It appears to be Chelsea that Real Mad have been gunning for on illegal transfers

By Tony Attwood Just a week ago – on 21 January – I wrote a little piece about the rules surrounding the transfer of children to football clubs.    But what are the rules? Like most of the articles on Untold that look at the rules and regulations it didn’t get a huge readership, but …

It’s time to start arresting people in the big wide world of football.

What links Northampton Town, Napoli and Milan? Seems like they have today all been linked to rumours about naughty things going on with money. To start with Northampton, in 2005 David Cardoza had a wheeze that Sixfields Stadium could be doubled in size, although quite why was never clear.  It was rarely if ever full …

Seven Premier League Referees record accuracy ratings below the normal acceptance level

By the Untold Team Imagine a game of football between two fairly balanced, evenly matched teams.  Each team commits some fouls, but neither team is much worse than the other.  We’ll call the teams the Reds and the Blues And let’s imagine (since this is all quite imaginary) that this game between these two teams …

Six days to go and the Arsenal transfer machine is about to explode into life.

By Sir Hardly Anyone You have to be sorry for the bloggetta writers, day after day after whatnot pumping out the same dross telling us that player after player has already been signed, is on his way, has been seen in the estate agents with his mother etc etc. Only to find none of it …

When TV, radio and the newspapers invent a football story with no basis in fact, what’s happening?

By Tony Attwood Over the years I have become very interested in the way that the media do and don’t report certain issues in football.   Perhaps the most famous was the Rangers tax case in which one web site constantly hacked away at the story while the Scottish media ignored it totally and the …

Destroying the game: how the stand off between Sky and fans over fixture changes can be resolved

By Tony Attwood I am as appalled as anyone over the way Sky has had the power to change the timing of the Leicester game, not least because I know how much difficulty this has meant for Walter and the members of Arsenal Belgium.  And not just because I count these guys as my friends, …

Death by ankle tap: A most curious moment in the history of Arsenal

By Tony Attwood I recall during my student days when I was an active member of the students’ union, taking part in one of our regular political debates when one fellow student rose up and commented that what I had just said was in contradiction to something I had said at another meeting a couple …

Arsenal v Chelsea the teams. Arsenal are bottom of the league (for indiscipline)

Bulldog Drummond continues his review of the Arsenal v Chelsea game The most important thing of course is that we score against Chelsea.   Because if we don’t it will six league games without scoring against them – equalling our worst record ever in the PL, which is six games without a goal between 1997 …

Arsenal v Chelsea. Who are the specialists in failure?

by Bulldog Drummond The Specialist in Failure League A win for Arsenal would leave Arsenal top of the league A defeat for Arsenal could leave us as low as third… two points behind the leaders. A win for Chelsea would leave them 13th or 14th. A defeat for Chelsea would leave them 14th, 15th or …

The one Arsenal transfer story that refuses to go away

By Tony Attwood and Sir Hardly Anyone The Telegraph has just published a poll of readers on the issue of how many players Arsenal need to buy in the next 10 days.   The answers None (The squad is fine as it is)  6%  (that includes your two humble writers of this piece) 1-3 (Minor …

Would you be happy if you heard your son or daughter was working for an international sports body?

. By Tony Attwood In two recent articles on who controls football in England I came up with a list of ten suggestions… first article in this little series on who controls football in England I came up with my top five entities that actually run football in England and then followed that up with …

Fifa are said to be looking at illegal Premier League transfers of children. But what are the rules

. By Tony Attwood Back in September 2009 the headline ran, “FIFA and UEFA plan to ban transfers on players under 18 after Chelsea’s punishment over Gael Kakuta” “Players under the age of 18 could soon be banned from switching clubs,” shouted another headline. Then Chelsea were suspended from signing any new players until 2011 after …

Chelsea and Tottenham and the stadium saga. Will they do better than Arsenal?

