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 The English papers (other than the Sunday Times) are making little of the financial scandal that erupted across Europe yesterday – perhaps because they were not part of the group that put the research together, perhaps because in their superior manner they think their readers won’t be able to follow the details. …
Read More “What exactly is the finance scandal surrounding Mourinho and C Ronaldo?”
By Bulldog Drummond. It appears that each UK taxpayer has paid about £27 towards giving the club previously known as West Ham a new home for free. Given the number of taxpayers in the country, that is quite an alarming figure. But of course we just get on with it, and let the government treat …
Read More “WHU v Arsenal. The teams, the tactics, the injuries, the cost.”
By Bulldog Drummond Interesting reports today that even though Héctor Bellerín and Mathieu Debuchy, are out injured Carl Jenkinson won’t play at the Tax Payers Stadium (TPS) because Mr Wenger feels Carl is suffering a crisis of confidence. Traditionally psychological reasons for not playing players have been scorned by the pundits and sneered at by …
Read More “State Aid United v Arsenal: no Jenkinson, no Santi, and the problem of moving home”
By Tony Attwood Arsene Wenger has established his most formidable squad for five years – Arsenal will win honours So says Steve Stammers in the Daily Mirror, and just in case you don’t quite believe it and think it is a spoof he goes on… The Gunners crashed out of the League Cup in midweek …
Read More “When the press start saying Arsenal will win honours it is time to start worrying”
By Tony Attwood Commander BJ Harrington, of the Metropolitan Police, one of the police’s most senior football match officers has been talking about the difficulties of keeping law and order outside the Tax Payers Stadium. He did this in giving evidence to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, saying, “If you are intent on disorder, you …
Read More “Three times as many arrests at Arsenal as at State Aid Utd? Up to a point Ms Copper”
By Tony Attwood Santi is out for three months, during which time he will have an operation and now the news has broken the media is packed with speculation, because speculation is what the media does worst (at least in terms of predicting the future). In essence there are three possibilities over what to do. …
A kinder Arsenal world…….Don McMahon Recent UK media and press criticism of the Arsenal, after a few uninspired ties and lacklustre performances in the EPL and the CL, exaggerated and exacerbated by our very own aaa trolls, brought me to a point where I questioned the sanity of the aforementioned accomplices. I have adapted an …
By Tony Attwood There is a Marina Hyde article in the Guardian today about the sexual abuse of footballers. It is an article which is so powerful, so insightful, and so very much getting to the key point, that if it would not be a breach of copyright I would reproduce it here. Instead, here …
Read More “As darkness descends on the football world what can the response be?”
By Tony Attwood So for the second match in a row we play the team in 10th position. Here’s the home and away table Home Away W D L F A W D L F A GD Pt 1 Chelsea 6 0 1 20 4 4 1 1 9 6 +19 31 2 Liverpool 5 …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton: you can prove anything with figures (or not)”
By Tony Attwood Lucas Perez is being tipped to play again in the League Cup quarter-final against Southampton tonight; Olivier Giroud has an injury – either hamstring or groin depending on the source of information. The Giroud injury is said not to be too serious and that omitting him tonight is just a precaution. Chuba …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton: the preview, plus Bellerin’s quick recovery”
By Tony Attwood Of all the many things I have never ever imagined myself doing dancing in a bar with a group of friend at 2am to a Showaddywaddy tribute band must be right up there on the list But thus it was in the early hours of this morning, and now of course …
By Tony Attwood, sitting by the swimming pool in Spain, as the rain patters down Watching Sky’s overseas service (Bein Sports) with the awful Richard Keys and Andy Grey is a very dispiriting experience. They as their independent commentator in the studio Clive Allen – obviously a very balanced middle of the road man when …
Read More “Arsenal v Bournemouth: the view from Spain; match details as it happened”
By Bulldog Drummond OK I want to make this clear that this lack of preview at the proper time and all the blame being put on technical issues and people being in the wrong country is not my fault. Well, to be more correct part of it is my fault but I am not going …
Read More “Arsenal v Bournemouth: another bit of preview from afar.”
By Tony Attwood Sincere apologies for the lack of Untold today. Walter is hopefully now making the 24 hour round trip from Antwerp to the Emirates, while I am on a dancing holiday in Spain, and currently trying to persuade my back that it does actually want to operate after a marathon jive night on …
By Tony Attwood An article on the Swiss news service 24 heures has raised issues which for the moment the media in the UK are ignoring. The original article (in French of course) appears here. My rough translation is beneath. The Zurich-based firm Nater Dallafior Rechtsanwälte has filed a complaint with the Zurich Commercial Court …
Read More “The parents of a 17 year old African player sue Fifa over the transfer rules for minors”
by Arvind Its been a long time since I did an article for Untold. So this year, I thought I’d try something a little new. Instead of relying on all those rating systems everywhere, I figured I’d re-watch every single game and rate all the players as per my own eyes. The other thing I …
By Tony Attwood If you don’t live in the UK there is a chance you might not be aware of the issue that is starting to engulf English football. If you do live in the UK, then I imagine you can’t but know – but I hope you will allow me a moment to recap. …
By Tony Attwood As we saw in the last article, Mr Mourinho is complaining. And we are not the only people to have noticed this. For the Guardian noticed it too, and wondered if “M” was really right to call his team “unlucky”. In an article “Are Manchester United really the unluckiest team in …
By Tai Emeka Obasi… He called himself the special one and ever since has been living in the Utopian world of truly being the best. He still sees himself as not only the best coach in the world but also the most important personality in the business, if not ever created. The ex-Chelsea coach …
Read More “While others mature with age Mourinho gets more idiotic.”
By Tony Attwood On the injury front we know that Héctor Bellerín and Santi Cazorla are still out along with Perez and the three January returnees, but there are also doubts about Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey. Ramsey has a broken toe it seems, and both could be given a day off. On the Santi …
Read More “Arsenal v PSG: the team and the formation, plus other guess work”
By Tony Attwood The timescales aren’t exactly the same of course, but there is an interesting parallel between Tottenham’s experience in the Champions League and Arsenal’s in 1998 and 1999. In those years, as I am sure you will recall, Arsenal played Champions League home matches at Wembley, and for what I think were the …
By Tony Attwood I know this story has suddenly started to appear everywhere, and since this is Untold I wouldn’t normally run such a piece, but it really does raise an interesting question: how far are the newly emboldened British border agencies and their chums in the Home Office going to go to keep our …
Read More “Serge Aurier has been refused permission to enter the UK. But would we let in the Trump?”
By Tony Attwood In 1936/7 Man City won the first division. They were one of only three teams other than Arsenal to win the League in the 1930s (the other two were Everton and Sunderland). Man City had been jogging along as a mid-table team for several years, and had finished ninth the year before …
Read More “Leicester, State Aid Utd., Man U; tales of decline”
By Tony Attwood I never really expected to have much in common with Santi Cazorla. He’s one of the very few players around who is actually shorter than me by an inch or two, and he can play football rather well, which I can’t. But it turns out that Santi has just toddled off to …
Read More “Arsenal prepare for PSG; Santi Cazorla off to Barcelona”
By Tony Attwood Recent studies in psychology and sociology have put forward the idea that when people feel they’ve lost something, then they are willing to take any sort of risk in order to get it back. Even if it never existed in the first place. This is the simple explanation as to why the …
