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 Of course I would love to see Arsenal in the Champions League once again next season, difficult though that is going to be to achieve. I’ve had the good fortune to go to most of the Champs League home games we’ve played (and had a good night out most times, despite the …
Read More “Why any return to Europe next season will bring Arsenal fear and trepidation”
By Tony Attwood Football journalists can be most annoying people, and this for three reasons. They don’t tell us what’s going on, except when they do tell us and then they get it wrong. And they can’t count. Fortunately occasionally someone emerges who while still not telling us what is going on, does at least …
Read More “Jon Toral, pure filth, Bjorn Engels, and journalists who forget and think we do too.”
Betting Myths to Get Rid of about Football Year after year, there are certain betting myths that simply refuse to die, leading to many fortune-seeking individuals with half-true information and a lot of confusion. These types of myths are often taken completely at face value just because they sound fairly logical, but can cause you …
By Tony Attwood There are, we know, some people around who want Arsenal to lose matches so that the board are forced to refrain from offering Mr Wenger a new job. But it struck me the other day that even for the most hardened anti-Wengerian pro-aaa pro-AAA person there must be a limit somewhere. …
Read More “What could make your worst Arsenal nightmare worse?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The Great Transfer Index is a listing of all the players that the English media suggest that Arsenal are about to sign. The great joke is that last summer it only had an accuracy rating of under three percent. In short around 107 players nominated to be coming to Arsenal …
Read More “The 18 players already ear marked to be coming to Arsenal this summer.”
by Tony Attwood There was an incident in the first half last night in which a Middlesbrough player grabbed hold of Oliver Giroud in a rugby styled tackle in the penalty area and held on to him for several seconds, stopping him getting to the ball. It was clearly shown on the live footage, so …
By Bulldog Drummond We know most of the match facts by now – especially those that set out Arsenal in a bad light along with the fact that Middlesbrough have failed to win any of their last 14 games in the Premier League, and have failed to score in six of their last eight league …
by Bulldog Drummond In the last post I pointed out the problems we have been having with the away form of late, but such was the success earlier in the season that our away form for the whole season is still balanced between wins and defeats. Not as good as we would like of course …
Read More “Middlesbrough v Arsenal: ways of ending a bad run of away results”
By Bulldog Drummond I am not a psychologist, and so I have been asking people wiser than me in terms of explaining human behaviour, what the benefit is to Arsenal, or indeed to Héctor Bellerín, for him to be booed and jeered by some Arsenal fans. It has been hard to find an answer. There …
Read More “Middlesbrough v Arsenal. Booing Héctor Bellerín probably doesn’t help very much”
By Tony Attwood I am not suggesting, through that title, that “after me comes the flood” is a perfect way of forecasting what happens after a manager leaves a league club, but rather I’d like to suggest that changing managers at Arsenal does not result in an immediate change at the club. In a previous …
Read More “Après moi, le déluge: what happens after Arsenal change managers”
As the next season approaches, no one can know where Arsenal will end up but it is worth taking a look at the Europa League, just to get the feel of what might come along! They could wind up in the Champions League or the Europa League. These sorts of details can change very …
By Tony Attwood A while back a correspondent on Untold mentioned that he thought it was fair to expect that Arsenal should either win the league or be challenging to win the league each season. I produced some statistics to show how rarely this happened, not just with Arsenal, but with all clubs across all …
Read More “Are we seeing a major change to the list of clubs that dominate the Premier League?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Yes I will admit it; I have been saying that all the stuff about transfer rumours is rubbish given that there are round about 76 days to go before the transfer window creaks open and something of the order of 137 days before it slams shut and shatters into bits again. …
Read More “Despite all the negatives about Arsenal’s parlous state, Arsenal make a major signing”
by Tony Attwood I think most of us know what happened when Arsenal Wenger arrived at Arsenal and the way he was hounded remorselessly by the press with their disgraceful rumours, and then for years vilely attacked by Man U fans (whose appalling chants were then sold on CD via the club shop). If …
In today’s world, and never more so than in today’s footballing world it is hard to see beyond the immediate situation, the here and now. If things aren’t going our way we demand change. If we don’t like something, we get something else, something newer and shinier until we get bored of that and …
by Tony Attwood The problems with football are multiple, but ultimately, in my opinion they tend to focus on two key areas. First, football is run by a group of organisations that have their own agendas and are in essence answerable to no one. In this regard I think of the FA, Fifa, Uefa, and …
by Tony Attwood In a match which kicked off this morning Eddie Nketiah scored a hat-trick as Arsenal U18s beat Manchester City under 18s 4-3 at London Colney. Kwame Ampadu coaches the team and he put out a strong side of 2nd year apprentices, but Manchester City took the lead through Lukas Nmecha in the …
Read More “Eddie Nketiah scores a hat trick again – this time against Man City.”
By Tony Attwood I read a comment on Untold after last night’s match in which a correspondent said that he had “not renewed my membership to the club” having been watching the club for 50 years. I am not sure what the “membership” is that he has, and since the renewal notices for red, silver …
Read More “In the end just changing the manager is rarely enough, unless you want to do it a lot.”
By Bulldog Drummond Ahead of this match the Large One who manages Palace said, “When the bell starts ringing you know the time is running out” and who are we to argue with such finery? Now the factoids Crystal Palace have just two wins in league matches against Arsenal. Of the rest they drew nine …
Read More “The Palace v The Arsenal. The teams, the beach and associated items”
By Bulldog Drummond There is a phrase that the Telegraph is now dropping into anything that Arsene Wenger ever says, or anything that it imagines the club is doing. In each and every case they now claim that saying this or doing that “is likely to surprise many fans.” It’s a sort of instant knock …
By Bulldog Drummond In the build up to this match Arsène Wenger has been talking a little about Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and his importance to the club saying, “I personally think it’s vital that Chamberlain stays at Arsenal. We bought him when he was very young and built him up. He has a great mentality and a …
by Tony Attwood When Aleksander Ceferin became Uefa president he said his first job would be to reconsider plans to give more Champions League revenue to the larger clubs in Europe. It was a message more in keeping with Fifa’s self-generated headlines about reform than a serious attempt at real live change and so no …
Read More “Uefa and the Premier League get ready to fight it out”
By Tony Attwood In the last six games as you will know we have suffered three defeats, and gained a draw and taken two wins, and we are fifth. I just wondered how this compared to the last couple of seasons at this moment. Here is where we are at the moment. Full Home …
Read More “Arsenal after 29 games. Are we going backwards or staying the same?”
By Tony Attwood Imagine you had a son or daughter who was showing really great promise as a footballer. And imagine you were a lifelong supporter of Liverpool. Or Newcastle. Or Tottenham. You wouldn’t worry too much that it was 26 years, or 90 years or 56 years (as it has been for those three …
By Tony Attwood I have heard stadium protests against a referee before, but never on this scale. And it was utterly deserved for Martin Atkinson delivered the worst display of refereeing I have ever seen in a lifetime of going to football matches at grounds from Wood Green Town to Highbury, from Poole Town to …
Read More “Atkinson delivers the worst refereeing ever seen in the PL while State Aid fans fight”
