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 One of my favourite comedians – and indeed my favourite Shakesperian comic actor (although sadly I was unable to see much of his work in this regard), was Frankie Howerd. At one stage in his career he became completely unacceptable for his politically incorrect jokes, but I never stopped loving his performances, …
Read More “The Palace comes to the Emirates. Arsenal v Fat Sam: the prologue”
by Linda Thompson The Premier League is arguably the greatest football league in the world. Since its inception in 1992, many of the world’s greatest football players have played in the Premier League. Many consider the Premier League along with La Liga to be the best leagues in the world. As a result, a …
Read More “It’s Not the League Position That Determines a Result: There’s Also the Psychology”
by Sir Hardley Anyone and a chicken called Frostie Last summer, as you will know if you followed the Untold Transfer Index, 20 players were lined up to leave Arsenal. Of course the mass exodus didn’t happen, but those in the know, or rather those who don’t have a clue but like to make it …
Read More “Arsenal plan mass raid on Italian club to cope with predicted January exodus”
By Tony Attwood Preface: if you don’t want to read all this, but simply want the answer to the “how to” you are already thinking like a journalist, and you don’t have to read this article. Just skim to the heading at the bottom that says How to do it and read that. It’s like football – …
Read More “How to be a football journalist and get a job with a newspaper or broadcaster”
By Tony Attwood There seems to me to be a growing feeling of confidence in Fifa that they have weathered the storm. There haven’t been more arrests for a while, and the legal claim against the organisation on behalf of migrant workers employed in dangerous and degrading conditions in Qatar, highlighted recently on Untold, didn’t …
Read More “What horrors do Fifa have in store for us in 2017… and thereafter?”
By Tony Attwood One of the papers recently looked at how many assists the top assistants had after playing 100 games in the premier league. That seemed ok, but I noticed that some clubs seemed to have several players in the list of top assistants (if that is the right word) and some had fewer, …
Read More “The kings of assist – a bit of statistical fun and games”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Last summer we kept a little list running of players who were tipped by the all knowing and extremely informed members of the media to be coming to or going from Arsenal. You will recall how Bellerin was utterly, totally, absolutely certain to leave, along with 21 other members of the …
Read More “Transfer tales: 9 players to leave Arsenal, one new contract and 12 signings”
By Usama Zaka and Tony Attwood It is going to be a little difficult for the mainstream media to change their approach to reporting time wasting by goal keepers … by actually reporting time wasting by goal keepers. But as we have shown elsewhere, it is possible to nudge the media a little by …
Read More “Just how much time do goalkeepers waste v Arsenal? The first ever statistics”
By Tony Attwood In a recent piece about why it is hard for most PL clubs to buy new players in the January window, I made the point that there is not just a limit on the number of players that can be registered with a team (25 who are over 21 years old) but …
By Tony Attwood I suspect that if you asked most of the people in the Emirates Stadium for a review of Arsenal v WBA they would at the very least mention the issue of time wasting. Certainly, judging by noise levels, it was the issue that was the focus of the crowd’s attention throughout the …
By Bulldog Drummond. Part one of the preview was published yesterday under the exciting and vibrant headline “They won’t park the bus, they’ll bring the whole bus station.” Now just before I jump into the automobile and spend a couple of hours telling people who had planned to spend three days at the in-laws but …
Read More “Arsenal v WBA – the teams, players with very very long names, and some dangerous driving”
By Bulldog Drummond In the recent discussion about the November effect on Arsenal it was pointed out that the way in which fixtures are arranged is no longer a matter of chance, and certainly no longer a matter of “it will all even out in the end”. Certain fixtures are arranged to suit the TV …
Read More “Arsenal v WBA. They won’t park the bus, they’ll bring the whole bus station.”
Fancy something a little less statistical for Christmas Day? Try Christmas Day at the Untold Office. By Tony Attwood The notion of playing football matches on Christmas Day does not go back to the very start of league football in England but rather was introduced in the second season of the football league. The first …
Read More “Christmas Day schedules for Arsenal: when Arsenal regularly played on 25 December.”
