Arrogance, amnesia and assumptions: how the football media deals with Liverpool

An Untold exclusive interview. Jürgen: Hans, Hans, have you heard, I have a new job – a really important football job in England! Hans: Wonderful Jürgen, which TV station are you working for? Jürgen: Don’t be silly!  I’ve got a job as a manager.  Manager of Liverpool! no less. Hans: Sorry I thought you said you …

Liverpool v Arsenal – how Arsenal can win, how the ref will reverse himself and long is cut short

Weird News By Sir Hardly Anyone If you want to measure the impact of Untold in recent years consider this.  Four years ago you would struggle to find analysis even of the most rudimentary kind about refereeing in any blogs or mainstream media sources.  Now such analyses are becoming commonplace.   Yes Commonplace.  I mean, …

A potential, great Untold Arsenal original sports novel.

By The Brickfields Gunners Tony, I have been mulling in my head, for quite sometime now, a fictitious sports story that could be a great book, a play or even a movie  or mini series screenplay, Or all of them, It could either be a serious, sentimental and heart wrenching tale ;  a lighthearted, feel …

Collecting players and then sending them out on loan. Surely this isn’t the best way to run football.

by Tony Attwood It is something I’ve raised a few times – why the media and its camp followers don’t ask “why?” It is an important question I believe, because asking “why?” and following the answer can quite often lead to discoveries that those involved in the issue under discussion may want left hidden.   …

When corruption is as absolute as it is in football, the only task left is to ensure that people don’t talk about it

by Tony Attwood Gianni Infantino is of course the head of Fifa, the new broom coming in after the corruption ridden old guard.   He has written and spoken about his mission being to “protect football’s integrity” and “change the face of the organisation”. As part of this mission he has just been to Zimbabwe for an audience …

Football’s greatest malaise and what we can do about it

by Don McMahon In answer to Dr.Billy’s excellent question in his most recent post, (Why do some football supporters get so angry?) here are a few points I’ve discovered over the years of treating mental health issues in angry supporters like DG (aka; something’s rotten in Denmark) and other aaa/WOB cheerleaders: 1) The internet is mostly …

Barca block Wenger’s Arsenal exit; how Souness is besotted with the name Ali, and Alexis stays

By Sir Hardly Anyone Having established that fewer than three in every 100 transfer stories about Arsenal actually come to pass (and those generally only emerge as the player really has travelled to London for a medical) we all thought it would be a jolly jape to see what the fake news industry (which of …

Why multi-competition football is about far more than just going out and having one style of play.

By Tony Attwood It cannot have escaped your attention, unless you really have no interaction with the media whatsoever (other than Untold, obviously) that Tottenham Hotspur have been getting a good press just as much as Arsenal have been getting a bad press, this season, last season, and indeed most seasons. We know why – …

Trump banning the media; the media being selective with reality. There’s a difference.

by Tony Attwood The news that the President of the USA has started to remove various news organisations such as the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times from press conferences is interesting in its own right, of course.   But it is also interesting in the light of the campaign that Untold has …

Arsenal v Southampton: the match preview

by Quiet Quentin It has been a curiously muted build up to this game with Mr Wenger being particularly tight lipped in response to, it must be said, what was some untypically muted questioning from the world’s media at the pre-match press conference.  Indeed at times one wondered if there was anyone there at all. …

Why do some football supporters get so angry?

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, senior psychologist, University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. I have long been fascinated by the anger and aggression that is expressed on Untold – not so much the anger that you will read in the comment columns, but the anger, aggression and threats that Untold chooses not …

The one gigantic question the football media refuse to ask, let alone answer

By Tony Attwood Of course, we all know that what the media and the bloggettas say has nothing to do with reality when it comes to football, but interesting to note (returning, as I have, to England after 3 weeks in Australia) that the press have got a bit fed up with Arsenal bashing and …

Arsenal in the future: it is just a sense of perspective

By Tony Attwood “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?” That opening line from one of Bob Dylan’s most famous songs (Visions of Johanna) seems in a way to sum up where things are with Arsenal at the moment.   Dylan’s song is in many ways …

Where next? For me the journey by foot, ferry, train, plane and car across the planet. For Arsenal…

By Tony Attwood I write this having had my final swim in the Pacific (at least for this holiday) while preparing for my final meal out with my daughter this time around.   I’ve had the most stunning, amazing time (thank you for asking) and I really would love to stay longer, but the tickets …

Sutton v Arsenal part 2: the teams, the gibberish, the snippets and injury news.