By Tony Attwood It was the fact that between the Invincibles Season and the 2014 FA Cup victory Arsenal didn’t win any of the major trophies, which became the central rallying call for the aaa. Their argument was very much that this was not good enough for Arsenal, and that a different manager with different …

The strange case of Adebayor, the miracle football and the missing motivation

By Tony Attwood There is a somewhat strange article on Football365 today under the headline “Sign him: If Adebayor cares, Adebayor scores” by Sarah Winterburn who I think used to work for Sky Sports and now seems to have moved. She does that thing of listing all the stuff she says everyone else is talking about, but in …

Supposing the world reported in the media had nothing at all to do with the actual world around you…

By Tony Attwood North Korea is apparently a fairly awful place where the populace is reduced to near starvation as the family that runs the show spends money on itself, its army, its propaganda and nuclear weapons. How do I know this?  Because I read it in the papers and I saw it on TV. …

How a gap in the story can give a totally misleading vision: the youngsters who don’t make it at Arsenal.

By Tony Attwood The big issues concerning transfers don’t  just relate to getting the player to transfer,  doing the deal with the agent, doing the deal with the other club etc etc, but also what happens thereafter.  You don’t see many articles that discuss issues like a) Will the player settle into the team? b) …

The second deal of the transfer window is just on done

By Sir Hardly Anyone The world of the bloggettas are getting frantic.  The first deal is done and dusted, but where is the second deal?   (And just in case you don’t want to wade through all the nonsense, the really naughty one is at the end). Arsenal Set To Complete Second Signing For This …

Stoke v Arsenal. A full, comprehensive, all-inclusive and detailed report on the match.

As Walter can’t do the regular report, I thought I might have a go. Tony Kick boo cheat jeer boo shout abuse kick push cheat boo kick shout jeer push kick complain kick jeer shout push abuse complain kick boo cheat jeer boo shout abuse kick push cheat boo kick shout jeer push kick complain …

The Rugby Team v Arsenal. Will we survive with legs intact?

Over 6 million page views in the past year. If you are interested in the development of Untold, there’s a bit more on the home page. And other announcement before we get going: there will be no post match report for the Stoke game as Arsenal Belgium are holding their AGM after the match, and …

Who controls football in England? Part 2 of our series looks at the League, FA, Fifa, Uefa and advertisers

……… Over 6 million page views in the past year – see the home page for more info. By Tony Attwood In the first article in this little series on who controls football in England I came up with my top five entities that actually run football in England… TV stations Newspapers and radio stations …

Exposed: the biggest lie of them all. New stats show Arsenal injuries have been below average all season.

By Tony Attwood The argument hasn’t just been that Arsenal has had lots of injuries, but rather that a) they had more than anyone else b) it is all Wenger’s fault. The second follows from the first, because if it ever turned out that Arsenal didn’t suffer more with injuries than anyone else, then there …

Who did Petr Čech share the Golden Glove with? Who played when we knocked our Real Madrid? Be careful in your assumptions.

. WHY ONE SHOULD BE CAREFUL WITH THE HISTORY He screams out, so loud that Mike Dean comes to his house, sees him in an Arsenal shirt and give him a red card for a violent conduct. by Josif Some football clubs have a history book thicker and bigger than others. Some of those books …

Is Stan Kroenke trying to move Arsenal out of the Emirates?

By Sir Hardly Anyone. I do love the stories the bloggettas publish.  They brighten up my day.  They make me smile.  Guffaw sometimes even.  Snigger a bit.  That sort of thing. Now most of these odd tales, as you may have noted if you regularly read my august column herein, focus on transfers, but today …

7 reasons Olivier Giroud must ditch Olivier Giroud and other amusing quotes from the press

By a rather smug Tony Attwood Untold is a web site that takes sides.  A web site that presents a case.  A web site that quite often gets things horribly wrong.  But a web site that by and large sticks to its ground. As with the last post – the one about Spanish clubs being …