How many blue whales can you fit into a Boeing 747 before lunch and what your dog’s barks mean Last thursday, I went in to enquire about getting a dog collar to give as a Christmas present to one of my chums who had recently taken a creature from the local Animal Rescue Shelter. …
Read More “Christmas Day at the Untold editorial offices by the office dog”
It’s Christmas, Goodwill to all men By Tim Charlesworth (@Timc1972) The dislike or fear of ‘the other’ is a natural instinct and none of us are immune to it. We almost seem genetically programmed to seek out differences and set up conflict. The tribalism of football is, of course, a fairly harmless manifestation of this …
Read More “It’s Christmas. Goodwill to all men, and a time to end the anger and prejudice”
By Tony Attwood I drove north up the A1 last night to Newark for a little bop around the dance floor and listened (I guess rather stupidly because it always gets me wound up) to various journalists and “experts” (I use the word lightly) commenting on who was going to buy whom this January. What …
By Tony Attwood Maybe before matches we ought to do manager previews as well as referee previews. Especially when it comes to Tony Pulis. Tony Pulis. I’m embarrased to share a Christian name with him. But here goes. As a player Years Team Games Goals 1975–1981 Bristol Rovers 85 3 1981–1982 Happy Valley (Hong …
By Tony Attwood Paul Wilson writing in the Guardian recently made this comment… Referees do not always make the right decision on the spot, and sometimes they make the wrong decision for the right reasons. But with time, hindsight and replays, the disciplinary commission should be capable of sorting all that out. Now on the face of …
Read More “A perfect and total example of how our perception of football is being manipulated”
“Arsène Wenger” (CC BY 2.0) by Ronnie Macdonald Arsenal have made a strong start to their bid to end their Premier League title drought after 13 years. The Gunners have previously enjoyed impressive openings to previous campaigns, only to fall away in the second halves of seasons, none more so than their failed challenge last term when they …
Read More “Arsenal Need to Maintain Away Form to End Title Drought”
By Tony Attwood The Telegraph has published an article, “Every Premier League referee ranked and rated by Keith Hackett”, so what I have done is taken the refs rankings by the Untold team and compared with the Telegraph rankings. We’ve ranked refs in two ways – their major wrong decisions and their correct major decisions. …
By Tony Attwood Take your average premier league centre forward and you will find that at various times he goes through the season without scoring. It is called a barren spell and is considered normal. Indeed if it is Jamie Vardy, then even a sending off during a whole season that is poor by his …
Read More “What’s up with Ozil? Actually nothing much. In fact he’s still at the top of his game.”
by James Burnett Although Arsene Wenger has admitted that he thinks Arsenal are still in a weaker financial position than rivals Manchester City, he maintains that his club has come a long way from the days when their best players were departing for the Etihad Stadium. Between 2009 and 2014, Wenger lost five of his …
Read More “Arsene Wenger Still Believes Arsenal Has What It Takes Despite Being Financially Weaker”
THE MAKING OF A REFEREE…………….Don McMahon A recent article on the Footballroar website caught my attention and after reading it, inspired me to write this article. Here is the link to that article The premise of this article is that former professional footballers are well placed and suited to become premier league officials because of …
By Sir Hardly Anyone, and a friend. One can read the situation in any way you wish – both Meust and Alexis are going to leave because Mr Wenger is an absolute failure and they want to get out of the club as fast as possible, or both players want to stay because both realise …
Read More “If Alexis and Ozil depart, Arsenal have plans to replace both of them with one player!”
By Blacksheep Tony asked me if I could think of writing a sort of review of the year article about Arsenal, perhaps in the spirit of prize giving (best goal, worst referee, most exciting match etc). After this week of disappointment (spoiler alert if you recorded the Everton and Manchester Airport games) I must say …
