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 It is something of the newspapers’ own making: we get so many stories from the media that are just plain wrong, it is hard to know what to believe. But when we read in a specialist magazine about things going wrong in a club, I tend to take a bit more notice, …
Read More “The interesting story of the construction work at New White Hart Lane”
By Tony Attwood Yes it was fun; fun to see just how we know how to deal with a team with far fewer resources than we are privileged to have, but none the less beat a team that needs to be beaten. Fun because, although there are many some season ticket holders choose not to …
Read More “Vorskla, the road trip: mostly fun except for the road, plus it’s tough breaking the law”
By Tony Attwood My little dig against the Evening Standard for its headline “Arsenal did not build the Emirates to play Vorskla on a Thursday night” may not have been the cause, but that headline has been changed between then and now, for now it reads… “Arsenal v Vorskla shows it takes more than bricks, …
by Bulldog Drummond There is something very odd happening in Europe. Manchester City 1 Lyon 2, for a start. Plus a headline in one of the usually Tot supporting papers that says that Tottenham need forward momentum to make the system work. And there I was thinking that they had God’s great gift to footballing …
Read More “Arsenal v Vorskla. All you want to know and some stuff you probably don’t.”
by Bulldog Drummond We have some more information on who might be playing on Thursday. Dominic Thompson now seems to be our prime choice either for left back or back up left back. And the reason for this is that in addition to the injuries to Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, that we highlighted in the …
Read More “Arsenal team news, we’re back in 2006, and a translator is needed, but not for Vorskla”
By Josif Broz Those who still watch the car-theft-like international tournaments may still have fresh memories of World Cup 2018 hosted by the human right’s role model, Russia. One of the biggest upsets at the competition was Germany going out after the group stage. They lost 2-0 to South Korea but only few people could …
Read More “Is Europe sliding back to 1930s? In football the answer looks worrying.”
By Tony Attwood On 23 June 2017, the Daily Mail ran the headline “Grenfell Tower: £1.25m Community Shield proceeds pledged” On 18 August 2017 Untold Arsenal wrote “What happened to the Grenfell Tower money collected from the Community Shield Match?” We published that because in the two months since the announcement in the Mail, there …
By Tony Attwood The long and the short of it is that with the manager quite reasonably speaking in generalities, and the media quite typically suggesting that Mr Wenger’s team selection for the Europa was chaotic, we are not really sure who is going to play this Thursday. By and large there is a general …
By Tony Attwood We are, as Arsenal fans, being treated with absolute contempt. We are treated as idiots with brains the size of peas, simple beings who can be manipulated with a few set phrases written by computers, allowing the journalists to move on to the proper stuff. Just take a look at this: “Arsenal …
Read More “Arsenal v Vorskla Poltava: the media is treating us with absolute contempt”
by Tony Attwood There is a big part of me that doesn’t want Arsenal to get back into the Champions League – the part that recognises that we might well get through the group stages of that competition but then be slaughtered in the first or second knock out round. And that the knock back …
Read More “Why Arsenal into the Champions League next season may not be the best option”
By Tony Attwood In relation to understanding how football works, I generally find that theories about what is happening in football which draw parallels with similar things happening elsewhere in our society, tend to be the most helpful. Yes football is unique, but it exists within the context of a culture, a society, a country, a …
Read More “Why does Arsenal attract so many negative commentaries in the media?”
By Tony Attwood It was quite a scandal, although not surprisingly, the media didn’t want to know. Newspaper web sites publishing pictures of a more than half empty Arsenal stadium and then sneering at the official attendance figures. The media tended to back off after we revealed that the prime picture used to illustrate an …
Read More “Remember stories of a half empty Arsenal Stadium? Now the story moves on.”
