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 Arsène Wenger’s comments about referees after yesterday’s match were largely ignored or treated as more bleating by a man who won’t face up to his own team’s failings. And this was inevitable given the fact that the media has refused to engage in the debate as to why the PGMO (which organises …
Arsenal XI: Cech, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Xhaka, Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi, Alexis Subs on the beach Ospina, Holding, Gibbs, Elneny, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lucas, Giroud By Tony Attwood Walter is having another of his Arsenal Belgium sessions so I’ve been roped in for this one. Only one team change from Bulldog’s predictions – Iwobi starts …
By Bulldog Drummond Despite the feeling around that Manchester City are a bit of a difficult team for Arsenal, recent results show this is far from universally so…. Date Game Result Score Competition 8 Apr 2012 Arsenal v Manchester City W 1-0 Premier League 23 Sep 2012 Manchester City v Arsenal D 1-1 Premier League …
Read More “Man City v Arsenal the teams, the recent history, the sequences, and some stuff.”
By Bulldog Drummond Here’s a thought: Manchester Airport’s problems come because their ceaselessly praised manager has bought the players he likes rather than the players they need, and he keeps making changes to the team. Here’s another thought: Arsenal’s problems come because a much derided manager has not bought enough players and refuses to make …
Read More “Guardiola doesn’t do tackles, doesn’t know who to buy, and dithers. Or is that Wenger?”
By Tony Attwood Arsène Wenger finally told the assembled football media what we have been saying for years – they are tedious, repetitive and unimaginative. OK he didn’t use those words exactly but he did say they lacked creativity, and how utterly, utterly right he was about that. They agree a theme between them, and …
Read More “Man City’s problem is that they are no longer able to steal players from Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood As predicted after the Everton game, the aaa are back. uMaxit – a website I’d not come across before although I am sure it has been there for a long time, has a huge audience and the fault in not seeing it is entirely mine – having told us after the Stoke …
Read More “Man City v Arsenal: a change of tactics is predicted, and the psychological game”
By Tony Attwood Now here is a twist and a half. It is being reported in some of the stranger quarters in the footballing world that our Mesut is saying that for him to sign a new contract Arsenal will have to sign Julian Draxler of Wolfsburg. Of course it might be the case that …
Read More “Özil asks Arsenal to sign Draxler as part of contract deal and other tales”
By Tony Attwood Imagine that you go out of your front door tomorrow morning and find armed police and the military patrolling the streets where previously there was no such activity. Carefully you drive to work, noting the army digging bunkers and erecting barricades, patrols at every junction. You slow down to look for …
Read More “Football journalism has become a walled wonderland inherently incompatible with reality”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is often said that Einstein commented that the definition of madness is doing something, finding it fails, and then doing it again. Einstein never said any such thing, but that doesn’t stop people claiming that he did over and over without checking the validity of their claim. It is in …
Read More “All the Arsenal transfers you might have missed and some that may yet happen”
By Tony Attwood All it took at the start of the season was a defeat by one goal at home to Liverpool and a goalless draw away to the champions (at that point yet to fall from their perch) for the aaa to orchestrate their “Wenger out” chants at Leicester. Which means despite all …
Read More “It’s not the defeat that counts, it’s what happens next”
by Tony Attwood Mr Wenger has been in upbeat mood of late, saying, for example, “When you look at the teams around us, you can see that the margin of difference between the teams has shrunk a lot. So the way you respond in every single game is absolutely vital. “What is for sure is at …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal: the teams, the psychology, and Wenger copying Chapman”
By Tony Attwood Last month every media outlet this side of Proxima Centuri told us at least 15 times that November was Arsenal’s worst month. Only one outlet (this one) gave the reason why November was Arsenal’s worst month. The reason is that whereas in the olden days, the fixture list was drawn at random …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal: a case study of changing managers”
Wenger May Not Be Special But He’s Definitely Something More … By Tai Emeka Obasi. Arsene Wenger is a man many get away with insulting, cajoling, taunting, etc… just because he’s too modest to dwell on unnecessary inanities. Few seasons ago, one man who hates the Arsenal manager with so much passion to promise …
Read More “Wenger May Not Be Special But He’s Definitely Something More …”
By Tony Attwood Topping the group in the pre-Christmas Champions League is something that a lot of fuss was made about, until Arsenal did it this year, when the story suddenly changed to one in which it was pointed out that we could be drawn against opposition that was just as tough as if we …
Read More “What are the actual benefits of topping the Champions League group this season?”