By Tony Attwood Being in Australia, as I still am for a few more days, I am fairly dependent on news from Untold and the newspapers on line to follow football. Today, I read in the Daily Mirror “After Lincoln and Millwall upset the odds in Saturday’s cup ties, the internet’s many comedians turned their …

Sutton v Arsenal: greatest giant killers and a look at non-leaguers of the past and

By Tony Attwood Of course there was a time when Arsenal were regularly knocked out of the FA Cup by teams from lower leagues: Chapman’s league champions were knocked out by Wallsall, in 1933.  Later the club was undone by Northampton Town in 1958, Sheffield Utd in 1959, Rotherham Utd in 1960, Sunderland in 1961, …

Being upside down: seeing football from a completely different perspective

By Tony Attwood Going away from everyday life for a few weeks gives one a chance to reflect, and given that Untold Arsenal is now over nine years old and by the time I get back from Australia will have published almost 7000 articles, on this subject alone I find I have a lot of …

Who needs context when we have a right to win the league now?

By Tony Attwood As we all know Mr Wenger has kept us in the Champions League every year.  Arsenal (from 1998–99 to 2016–17) have participated in 19 consecutive campaigns which is second only to Real Mad.  In essence we have been in the top four for 19 years, our lowest position by definition is of …

The astonishing depths to which the Premier League has sunk, and 10 things the next Arsenal manager must sort out

The astonishing depths to which the Premier League has sunk, And 10 things the next Arsenal manager must consider by Tony Attwood English – not to say European – football is at a very low ebb.   Here we have a team that managed to win its Champions League group unbeaten and so qualify for the …

Crooks and thieves have often destroyed football clubs, but fake news is the bigger enemy

by Tony Attwood Remember Portsmouth. Cup winning team with a long proud history? Remember Leeds being torn to shreds?  Or Cardiff?  Or if you really keep your eyes on such things, and to prove it is not just Britain, remember Malaga? Or if you really, really follow football how about Chester City, Darlington, Hereford Utd., …

Bayern v Arsenal: the teams – a conundrum.

By Tony Attwood How are Bayern doing this year?  They are of course top of the league as the constitution of the federal republic demands, but the feeling is that they are not the sophisticated team they used to be.   They are seen this year as not stylish, not the Barcelona of the north, …

Bayern v Arsenal match preview: should Özil play?

By Tony Attwood, still upside down in the land of Oz… The issue that seems to be circulating is whether Mesut Özil should play given his apparent loss of form (so I am told). What the papers are currently saying is summed up in this comment, “Lose, and the season will end at the very …

The breakthrough moment: we could be on the edge of getting rid of the FA and Fifa in one go.

  by Tony Attwood There is an advert in the Daily Express for jobs in the Department of Media Culture and Sport.  That is the government department that controls the Football Association.  The department’s position in supporting moderation and equality is somewhat undermined as it appears alongside the headline “MIGRATION WARNING: 50 million Muslims are …

How Arsenal are being forced to advertise for a new manager

By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw head of Certain Things, Arsenal FC I was recently able to lay my hands on the following confidential memo circulated to members of the board and senior executives at Arsenal.   It reveals the difficulties the club are facing in finding a new manger. Introduction: Recent changes to the …

We need some failure for a while in order to make the good times feel good.

by Tony Attwood (observing it all from Australia) For all the years of the Wenger regime the media have been pumping out their anti-Arsenal stories, from shadowy fake news references about the manager’s sordid past when he first came to England, through disparaging remarks about him not being English and so “not understanding” English football, …