Reasons to be cheerful (1, 2, 3)

By Tony Attwood I wonder when the notion that we can see one event and then generalise out from there, first started.  Perhaps it is just something inside all our heads, the “if only I could just have one sign from God, then I’d believe” sort of thing. But by and large, although using single …

Ref preview: Arsenal v WHU. Atkinson; appalling judgement, worse than random in his decision making

Arsenal v West Ham United – Sunday 9 August – The Referee Preview By Andrew Crawshaw Well at last proper competitive football and I will again look at the Match Officials, what Arsenal’s history is with them and attempt to predict what they will do during the game. For Sunday the Officials are Referee – …

Who can stop us winning the title this season?

By Tony Attwood Pre-season time is traditionally “lists” time, although the papers of late have taken us into the all-the-year-round-list of “five things we learned from the way the referee walked out of the tunnel” variety of late. But we are almost there – we’ve got the ref preview from Andrew coming up and the …

If you live and work in the UK, you pay for West Ham United, no matter who you support.

By Tony Attwood In my recent article on state aid for West Ham United, I made the point that not all the awful details of how the state (which means all of us who live in the UK and pay tax) is paying for West Ham’s ground had yet come out, although those that had, …

How Arsenal will do this season and why there is no “winning mentality”.

The 10 key factors that seem to me to be of prime influence as we enter another season. by Tony Attwood 1: Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott Last season Thierry Henry was reported by part of the media to have said that Arsenal needed a “top, top striker” to win the league.  The newspapers chimed …

The Referees’ accuracy 2014-15. When it’s important you might as well toss a coin.

The Referees 2014-15 A quick summary   by Andrew Crawshaw   First breaking news from the referees announced for this coming weekend – the PGMO have introduced an additional referee who is not on their Elite List.  Simon Hooper is to take charge of the Norwich v Crystal Palace game.  It will be interesting to …

Does TV revenue make a club well run? Or is it just taking clubs to the edge of a cliff?

By Tony Attwood This is the third and final part of the little series of articles answering the question “What determines if a club is well run or not?” The series began with my own personal view of how I feel about the club I’ve supported from childhood with 10 ways measure Arsenal. Then I took …

Measuring Arsenal’s success: asking silly questions, manipulating the figures.

by Tony Attwood I wrote in the last article about the issue of measuring club success.  It strikes me that this is important because it gives an ideal of a feel supporters have for their club.  It is perhaps hard to remember or recognise that before the Emirates and before Wenger, Arsenal was not always …

How do we measure club success? 10 ways measure Arsenal.

By Tony Attwood A recent article in the Telegraph sought to evaluate the best run clubs in England. I found that quite a challenging concept – and what made it all the more difficult to deal with was that the Telegraph produced tiny summaries of the clubs that were nominated for being among the “best …

A FRIGHTFUL REALITY: the world of Premier League refs is not all it should be

A FRIGHTFUL REALITY………Don McMahon   There has been much written and posted about the PGMOL and its members. Lets be clear and rational about some aspects of these referees: 1) Where they come from probably doesn’t have much to do with how they officiate but who they support does. 2)What they are told to do …

2015/16: An introduction to the Referees. Do not read this standing up.

2015-16 Referee Previews – An introduction to the Referees   by Andrew Crawshaw The Official Web Page for the Barclays Premier League has the following to say about the PGMO :- “Led by General Manager Mike Riley, Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) is responsible for the training, development and mentoring of 79 referees and …

Wenger vs. Mourinho, Baker’s Dozen Failure, A Tale of Two Managers

Wenger vs. Mourinho, Baker’s Dozen Failure, A Tale of Two Managers By Jerry As Arsenal prepared to face Chelsea on Sunday in the FA Community, everyone was aware (due to the usual media reminders) that Arsène Wenger has managed against the self appointed “Special/Happy One” José Mourinho on 13 (a baker’s dozen) occasions without a …

Arsenal seeking sixth consecutive Wembley win since spring last year

By Bulldog Drummond I have not noticed anyone mention, in the build up to today’s overture to the season, that since the spring of 2014 Arsenal have played five and won five at Wembley. 2014: Arsenal 1 Wigan 1 (4-2 on penalties) FA Cup semi-final Arsenal 3 Hull 2 (after extra time).  FA Cup final …

Community Shield: the preparation for the game tells us what the manager has in mind.