By Tony Attwood Over the last couple of days I have been asking my colleagues on Untold who work on the referee reports whether overall referee decisions have been improving during the course of the season. I had hoped that with our exposure of referee ineptitude and with the news that there might soon be …
Read More “Over half the important decisions made by Premier League referees are wrong.”
By Tony Attwood First, sorry I am late this morning. After the match yesterday, the underground system was in total chaos, with the gates closed against the crowds at both Arsenal and Finsbury Park stations. No one knew what was going on, no one bothered with announcements. And why should the authorities bother? We …
Read More “The most grotesque appalling display by a referee; the most disgraceful awful fans.”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsène Wenger perhaps mindful of the contract negotiations with Alexis decided to make Alexis the key part to his interviews yesterday – particularly speaking about converting Alexis from a winger to a forward and how long it has taken. “I think he has found a good mixture,” Mr Wenger said. “He knows …
Read More “Arsenal v team whose supporters think it is cool to boo a player their man crippled”
By Tony Attwood The Guardian has the story, although it is tucked away as the 17th item down on the home page of its football coverage website. The Telegraph covered it as a possibility back in October but has had nothing since. The Independent has not touched it. CNN has a short piece. Sputnik …
Read More “At long last; legal action against Fifa over maltreatment of workers in Qatar begins”
By Tony Attwood This season there appears to have been a bit of an upsurge in goal scoring with the top six having knocked in 173 goals so far. The difference between the top club and the sixth club is 13 points. P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Chelsea 14 11 1 …
Read More “We can we learn after the first 14 games? A comparison with past years.”
By Tony Attwood In my little piece on the 36 passes that led to the second Arsenal goal on Tuesday I tentatively mentioned the psychological factors involved in making a good team become great, and then greater still. “Tentatively mentioned” because psychological factors are the exact antithesis of the “evidence of my own eyes” approach, …
Read More “The psychology index: how the way players feel influences how they play”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It must be difficult for sports editors when Arsenal win games, and doubly so when they start knocking in lots and lots of goals. Six against Ludogorets, five against West Ham, four against Basel, Sunderland and Hull… What makes it even tougher to take is when a few of these editors’ …
Read More “Arsenal to lose Özil and Alexis this summer as journalists ordered back on the job”
By Tony Attwood Can you imagine what the response would have been if it had all gone wrong last night? Arsene Wenger had the choice: go with a full blooded first team selection and not only aim for a win but hope that PSG stumbled, or put more back up players into the team and …
Read More “36 consecutive passes leading up to the second goal and the feelgood factor rises”
By Tony Attwood So before we go any further time to look at the goal scorers Rank Player Club Goals 1 Diego Costa Chelsea 11 Alexis Sánchez Arsenal 3 Sergio Agüero Manchester City 10 Alexis has also got a couple of goals in Europe. So as we look forward to tonight’s game it is …
Read More “Basel v Arsenal: the teams, the stats, the preview”
By Tony Attwood Every football journalist and most of the bloggettas have told us throughout November that ARSENAL ALWAYS DO BADLY IN NOVEMBER. I wrote it in capitals just in case you hadn’t caught it before. After all it must be very important to know this because they have told us over and over …
Read More “We all know November is Arsenal’s worst month. But what about December?”
Consistently wrong but never in doubt by Don McMahon While surfing various Arsenal and Football websites this week I was impressed and astonished by the number of spurious and unsolicited, unsupported and undeniably wrong posts that misnamed supporters feel it is their democratic right to publish. There are numerous memes that filter through the Ethernet …
