegraph tells us “Unai Emery is close …
Read More “It’s been going on so long I expected to read a rumour that Torreira is leaving Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood This summer I have been keeping tabs on some of the bigger clubs in Europe and a few other clubs that are interesting in terms of their buying and selling. This page gives the updates as of today 28 June. Figures from different source always vary, so for consistency I’m using the …
Read More “Who has spent the most, who has gained the most, and which clubs are moribund?”
by Tony Attwood Last night a number of fans from the more positive of the Arsenal supporters groups were invited to the Emirates Stadium for our first meeting with Unai Emery. It turned out to be a really solid performance by the manager who, I think, impressed many of us by a willingness to speak …
Read More “Unai Emery meets Arsenal supporters. From winning 5-4 to players leaving this summer.”
by Tony Attwood There comes a moment in each transfer window when the fantasists and their make believe chums from the fairy woods give up on trying to invent ever more unlikely tales of transfers and instead start writing about the people who are not coming to the club. These are of course the players …
Read More “Who opens against Man City, and when the rumours run backwards”
By Sir Hardly Anyone As we expected things have slowed right down in the World Cup era as the writers keep going around in circles talking about players in Russia rather than making up rumours. What a bunch of slackers! If they wanted to do something really useful they could count our boys back home …
Read More “The 96 players Arsenal have been tipped to sign this summer: the complete list”
By Sir Hardly Anyone In the part of the independent kingdom of Rutlandia whereupon I have my castle, we tell children not to make things up. “Don’t tell fibs” is what mater and pater say, and jolly right they are to say it too. But when I said just that the other day after returning …
Read More “Latest Arsenal rumoids: ten stories that you really might not believe – but you might!”
By Tony Attwood The name “Untold Arsenal” was chosen over 10 years ago to represent two ideas: to cover Arsenal in a positive manner which supported the club, and to cover the Arsenal stories that the mainstream football media and the blogs that imitate them would not cover. One of those story lines has been …
By Tony Attwood We’ve been emphasising of late the need to keep an eye on the total number of players that Arsenal can register – not just the “25” players aged over 21 who can fit into the squad but particularly the number of Non-Home-Grown players which is limited by PL rules to 17. With …
Read More “Arsenal’s transfer problem: Who leaves in order to fix the “17” issue?”
By Bulldog Drummond As you may recall I have been posting about predicting possible England results in the World Cup through looking for sequences, and following a few emails and comments decided to take the plunge and expand this approach further. You might also recall that the process is very simple: it focuses on the …
Read More “Uruguay v Russia in the world cup might be more interesting than you think.”
