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 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 …
By Tony Attwood Just how bad are we in November? Not just this November but each and every November. Year after Wengerian year after Wengerian year… Curiously, given that this year this has been the topic there hasn’t been any real analysis of this. Indeed I have seen commentators writing that this is the …
Read More “Arsenal in November. Exactly how bad are we year after year? You might be surprised.”
By Bulldog Drummond All runs end… except of course the run that means that Olympiakos win the Greek League. That goes on for ever – although even that might be affected by the cancellation of games by the government this season. So the run against of results against “M” and the run of results …
Read More “Man U v Arsenal – the teams, the pizza, the telepathy, the result”
by Tony Attwood According to José Mourinho, Arsène Wenger is afforded “more respect” than he (“M”) gets. He doesn’t explain why this is so, nor does he give any evidence, but he says it. Personally I don’t think it is true, but I do think it should be true, if nothing else because of the fact …
By Tony Attwood Even if you don’t know the exact numbers, you’ll probably recall from endless articles plus radio and TV broadcasts, that over a five year period from 2009 to 2014, Arsenal did rather poorly against other teams that ended up in the top four. Of course losing against a fellow-top-four team means zero …
Read More “Wenger v “M”. Tactical naivety, blaming the medics,”
By James Bailey We are still a few weeks away from the end of the year, but there is no doubt that it has been a great year for the team. Arsenal has been performing well in matches and the team is looking at what could be a thrilling Christmas league position. There are several …
Read More “Previews: A (Possibly) Thrilling End to a Great Year”
By Tony Attwood Yes, it’s that time again. The time when pontificaters in all the media will tell us that one team (usually Arsenal, but occasionally others) are having a crisis of injuries and that it is Arsene Wenger’s fault. Of course what they generally don’t do it compare Arsenal’s figures with those of other …
Read More “It’s November so it must be injury crisis time (and ticket price analysis time)”
By Tony Attwood Blimey! I say again, “blimey!” I take the day off to go and see “Kinky Boots” – the wonderfully funny feel-good musical in the West End, and return to open the computer the next morning and find not just one, but two football stories that made me feel good. One of …
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, senior adviser to the clinically ill, University Hospital of the North Circular Road. As expected, Alexis Sánchez played for Chile last night. And indeed was rather successful as Chile beat Uruguay 3-1 in a World Cup qualifying match. Following his hamstring injury which he picked up training for Chile …
Read More “Alexis played for 84 minutes for Chile last night while Man U face their own problems”
by Tony Attwood The reports in the press suggest that Alexis is going to start the game for Chile tonight. Against this Arsène Wenger has warned the Football Federation of Chile that Alexis could spend up to three months on the sidelines if he is risked in the World Cup qualifier against Uruguay. Alexis was …
Read More “Alexis will start, injured or not; when will the madness stop?”
By Tony Attwood There has over the years been a very obvious difference of opinion about Arsenal and its stadium. I don’t recall too much discussion about the stadium and its finances while it was being built – indeed I think most fans welcomed its arrival – especially those on the season ticket waiting …
