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 Once upon a time the FA Cup third round kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. Now if you get a match on a Saturday afternoon you are lucky. Our match this evening makes travelling back by train difficult – the last train back leaves at 2017, making it a tight …
By Tony Attwood This weekend’s match sees what has become an increasingly rare meeting between the two Invincibles – the only two sides in top division history to have gone through a season unbeaten: Preston North End and Arsenal. Indeed it is the first meeting of the pair since Arsenal joined the ranks of …
By Tony Attwood During the last couple of days a friend of mine has received messages on her Facebook page telling her that Mrs Trump has filed divorce papers against President Elect Mr Trump Facebook is starting to charge everyone who has fewer than 10 friends, from midnight Stephen Fry has died The queen hasn’t …
Read More “How football laid down the rules for the post-truth world”
By Tony Attwood Some Arsenal supporters get very angry at any match that Arsenal does not win. This is true both home and away. I have often wondered why. Of course some of the people who were at the Bournemouth game might be saying that their moaning resulted in Arsenal waking up and scoring three …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Big news, we have just done a transfer. Or so we are told. We are signing Cohen Bramall who is a 20-year-old defender from non-league side Hednesford Town who play in the Evo Stick Northern Premier League. Newsbreak has this story: “Arsenal have almost completed the signing of Hednesford Town left-back, Cohen …
Read More “Arsenal sign their first player of the window, and it is quite a surprise.”
By Tony Attwood 10 years ago Alan Green on Radio 5 would criticise referees regularly – not ever suggesting bias but rather their incompetence. 5 years ago Alan Green was silenced on the subject, and even the Wiki page about him now has no mention of his numerous run-ins with refs nor the controversy surrounding …
By Tony Attwood Everyone, it seems, (other than those at Chelsea) is now complaining about the way the football fixtures have been sorted out. Right at the start of the holiday period the bean counters at the Telegraph worked out not only how many days rest various clubs had but also how many miles they …
By Sirs Hardly Anyone Before today we already had nine players and a manager (well the manager) who were all ready willing and able to quit Arsenal for pastures new if not pastures greener, at least according to “reports”. But now the bloggettas and journalists are getting themselves into a right lather – and when …
By Tony Attwood In every transfer window various newspapers do their own survey of what each of the PL clubs need. Some papers (such as the Observer – a UK Sunday paper) also do a review submitted by fans (what the Observer rather pompously calls its “Fans Network” – which is seemingly one blog or reader …
Read More “The players Arsenal need this January – compared with what other PL clubs need”
By Tony Attwod The Story so Far Arsenal v Crystal Palace 01 January 2017 – The Match Officials. Expect major errors and bias. The Palace comes to the Emirates. Arsenal v Fat Sam: the prologue Arsenal play the Palace. Part the Second And now the conclusion As Mr Wenger said, “The level of confidence or the …
By Tony Attwood And a happy new year to you. This article continues from The Palace comes to the Emirates. Arsenal v Fat Sam: the prologue. If you want to understand the illustrations in this piece you might care to glance back there first. On the injury front the latest list from physioroom looks like this …
By Tony Attwood It is oh so easy to make a list of all the things wrong with football in England. But thinking that it was appropriate to write a piece about the major problems in English football for the end of the year, I started out considering a list of five problems. Quickly that …
By Tony Attwood One of my favourite comedians – and indeed my favourite Shakesperian comic actor (although sadly I was unable to see much of his work in this regard), was Frankie Howerd. At one stage in his career he became completely unacceptable for his politically incorrect jokes, but I never stopped loving his performances, …
Read More “The Palace comes to the Emirates. Arsenal v Fat Sam: the prologue”
by Linda Thompson The Premier League is arguably the greatest football league in the world. Since its inception in 1992, many of the world’s greatest football players have played in the Premier League. Many consider the Premier League along with La Liga to be the best leagues in the world. As a result, a …
Read More “It’s Not the League Position That Determines a Result: There’s Also the Psychology”
by Sir Hardley Anyone and a chicken called Frostie Last summer, as you will know if you followed the Untold Transfer Index, 20 players were lined up to leave Arsenal. Of course the mass exodus didn’t happen, but those in the know, or rather those who don’t have a clue but like to make it …
Read More “Arsenal plan mass raid on Italian club to cope with predicted January exodus”
By Tony Attwood Preface: if you don’t want to read all this, but simply want the answer to the “how to” you are already thinking like a journalist, and you don’t have to read this article. Just skim to the heading at the bottom that says How to do it and read that. It’s like football – …
Read More “How to be a football journalist and get a job with a newspaper or broadcaster”
By Tony Attwood There seems to me to be a growing feeling of confidence in Fifa that they have weathered the storm. There haven’t been more arrests for a while, and the legal claim against the organisation on behalf of migrant workers employed in dangerous and degrading conditions in Qatar, highlighted recently on Untold, didn’t …
Read More “What horrors do Fifa have in store for us in 2017… and thereafter?”
By Tony Attwood One of the papers recently looked at how many assists the top assistants had after playing 100 games in the premier league. That seemed ok, but I noticed that some clubs seemed to have several players in the list of top assistants (if that is the right word) and some had fewer, …
Read More “The kings of assist – a bit of statistical fun and games”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Last summer we kept a little list running of players who were tipped by the all knowing and extremely informed members of the media to be coming to or going from Arsenal. You will recall how Bellerin was utterly, totally, absolutely certain to leave, along with 21 other members of the …
Read More “Transfer tales: 9 players to leave Arsenal, one new contract and 12 signings”
By Usama Zaka and Tony Attwood It is going to be a little difficult for the mainstream media to change their approach to reporting time wasting by goal keepers … by actually reporting time wasting by goal keepers. But as we have shown elsewhere, it is possible to nudge the media a little by …
Read More “Just how much time do goalkeepers waste v Arsenal? The first ever statistics”
By Tony Attwood In a recent piece about why it is hard for most PL clubs to buy new players in the January window, I made the point that there is not just a limit on the number of players that can be registered with a team (25 who are over 21 years old) but …
By Tony Attwood I suspect that if you asked most of the people in the Emirates Stadium for a review of Arsenal v WBA they would at the very least mention the issue of time wasting. Certainly, judging by noise levels, it was the issue that was the focus of the crowd’s attention throughout the …
By Bulldog Drummond. Part one of the preview was published yesterday under the exciting and vibrant headline “They won’t park the bus, they’ll bring the whole bus station.” Now just before I jump into the automobile and spend a couple of hours telling people who had planned to spend three days at the in-laws but …
Read More “Arsenal v WBA – the teams, players with very very long names, and some dangerous driving”
By Bulldog Drummond In the recent discussion about the November effect on Arsenal it was pointed out that the way in which fixtures are arranged is no longer a matter of chance, and certainly no longer a matter of “it will all even out in the end”. Certain fixtures are arranged to suit the TV …
Read More “Arsenal v WBA. They won’t park the bus, they’ll bring the whole bus station.”
Fancy something a little less statistical for Christmas Day? Try Christmas Day at the Untold Office. By Tony Attwood The notion of playing football matches on Christmas Day does not go back to the very start of league football in England but rather was introduced in the second season of the football league. The first …
Read More “Christmas Day schedules for Arsenal: when Arsenal regularly played on 25 December.”