By Tony Attwood Remember Dennis Bergkamp?  Even if you’ve only come to Arsenal of late you will know the name and most likely seen some of the film.  Arsène Wenger called him a genius – which is not something he calls a player very often. Indeed I may well have missed it but I am …

Not very charitable Shield preview part 1: the context

Pre-match preview by Bulldog Drummond. The 93rd Community Shield fixture.  It used to be called the Charity Shield until the Charities Commission realised that the FA were keeping no proper records, were not giving enough money to charities, and generally making fast and loose.   The Charity Commission could have sued the FA and closed them …

The Gillingham racial discrimination resurfaces, with a fine for the club and the (rather annoyed) owner

By Tony Attwood On 9 August 2012, I published the article If Gillingham FC are guilty of racist behaviour, what will the FA do about the club? It was an article which raised a number of comments from Gillingham supporters and regular readers of Untold at the time, all of which are of course still on …

Arsenal Ladies – a busy but very successful fortnight

Arsenal Ladies – a busy fortnight by Andrew Crawshaw   Whilst we have all been interested in the Arsenal First Team pre-season games, the Ladies have been in full on competition.  The Ladies season re-started following the World Cup with a visit from Liverpool Ladies and an unaccustomed loss. Arsenal Ladies v Liverpool Ladies – …

Why it is time to stop using the Premier League’s success to cover up for the FA’s multiple failures

By Tony Attwood On 27 March 2014 Sport England announced that it was cutting its funding of the FA’s grassroots football programme for failing the deliver results and value for the public money it receives.  It was also told to improve its performance if it did not want further cuts.   The money that Sport England saved …

How Barcelona have kindly helped finance Arsenal over the years

By Tony Attwood My last piece showed that what the manager of Chelsea says isn’t always accurate, which really didn’t come as much surprise. But there is another element to the story which really ought to be mentioned – that Arsenal in recent years would have found it a little harder to make ends meet …

DONE DEAL: A totally new way to report these amazing unexpected Arsenal transfers

by Tony Attwood In an ideal democracy there would be some way of getting information untarnished and unmolested from the source to the populace. It’s a dream of course, because the mere selecting of some information rather than other information corrupts the model.   But it doesn’t stop people trying, and there is an amazing …

It is time Arsenal stood up to fight state aid to football clubs in England

By Tony Attwood You may recall that State Aid to football clubs is something that riles me.  Arsenal have never had any support from the British taxpayer, the owners of lots of oil fields, nor even the Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE.  Indeed the last time we were given any money which (had it …

Wenger’s dilemmas: the attack, and the players who will always play

by    Tim Charlesworth In the previous article I looked at the issue of the defence, and focussed on the issues where we have two competing players for a position.  Now we have the question of the box to box players and those playing further forward. B2B – Cazorla or Ramsey (or Wilshere) Cazorla has …

Wenger’s Selection Dilemmas for 2015/16: the questions in defence

by    Tim Charlesworth This is the first of two articles on the issues facing Arsene Wenger this summer.  Part two, which deals with attacking players and the players whose positions are guaranteed will be published shortly. As the new season approaches, I cannot remember ever being so uncertain about our ‘first choice starting eleven’. …

How to produce a team that will win the league. The very simple fact that the stats reveal

By Tony Attwood Reading through the headlines on www.goonernews.com there are in fact only two football stories around: who we are buying, and who we are selling. And it is all exciting stuff, except it doesn’t really have too much to do with who will win the league next season.  In fact it has as …

The Tottenham Experience and the Cathedral of Football

By Tony Attwood As I occasionally have reason to mention, my day job is running an advertising agency, working on the creative side of things. And sometimes when we are looking at the work of our competitors, or pitching for a new account, I look in admiration at what others have done, knowing that we …