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 Bulldog Drummond Approaching the game against 1. FC Köln I was pondering how a team that could do well enough to get into the Europa, could then be bottom of their league by the time the first Euro game came around. The answer turns out to be not too hard to fathom, and it comes about …
By Sir Hardly Anyone, Now normally I only leave the Ancestral Republic of Rutlandshire to cover transfer nonsense, but it seems that nonsense has now become an all the year round event, and so I have been invited, as an experiment, to comment on chit chat that happens during what I believe the lower classes …
By Tony Attwood We’ve had the story that Jack Wilshere will be brought back against Cologne abut 20 times, which can only mean he probably won’t start, but if he is in the squad, he’ll be on the beach. And I write that because normally when the same story goes around and around and around …
Read More “Jack against Cologne, Kos is out, crowd trouble worries, and doping in German football.”
By Tony Attwood You might recall that on August 18 I wrote a little piece asking if the money from the FA Community Shield game had gone to the beneficiaries – those who suffered in the Grenfell Tower fire. I expected to be told that the money had gone to the said people, and that …
By Tony Attwood I realised from the very start of Untold that I would learn a lot from reading the comments made by readers. But what I didn’t realise was that I would find therein a whole group of people who run their lives in a way so very different from mine that I can’t …
Read More “The strange fantasy world inhabited by some who comment on Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood Yes, according to a very little bloggetta Arsenal “fans” have turned on Xhaka. This is the same Granit Xhaka who so far this season is the top rated passer in the PL this season, ahead of 3 Man C players, David Silva, Nicolas Otamendi and Fernandinho. Other top passers of the ball …
Read More “Arsenal “fans” turn on Xhaka to criticise him for being… best in the League”
The aaa Arsenal laws…….. by Don McMahon I recently read the history of Murphy’s laws created in 1950 and found that they resembled a certain mindset we too often see on UA: Everything that can go wrong will ……No matter what Wenger or the players or the board do, we are doomed to suffer the …
Read More “With Arsenal, if everything seems to be going well, you’ve overlooked something”
By Tony Attwood This is an example of how the media is constantly seeking to undermine Arsenal by twisting every scrap of news – even the most positive news – into a tale of chaos and disaster. The whole issue centres on a fairly ordinary, planned, change of support staff within the club, which …
Read More “New Arsenal fake news reveals concerted effort to undermine Arsenal at every turn.”
By Bulldog Drummond. It appears that the media, rather than focus on the weekend’s games would sooner continue to take the transfer window to bits. I can’t say “analyse” the window because they don’t do that – but the headlines are amusing: “Crocked Vincent Kompany makes Pep Guardiola’s spending spree look perverse ahead of Liverpool …
By Bulldog Drummond You may have noticed that over the summer we were enjoying ourselves (or being incredibly prattish depending on your perspective) by writing brief commentaries about the supporters of all the clubs in the Premier League. They all appear in the “Watching Supporters” section of the web site. Here’s what we wrote …
Read More “Arsenal v Bournemouth: their supporters, the journalists, AFCB’s in and out,”
By Bulldog Drummond According to some in the media Mr Wenger is contemplating changing the formation against Bournemouth, to a back four. There’s no real evidence that he will do this, beyond the fact that in pre-season the manager said that he would keep the players practising both three and four at the back, …
Read More “Arsenal v Bournemouth: Mr Wenger’s commentaries and press speculation ahead of the game”
By Bulldog Drummond. And now back to the real thing, and the first point to look at must be Bournemouth’s activity as an away team. Here’s their performance away from home last season Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 Everton 19 4 6 9 20 28 -8 18 11 …
Read More “Arsenal v Bournemouth: home and away prognostications, and injuries”
By Tony Attwood Ian Wright, Martin Keown, Paul Merson, Thierry Henry, Tony Adams and Lee Dixon have, as you may have noticed, all been having a go at Arsenal of late. Which has become rather dull and boring, not least because none of them have been successful club managers, as far as I know. …
by Tony Attwood It was in 2015 on one of my trips to Australia to see my daughter that I visited Melbourne City FC and was astonished to see how much it was being re-designed to look like Manchester City. It was a surprise because a couple of years before that I had predicted that …
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw If you are a regular reader you will know just how pesky injury numbers can be. Reports can claim that Arsenal have players out injured who were actually injured on loan (and therefore not really an Arsenal player, since if uninjured the player would not be playing for Arsenal …
Read More “The extremely pesky business of counting the number of players injured”
by Tony Attwood Here’s the original… Y LLEGA EL MOMENTO EN EL QUE TE CANSAS . Te cansas que te critiquen con razón y sin razón, te cansas de que te quieran ver derrotado , te cansas de decirte a ti mismo “una vez más me levantare” después de llorar tras una derrota, y te …
by Tony Attwood Each year for the past eight or so years I have written a booklet on one period of Arsenal’s history, which is published by the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association in the early part of the new season. This summer the booklet was on the early years of the reign of Bertie Mee, …
Read More “Players wanting to leave and youngsters wanting a chance: same old Arsenal.”
By Tony Attwood As you will of course know we are playing in Group H against … BATE Borisov Crvena zvezda Köln The squad has now been announced. Here are the rules… Clubs can name a maximum of 25 players on their primary list, known as List A. Eight places are reserved for home-grown …
Read More “Arsenal’s Europa League squad named: 42 players named in all.”
By Andrew Crawshaw First off, the injured players. Santi we all know about. Dayan Iliev has been out for two years following knee surgery, I would be very surprised if he makes any first team appearances any time soon. He will almost certainly be in goal for some of the U23 games to build …
Read More “Arsenal’s four teams to cope with seven games in three weeks.”
By Tony Attwood As you will of course be fully aware, we’ve only got three points out of the first three games. And I was pondering, as one does, whether this had happened before in recent years, and if so, what it meant. So I just doodled away a spare half hour making up a …
Read More “What do the first three league games of the season tell us?”
Latest in the wild and wacko world of football By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw While in the world cup France played a goalless draw with Luxembourg with Giroud starting and Lacazette taking over, it is being said elsewhere that the Spanish League wants Uefa to investigate Manchester City’s spending, and to expand the ongoing …
By Tony Attwood Two simple answers to that question come from two teams last season going from four to three central defenders: Chelsea and Arsenal. Chelsea had had three defeats in four, including the 3-0 at Arsenal, and then changed. Arsenal had lost eight in 12 when they changed. The only complaint that can be …
Read More “Changing formats and player positions: when has it ever worked?”
by Tony Attwood The Premier League have now announced the eight players who are in the short list for the August 2017 Premier League 2 Player of the Month. The eight players shortlisted for this month’s award have been drawn up following PL2 Managers nominating the best individual performance from each of their opposing teams …
Read More “Premier League 2 Player of the Month, plus it wasn’t all England in the transfer window.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone That headline is based on one that is currently running in the Telegraph: “Of course Arsenal players are keen on Alexis Sanchez going – they don’t want anyone challenging culture of mediocrity”. It is of course a silly construct – as if the players want the club to be mediocre. …
You might also like the Latest in “Watching Supporters” : West Ham United fans and their link with Napoleon. . By Sir Hardly Anyone And so the transfer window failed to live up to last year’s level when around 114 players were tipped as coming to Arsenal. This year 92 were tipped and two actually turned …
Read More “If it is in the media and about Arsenal there is a 98% chance it is untrue.”
