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 “Kylian Mbappe sends out clear sign he’s Arsenal-bound with brand new Aaron Ramsey-inspired hair” Yes apparently he has died his hair blonde and it looks like Ramsey, even though the two players come from an utterly different heritage. And that is a genuine quote from a bloggetta. Compared to that, “Arsenal are …
Read More “Why Mbappe is in, and why it don’t matter if Alexis is out”
By Tony Attwood The notion that other clubs move at speed in the transfer window and Arsenal lag behind, unable to complete deals, arguing about contracts, not flying out to see the player when that would swing it, allowing other clubs to hijack transfers – all of this is at the very heart of the …
Read More “Are Arsenal really much slower than other clubs in getting the signings they want?”
By Sir ‘ard Lee Anyone It is looking embarrassingly as if the journalists and bloggetta scribbers have shot their bolts, using up every viable rumour all in one burst and now leaving themselves with nothing to scribble about in terms of who is going where and when. However help is at hand because starting tomorrow …
By Tony Attwood Welcome once more to the mighty Arsenal Transfer Index – the 11th edition of the 2017 version. The number of players Arsenal are buying is how up to a giddy 57 – and we still are 16 days away from the window creaking open. As for the leavers 16 players out …
by Tony Attwood OK are you ready for a real conspiracy theory? Try this one. One of Untold’s valued overseas correspondents sent over a report this morning concerning the fact that for a United Arab Emirates game against Thailand the UAE demanded of Fifa that they change the referee, because the referee came from Qatar. …
By Sir Hardly An’yoné I have discovered that some silly people have taken to laughing at my name, and so I have decided to change it by adding an apostrophe and an accent. Please take note. It is now pronounced An Yo Ney. Now the news. 1: Arsène Wenger is pushing forward with an overhaul …
By Tony Attwood One of the amusing things about the bloggettas is that they are still running little articles about Arsenal having a desperate shortage of defenders (according to one piece today) or midfielders or centre forwards or whatever takes their fancy. Indeed the notion that everything can be reduced to simplicities has caught on …
Read More “Supposing we cull 10 players to meet the “25” limit, what sort of squad do we have?”
By Tony Attwood, based on “L’avenir s’annonce radieux” in the Swiss newspaper, Le Matin. As you may know, the UK media has a general agreement not to comment on Fifa corruption matters, at least until they explode, for two reasons. First because doing so might damage the image of the FA and the national teams, …
By Sir Hardly Anyone, and a friend. Read all about it, I say, Step Right Up, All you need to know, and other meaningless cries from the streets. Incoming 1: Yacine Brahimi Arsenal are preparing to sign Yacine Brahimi but don’t like the cost, according to Correio da Manha, but the paper say that Arsenal …
Read More “Mahrez delayed explained, problem with Greek player’s name, and Fabregas return.”
By Tony Attwood While most clubs have problems finding eight home grown players to fit into the list that makes up the 25 permitted players aged over 21, Arsenal’s problem this summer is in whittling down the number of over 21s to 25. My earlier post suggested only a modest bit of pruning has to …
Read More “Arsenal set to cull ten over 21 players from the first team rosta..”
By Tony Attwood If you have been reading Untold for more than a couple of days you’ll probably have got the idea that one of the things that fascinates and outrages me in equal measure is the way the media behaves towards Arsenal – and by extension from that – why they do it. The …
Read More “What happened in last four seasons and how football bloggers could learn from politics”
By Tony Attwood Ainsley Maitland-Niles joined Arsenal aged six and has come up through the Hale End Academy. He moved into the under 21s in 2013–14 season, just one year after playing in the under 18s for the first time, and signed a professional contract with Arsenal on 24 October 2014. He made his first …
By Tony Attwood Arsenal have 25 players already logged for their formal list of players for the new season, with one player from the list released (Sanogo) and one already signed. Which means that for each new player brought in, someone is going to have to go. But when it comes to the “25” there …
by Tony Attwood There is no doubt that the Conservative Party in the UK has taken us into a new world of homophobia, denial, anti-women’s rights and links to past terrorism in its coalition plans with the Democratic Unionist Party. This has left the transfer rumour inventors in a quandary, wondering how on earth they …
Read More “Transfer rumour reporters refuse to be outdone by Conservative Party”
By Bulldog Drummond It’s the weekend, a time when through the season I knock up a few bits and pieces about the forthcoming match – but for a few weeks we ain’t got a match so I can’t. But there is nothing in the rule books that says we can’t have a little snigger …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Naturally as a member of the aristocracy I don’t normally work in the afternoons, but having been up all night helping our great and glorious Prime Minister win another landslide by keeping spirits up in the pub, I thought I’d better do a quick roundup before I go to the victory …
By Tony Attwood Liverpool betrayed small-club mentality in allowing Arsenal to sign Alexis Sanchez That headline came from the Daily Telegraph on 18 December 2014, and it was interesting at the time as it reflected a shift in position by the media. Before then, although Liverpool had not been immune to press criticism, they …
Read More “Liverpool and the notion of small-club mentality”
By Tony Attwood It is a shame that most electors in the UK don’t read party manifestos, for if they did it would stop them getting some nasty shocks in the months and years following an election. But they never learn and this year the Conservative Party pledge to introduce huge regulations on the way …
By Tony Attwood The Saudi Arabia national football team refused to observe a minute’s silence held before today’s match against Australia in Adelaide. The excuse given apparently was that a minute’s silence is not recognised in their culture as a way to recognise those who have been killed. As a result the Australian team …
By Tony Attwood Of course it is not just Arsenal that get a lot of negative publicity, although I maintain my view that the club tends to get far more than it is due and more than most other clubs. The five year “Arsenal get the most injuries” campaign is one such saga (such …
By Sir Hardly Anyone As we saw yesterday in Transfer Index No 9, 46 players are said to be joining and 14 leaving the club this summer. So far it is one truth revealed in each group – we’ve brought in one on a free, and let a youngster go to Southampton. But now it …
by Sir Hardly Anyone We’ve made our first signing and the Guardian says “Given Arsenal’s tendency to wilt at the first glimpse of pressure, that grittiness will be a useful addition. Again, that suggests that Wenger, at last, has acknowledged that not all the world’s problems can be solved by neat, slight midfielders with …
By Tony Attwood You may have noticed that following my commentary about recent events in Qatar a number of Manchester City supporters came to the site and offered their opinions, some of which we published. It is interesting that just as when Untold did its expose of what was about to happen over FFP, …
Read More “What they are saying on l’Equipe21 of the effect of the Qatar situation on football”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, our transfer correspondent Way, way back before the dawn of time, when woolly mammoths roamed the earth refereeing Premier League matches and “strong and stable” didn’t mean allowing terrorists into the country even though they were on European wide watch lists because those lists were created by foreigners and were therefore …
Read More “Sead Kolašinac deal confirmed; Media on the look out for potential parallels.”
By Tony Attwood . As we know Etihad Airways, one of the three Middle East carriers which set out to revolutionise global aviation business by buying their way into airports around the world, started laying off staff, last December. Manchester City FC whom Etihad bankroll didn’t blink. It raised a couple of question marks at …
