La Liga awakens to the dangers of City group’s football franchise scheme. But where will they venture next?

by Tony Attwood It was in 2015 on one of my trips to Australia to see my daughter that I visited Melbourne City FC and was astonished to see how much it was being re-designed to look like Manchester City.  It was a surprise because a couple of years before that I had predicted that …

The extremely pesky business of counting the number of players injured

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw If you are a regular reader you will know just how pesky injury numbers can be.  Reports can claim that Arsenal have players out injured who were actually injured on loan (and therefore not really an Arsenal player, since if uninjured the player would not be playing for Arsenal …

What Alexis said about journalists and the hate mob, and what we can do for him this weekend

by Tony Attwood Here’s the original… Y LLEGA EL MOMENTO EN EL QUE TE CANSAS . Te cansas que te critiquen con razón y sin razón, te cansas de que te quieran ver derrotado , te cansas de decirte a ti mismo “una vez más me levantare” después de llorar tras una derrota, y te …

Players wanting to leave and youngsters wanting a chance: same old Arsenal.

by Tony Attwood Each year for the past eight or so years I have written a booklet on one period of Arsenal’s history, which is published by the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association in the early part of the new season. This summer the booklet was on the early years of the reign of Bertie Mee, …

Arsenal’s Europa League squad named: 42 players named in all.

By Tony Attwood As you will of course know we are playing in Group H against … BATE Borisov Crvena zvezda Köln The squad has now been announced.  Here are the rules… Clubs can name a maximum of 25 players on their primary list, known as List A.   Eight places are reserved for home-grown …

Arsenal’s four teams to cope with seven games in three weeks.

By Andrew Crawshaw First off, the injured players. Santi we all know about.   Dayan Iliev has been out for two years following knee surgery, I would be very surprised if he makes any first team appearances any time soon.  He will almost certainly be in goal for some of the U23 games to build …

What do the first three league games of the season tell us?

By Tony Attwood As you will of course be fully aware, we’ve only got three points out of the first three games.  And I was pondering, as one does, whether this had happened before in recent years, and if so, what it meant. So I just doodled away a spare half hour making up a …

Spanish League demand investigations, WHU demand satisfaction, Tottenham only have 21 adult players for Europe

Latest in the wild and wacko world of football By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw While in the world cup France played a goalless draw with Luxembourg with Giroud starting and Lacazette taking over, it is being said elsewhere that the Spanish League wants Uefa to investigate Manchester City’s spending, and to expand the ongoing …

Changing formats and player positions: when has it ever worked?

By Tony Attwood Two simple answers to that question come from two teams last season going from four to three central defenders: Chelsea and Arsenal.  Chelsea had had three defeats in four, including the 3-0 at Arsenal, and then changed.  Arsenal had lost eight in 12 when they changed.  The only complaint that can be …

Premier League 2 Player of the Month, plus it wasn’t all England in the transfer window.

by Tony Attwood The Premier League have now announced the eight players who are in the short list for the August 2017 Premier League 2 Player of the Month. The eight players shortlisted for this month’s award have been drawn up following PL2 Managers nominating the best individual performance from each of their opposing teams …

Of course journalists want to keep the transfer window – they don’t want anyone challenging culture of mediocrity

By Sir Hardly Anyone That headline is based on one that is currently running in the Telegraph: “Of course Arsenal players are keen on Alexis Sanchez going – they don’t want anyone challenging culture of mediocrity”. It is of course a silly construct – as if the players want the club to be mediocre.   …

If it is in the media and about Arsenal there is a 98% chance it is untrue.

  You might also like the Latest in “Watching Supporters” : West Ham United fans and their link with Napoleon.   . By Sir Hardly Anyone And so the transfer window failed to live up to last year’s level when around 114 players were tipped as coming to Arsenal.  This year 92 were tipped and two actually turned …

Arsenal: the complete squad, the 25, the loans, the leavers, the homegrowns

By Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood This appears to us to be the list of players that Arsenal now have on their books and below that the list of players who left us this transfer window. In the status column Y – first team player, T= Transfer, Sch = scholar. In the status column players …

In the end we got a few laughs as transfer window remains open but action is needed

By Sir Hardly Anyone At times the transfer window almost read like one of my columns containing as it did the notion that there might be something there in that makes sense, but for the moment it is hard to see what it is.  No one new was signed, and the Arsenal directors and owner …

Arsenal, Lemar, Di Maria, Mbappe, Draxler, Alexis. The tangled web is about to unfold. Are you ready?

By Sir Hardly Anyone This really is a perfect message for people who argue that Wenger is an idiot, Arsenal are slow, and any and every other manager this side of Sirius B could complete the deals that Arsenal need. Here we go. Arsenal have agreed a deal with Monaco for Lemar for £92m But …

The tale of the sale of the ox, and how Arsenal played the market

By Tony Attwood Apparently the Ox has signed for Liverpool, and that takes me back to a comment that several writers sent in yesterday following our regular update on the transfer rumours Who cares about how many players the press thinks are leaving or joining arsenal. More importantly, have you actually got anything to say …

Today’s theme of the day: Arsenal feeds fans lies! We have proof!! Shock Horror!!!

By Tony Attwood When these little themes emerge they tend to flourish like wildfire.  Here’s one from “Suburban Gooners”, a blogetta.  Sorry about the odd punctuation, I’ve copied it exactly. I support Arsenal: I have been lied to Hello. How are you doing? Hopefully you are holding up ok? Given the circumstances? After all, three …

Football enters the end of the rule of law, as a new French Revolution might be on the cards

By Tony Attwood There was a moment, when Manchester City were found by Uefa to have broken FFP rules, when it looked very much as if the club could not believe it.  Which I guess is to be expected if the club is part of the personal fiefdom of the rulers of a phenomenally wealthy …

The list of every one of the 40 players tipped to be leaving Arsenal this summer.

By Sir Hardly Anyone Yes the list now covers 40 players who are apparently leaving the club.  And I’d better reassure you straight away, that not all of them actually did leave. What is interesting however is that several players have left without ever once being mentioned by the wild ravings of journalists either in …

Six (yes really, six) new players about to sign for Arsenal

By Sir Hardly Anyone. The pundits and tipsters, and the drunks at the bar, have made a pretty fair hash of predicting who Arsenal are signing and selling this summer, but with just a short while to go one might hope their information might at least be right by now. And yet, I suspect maybe …

What is wrong with Arsenal, what is wrong with football and how to put it all right

by Tony Attwood I was invited yesterday by one reader, to express my view on what I would do about Arsenal following the start to the season of one win and two defeats. In one sense I wanted to say, “read Untold Arsenal and you’ll see what I think,” but then I thought I would …

Do you have to be passionate to be a football supporter? A note to the psychologist.

Dear Billy, How you doing? Given the number of people who wrote in after my piece this morning and said they won’t be reading Untold again, I suspect we’re now down to just us few regulars.  Just us four then. Hope you’re doing ok.   It’s a beautiful if windy day here in the East …

Exactly how can things get any worse? Turns out it is not too hard.

Article updated 1005 BST, 28 Aug. By Tony Attwood There was a moment about half an hour before the end of the Liverpool Arsenal match in which the Radio 5 commentators broke off the commentary to do their normal advertising for the phone in which follows games.  However a debate broke out between commentators as …

Liverpool! vs Arsenal: the teams, and the predicted outcome.

By Bulldog Drummond It is hard to say who has the tougher game this afternoon – Tottenham having to play again at Wembley against Burnley, or Arsenal away to a much hyped Liverpool! With regards Tottenham, Untold’s research into what happens to clubs when they move grounds seems on the basis of the first match …