By Bulldog Drummond Through our regular run of previews we’ve been left with a range of suggestions as to what Mr Emery is going to do with the team in the coming weeks, although there is a fairly regular suggestion among those who claim to know such things that he is adjusting the team for …
Read More “Torreira in, new Arsenal rule, daft headlines, an alternative table”
By Bulldog Drummond We might feel we’ve got a fair idea of what will happen in terms of Arsenal team selection in the Premier League but it seems that what has been assumed (at Untold, I can’t read minds, unlike many of our correspondents so I don’t know what people have thought) about the continuation …
Read More “Newcastle v Arsenal. Arsenal’s awful defence, non-rotation, the triumphs of Benitez”
By Bulldog Drummond Here’s a positive story and a half: Kanu talking about his heart foundation under the headline, “We have saved 542 lives, that means more than football.” The full piece is in the Guardian. Brilliant for Kanu to dedicate himself to this, good on the Guardian for highlighting the story. In the injury league table …
By Bulldog Drummond There is a rare old collection of tempting headlines around the papers this morning, which I thought I’d throw in, swirl around and drag out the pot, as we warm up to tomorrow’s game. How about this one “Manchester City left bemused after police admit to no arrests five months after Anfield …
Read More “Newcastle v Arsenal: handbrake off, Everton points deduction, David gold on sucking”
By Tony Attwood Going to a stadium for the first time is always fun, but last night this became double fun before the game when, having had a bite to eat and a drink in the Hilton Hotel, which is part of the Ricoh Arena complex (it also houses Wasps rugby club) we were strolling …
Read More “Shaking hands with Per Mertesacker and Tony Adams and a 3-0 victory over Coventry”
by Bulldog Drummond Fortunately for the two of us going to the game, Coventry is only about one hour by car away, although I am told it can be a nightmare getting out of the area. So I shall make sure I am fully laden with audio books to keep me going. However we only …
Read More “Coventry v Arsenal tonight. Preparing for the road trip.”
Could it at least make it to the Champion’s League? No, would likely be the most appropriate answer. After all, we’re looking at a club that doesn’t have the roster and the continuity of management to compete with teams such as Liverpool or Manchester City. Even Chelsea, though lacking the depth to compete with City …
by Tony Attwood The problem is, we are told there is going to be a third European competition next year but we don’t really know too much about how it will work, but it looks a bit like this could be the way forward… Part 1: Leave the Champions League as it is. Part 2: …
Read More “And just in case there isn’t enough football around, here’s a new competition”
by Bulldog Drummond On Wednesday this week Coventry City play Arsenal in the Checkatrade Trophy. I’m not too sure how big the crowd will be but there will be two Untolders there trying to sort out what is going on and of course report back after the match. And “sort out” seems to be the …
Read More “Coventry City v Arsenal – preparing for the cup match on Wednesday”
Ingenue1 / pixabay Arsenal’s first game after the international break will be against floundering Newcastle United. After an important 3-2 over Cardiff City, Unai Emery and Arsenal have a chance to capitalize on the down-and-out in Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle. Arsenal does have to reckon with the dreaded international break, something that affects Arsenal’s squad more …
By Ino Lotz, our correspondent on Certain Things. Serena Williams was fined $17,000 for by and large calling the referee a cheat. That comes out of the $1.8m she got for being runner up. So less than 1% of her income. She is not banned for five matches or anything else. In the media there …
Read More “If Serena Williams had played for Arsenal she’d be banned for a year.”
By Tony Attwood You may have thought that the days of EU rulings affecting UK football are coming to an end. Indeed we’ve recently been discussing exactly this: how the FA and the UK government might collude after the EU closes the door on the UK to restrict the right of non-UK citizens to play …
Read More “Brussels court lobs a bomb into football as big as Bosman. And it affects everyone.”
By Tony Attwood When the Premier League refused to join forces with the Football League over the issuing of fines for running up huge debts there were a few of us who noticed – and a few of the few who were disappointed. As a result of the PL’s decision not to get involved in …
Read More “The Football League is finally sharpening its teeth over the over-spenders. Maybe.”
