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 It is interesting to note just how balanced Sunderland’s home and away form has been this season – three wins at home and three away. They have however performed slightly better at home picking up five draws there, against just one away. They have also scored four more goals at home …
by Bulldog Drummond It seems to be injuries all round at the moment. Here’s the physioroom latest with Sunderland top # TEAM Total men down Whose down last What’s up 1 Sunderland 8 V Anichebe Hamstring Injury 2 West Ham United 8 M Noble Hernia 3 Hull City 7 H Maguire Ankle Injury 4 Manchester …
by Going Going Gooner 5th Can’t say that it thrills me much. Certainly watching football on Thursdays doesn’t do anything for me, either. And, I am not looking forward to hearing all the rubbish from Spurs fans or the Wenger Out Brigade… although there is not much we can do about it… Well, actually, …
By Tony Attwood When Arsenal beat Chelsea 3-0 this season I didn’t see a quite how Chelsea were going to turn matters around. But as Mr Wenger said this past weekend, “in the last two seasons the team that won the league hasn’t played in Europe,” and I started to wonder if that could possibly …
Read More “How to fix the Premier League – a scoundrel’s blueprint”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal are, of course, only as good as their last match. That’s not what I think but it certainly is a view that is very strongly held by many people who like to put their viewpoint across. But even then, the need with Arsenal is always to dampen down matters just in …
By Bulldog Drummond By and large when a manager says, “We are looking to dent Arsenal’s top-four hopes” one can take “dent” as a metaphor, but when Stoke City manager Mark Hughes says it you know he means “dent” literally. It will be all out war, with very little to do with football. And with …
Read More “Stoke v Arsenal: the preface to the violence and the line up”
By Bulldog Drummond Although it was largely missed due to the mass hysteria of Chelsea winning the league, there was another match last night: Everton beat Watford 1-0. Rather amusingly Statto has made a mistake in its calculations and have Everton above Arsenal in the league, but just in case that is where you started …
Read More “With Chelsea winning the league where does that leave the rush for the other CL places?”
By Bulldog Drummond. . “Arsenal injury blow as key duo missing from training ahead of Stoke clash” screams the Excess. And yes they must have a story because they go on with “ARSENAL are likely to be without two key stars for their clash with Stoke City at the bet365 Stadium on Saturday.”But who …
Read More “Stoke v Arsenal: players miss training and the scoring omens look awful.”
By Tony Attwood Unfortunately Andrew is away on holiday and can’t do his normal referee preview, and I certainly don’t feel qualified to stand in his shoes. So all I can do is pick a highlight or two from the fact that the referee is Mike Dean. As you will probably know the Untold team …
Read More “Stoke v Arsenal. Mike Dean is the referee. A note about what that means.”
By Bulldog Drummond. As one or two people began to realise just around the time of the Southampton match, Arsenal have gone across to wing backs, and started winning. OK, all the media attention was on Tottenham finishing above us for the first time since the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066 but rather the …
Read More “Stoke v Arsenal: Injury news, recent form and the clue to what’s happening.”
By Tony Attwood The league table according to goals scored is a funny little thing especially as it shows Bournemouth above Man U Pos P W D L F A GD Pt 1 Chelsea 35 27 3 5 75 29 +46 84 2 Liverpool 36 20 10 6 71 42 +29 70 3 Tottenham Hotspur …
By Tony Attwood Way, way back, before the dawn of time (well, March 2015 actually) Untold published its article Football for the fans: the visions of three Arsenal supporters Within days the Guardian rushed out its article Reclaiming football for all: presenting the manifesto for a better game by David Goldblatt. From the length of the recommendations, …
By Tony Attwood Have you heard the one about Fifa reforming itself? It’s a story that is much liked in the English media as it encourages the thought that the world cup in Russia is going to be a jolly good thing, with no violence, no corruption, and beautiful football throughout. Which makes it rather …
By Bulldog Drummond It has proven interesting in recent weeks to consider the league table as it was last season and as it is now. Last year at this moment, with 33 played, here it is. Last since in the last six at this point we had won 2, drawn 3, lost 1. 9 points. …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal the teams and a comparison with this moment last season”
By Bulldog Drummond . And so as we approach the game lets have a quick look at a few stats that tend to get lost amidst the generalised chit chat and three line bloggettas. These first sets of figures are derived from stats on WhoScored.com . These figures are for Arsenal away games, with p/g …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: the tactics, the statistics and past results”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsene Wenger has revealed that Laurent Koscielny and Granit Xhaka could miss the game with Southampton on Wednesday night. But even so, and even with the newspapers now in desperation to hold onto their fantasies by printing claims that Arsenal have had the most men injured in the last 10 years (they …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: the early injury news, plus the home v away record”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. The Director of Football story is back on the agenda after at least a week without it coming up. And so are the stories about the new manager. This time it is Borussia Dortmund man Michael Zorc who has been approached about taking a job in London – and the usual …
By Tony Attwood It is interesting that when the level of corruption within Fifa became clear at the highest all the English newspapers rush in to condemn the Association, all claiming to have been keeping a close eye on the situation. But the rest of time, when Fifa just becomes embroiled in normal run of …
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal, as we know, have not done well against Manchester United of late, and no result (not even a gigantic win) is going to gain positives in the media at the moment. The rule is “knock Wenger knock Wenger knock Wenger” just as in almost every newspaper in England the standard approach …
By Bulldog Drummond Following on from the last article Man U’s fine run of away form, and Totts lose on a big pitch here are some more details of what Man U have done away from home… Manchester United are unbeaten since 23 October, a run of 28 games. but what is hidden in these figures is …
By Bulldog Drummond Who would have thought it? Tottenham, it seems really don’t like big pitches, and so lost to West Ham, where we won 5-1. Our victory of course doesn’t count for it was one of those in which the referee managed to give us a goal we shouldn’t have and so cannot …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester Utd. Man U’s fine run of away form, and Totts lose on a big pitch.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Taking all the rumours we have seen so far, here is the list of players that Arsenal are most certainly going to sign this summer according to the English newspapers. They got 3 right out of 110 tries last year. Can they improve their rating this time around??? …
By Tony Attwood For West Ham, it was a dream deal. A stadium built by the tax payer, given to the club on a tiny rent, in which the club didn’t have to pay most of the match day activities. And as a bonus, if the club’s status in the league declined so would …
Read More “Does West Ham’s experience at the Tax Payers Stadium offer a lesson to Tottenham?”
By Tony Attwood My question, as you might have guessed, relates to Barcelona particularly, although recent developments in the UK suggest that it might also relate to some English and Scottish clubs too. But we know that Barcelona has been found guilty of child trafficking, and now we find that Neymar is indeed to stand trial …
Read More “When a club is accused or found guilty of criminal offences, does it matter?”
By Tony Attwood “Expensive flop Granit Xhaka the personification of Arsenal’s problems” That is the headline on a blog today. Granit Xhaka is a flop. We know it. We don’t have to give evidence. That’s it. What of course is never taken into account is the fact that the majority of players (around 75%) …
