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 After all the years of creating that extraordinary run in the Champions League (19 consecutive seasons, second only to Real Madrid on 21), and doing rather well against Tottenham (I think it was over 20 games without defeat between 19 March 2000 and 9 January 2008 – although I may have miscounted), …
By Bulldog Drummond One other snippet of news coming through of late… clubs are starting to react a little to the new loan regulations which are due to start in 2020/21. The thought at the moment is that Premier League clubs will be able to get round these by loaning more and more players to …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: new loan regulations, the effect of Europe, recent runs”
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, head of industrial relations and other family members. We have occasionally dealt with one or two minor issues at Tottenham Hotspur’s New WHL ground, which have put the date of its opening back from the summer of 2018 to, well, I am not sure but I suspect that is …
Read More “Another problem at Tottenham’s new ground? No, that can’t be right.”
By Bulldog Drummond OK let’s start with the easy question. Like What time does it start? Quite why the Independent chose to put that as a question rather than just writing “Kick off:” followed by the time as people used to do is beyond me. But that’s what you have to do these days, under …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham; it isn’t when they think it is. Confusing times all round.”
By Tony Attwood Why Arsenal should be happy Mike Dean is refereeing the north London derby That is the headline above an article in the Daily Telegraph. It is not a piece that I wholly agree with and I think some of the ways in which the statistics are handled are misleading, but the fact …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham: a truly revolutionary approach from the press”
By Bulldog Drummond There seems to be little more to be said on the game tonight. It goes ahead, the alternative stadium appears to be ready, all the Uefa bits and pieces are adorning the ground and so that’s that. And yes, we found the Uefa rules that insist that all clubs nominate an alternative …
Read More “Tonight’s game, Arsenal nutters, injury update, and where is our backup stadium?”
By Bulldog Drummond We have a certain lack of certainty today over such issues as a) will the game be played at all b) who will play in the Arsenal team. Yesterday we had a brief look at the regulations that Uefa were using to impose a move of the match from the normal venue …
Read More “Arsenal: If there is a game in the Ukraine who will play? And if not, why not?”
by Bulldog Drummond So the latest is that Uefa have told Vorskla to use their backup stadium, but Vorskla say they might not be able to get things ready as this short notice. So what happens? Untold, always handy with a rule book brings you the bits others don’t have. There was less than 18 …
Read More “Vorskla say the game v Arsenal might not happen. So what then?”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw Having a spot of spare time while sitting in a traffic jam I thought I would take a look at the biggest stories around and give you a quick translation into English from the journaleese nonsense language that they are normally written in. It is, as they say, all …
Read More “Arsenal to refuse to go to Ukraine? Translating today’s Arsenal stories into English”
by Bulldog Drummond PLEASE NOTE that since this article was written the match has been moved. There is a note in the comments and we’ll have more on this in the next article. According to the almighty Uefa there is nothing to worry about. Martial law, temperatures of below minus 10 – these are of …
Read More “Vorskla Poltava v Arsenal: ice, martial law, moved venue and team news”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal, as we know, have just gone 17 games unbeaten – not just the longest in the Premier League at the moment but the longest in Europe’s main leagues. If things work out ok in the Ukraine – assuming we can fly in and out ok, that could well be increased before …
Read More “Unbeaten runs, goal scorers and how Tottenham are three quarters of an hour behind”
By Tony Attwood As you may have noticed from passing comments I am now in Canary Islands, on a dance holiday, and reminding myself what it is like for many Arsenal supporters being outside England. In this case I am dependent on TV from the truly awful BeinSports which has the disagraced Richard Keys (now …
Read More “Arsenal’s away form, Keys and Gray, child abuse in football, and the case of Man City.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is commonplace for the blogs to “rate” this, that, something else, and then something other. So with Tony off sunning himself on an island off the coast of somewhere watching the game in a bar with a bunchette of Bournemouth supporters I thought we’d have a look at what the …
Read More “Rating the headlines after Arsenal’s win over Bournemouth. Reality loses.”
by Bulldog Drummond. So here we are approaching the game while by now Tony should be somewhere in the Atlantic. Or to be more precise on an island somewhere in the Atlantic. The media appear to be certain Arsenal have blown it simply because of the less than exciting game against Wolverhampton who looked like …
By Bulldog Drummond The good news is that for Koscielny everything is going to plan. The manager recently confirmed this saying, “First, the idea is to play with the Under 23s, but also I am looking at him and with his good performances and good feelings, he is close. Maybe Monday he can play with …
By Bulldog Drummond Because for most of their life Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic (now renamed AFC Bournemouth even though they still play in Boscombe) has played in the Third Division (south) and the Division III, the number of games between Arsenal and Bournemouth is small. They joined the Football from the Southern League in 1923, …
Read More “Bournemouth v Arsenal: FFP, scorpions and recent results”
by Bulldog Drummond It seems forever since we had a real match to look forward to, but now we do, and we can return to the issue of home and away form. This is not an absolute way of predicting results but it certainly can work – and seems to work as well as, if …
Read More “Bournemouth v Arsenal, predictions based on the home and away form.”
By Bulldog Drummond. So what’s new? Arsenal do not have the worst starts of any team in Premier League games this season, contrary to some suggestions. In fact if we take the first 30 minutes as the “start” there are three teams who do worse than us: Man U, Wolverhampton and Leicester. In the middle …
Read More “Are Arsenal the worst openers this season, the foreigners and the injuries”
by Tony Attwood The problem with accepting sponsorship from a state sponsored entity, when the state is a dictatorship and human rights denier are obvious, and we have touched on them many times before. Untold tended to call the stadium the Ems (which was the name of a sandwich bar on East Midlands Trains) and …
Read More “Arsenal’s sponsorship deal with the Emirates was bound to explode one day”
By Tony Attwood Jordi Osei-Tutu, our 20 year old defender, who first grabbed attention in the pre-season games this past summer but who then got an injury, is back playing, and has been training with the first team. Other youngsters who have been signed up include Charlie Gilmour who has been playing with the under …
Read More “Arsenal youngsters join three old timers in training but one absentee is noticeable”
By Tony Attwood It is quite hard to remember an interlull that had so much happening on the football front. We have had the new president of Uefa and some clubs unhappy with Manchester City over the way they were able to spend the money they did, Fifa unhappy with Chelsea and Manchester City and …
Read More “The FA is trying to impose a major shift in the Home Grown regulations”
By Tony Attwood Well actually I don’t know what the headline proves, other than the fact that even with my devotion to statistics, I too can find stats that don’t actually tell me much. The same set of figures (from the Guardian) tell us that it is the centre backs who do the least running …
Read More “Arsenal have run further than any other PL team this season. And this proves that…”
by Tony Attwood It is certainly not the most well-followed trophy among those that Arsenal are engaged in, but it is there, the fifth competition on the agenda, and having seen one of our games thus far I can confirm for those who do go, it is good fun. For below the Permier League, FA …
Read More “Zelalem returns as Arsenal progress and the Man U game that never was (but was paid for)”
By Tony Attwood There is a strange stat that truly is worth of Ron Manager doing the rounds to the effect that Arsenal hasn’t been ahead at half time this season in the League. In a Sky Sport piece that is titled “Your PL season in a stat” that is the headline story. And yet …
Read More “Crazy stats, junk headlines, upcoming youngsters and the return of Ron Manager.”
By Tony Attwood Many objections have been raised, mostly but not exclusively by supporters of Manchester City, to our coverage of Financial Fair Play, which has been our main topic of conversation during this period without any men’s football (although it has been wonderful to see how great the women’s team has become – boosted …
Read More “Is FFP legal or could it be challenged in the European courts?”
