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 Arsenal is not a top European team. That’s the official word. And yet year on year we get into the last 16, and sometimes the last eight of the Champions League. For the three years from 2008 to 2010 we got to the quarter and semi-finals. Which is more than quite a …
Read More “Just how good is this Arsenal team compared to top clubs in Europe?”
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you will know that about once every couple of weeks I point out that the reason England don’t win tournaments is nothing to do with quotas and the number of youngsters in the Premier League, but instead to do with the coaching. Then, because modesty is …
Read More “What did Arsenal do to bring about this turnaround?”
By Tony Attwood Having played in a reserve team friendly last week, they were out at it again last night, the old guard. Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Abou Diaby, and less we forget the youngsters, Serge Gnabry. All playing for the under 21s (in which the rules are that you can have three over 21s …
By Bootoomee There is nothing new about the media being negatively biased against Arsenal in their reporting of everything that the club does. If we perform well, we get reluctant praise through gritted teeth, with compulsory caveat about us slipping soon. If we fail to win, especially from a winning position, it is always reported …
Read More “The 2014/15 Season’s 4th Place ‘Trophy’ Battle & The Media Hypocrisy”
By Tony Attwood Alexis Sánchez has been involved in 31 goals for us this season. 20 goals 11 assists. Mind you, the way he plays I wouldn’t be surprised if he assisted with his own goals sometimes. Still, not bad for a debut season. And Özil is showing us what he can do. He can score …
Read More “Arsenal about to sign wonderkid Maxi Romero, Cabaye, Wimmer, Khedira, Smalling…”
By Tony Attwood As you may know apart from publishing Untold, I’m also responsible for the History of Arsenal website. Aside from the regular articles about past events and players, and the occasional in depth analyses (for example into Arsenal’s involvement in the changes to the transfer rules and the interesting allegations about the re-arrangement …
Read More “Another Arsenal record broken… looking back at the history of sequences”
Since I posted this article an hour back there have been a couple of comments from Liverpool fans taking issue with what is here. That of course is fine, but I would urge first time visitors to take a look at all the comments here and indeed the home page of this site first. It …
Read More “What do you think they’re smoking over there at Anfield?”
By Bulldog Drummond So, Arsène Wenger has been named Barclays manager of the month and Olivier Giroud player of the month. Which is normally the kiss of death. Liverpool to win 8-0 then. Actually the Arsenal History Society (housed in the same offices as Untold Arsenal) were recently doing some research into Arsenal’s biggest home league …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: the award, the teams, the sequences.”
By Tony Attwood . “Liverpool is one of the superpowers of football,” said their manager this week. Is that true? . Most certainly they have a history to be envied. Between 1977 and 1990 they won the Football League nine times – having done what Arsenal wanted to do after our European and Double exploits …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: “Liverpool is one of the superpowers of football””
Arsenal v Liverpool 4 April 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Here is the updated “Table of Shame” following Walter’s three recent referee reviews :- Kevin Friend Ref Review : QPR – Arsenal – another sub 70% showing with two wrong Important Decisions (second yellow, red cards, penalties and goals) where at the …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: the referee preview. Be afraid, be very afraid.”
By Tony Attwood The Whoscored website is one of those that can be a bit confusing – in that it pours out stats, puts players in different colours, and then expects you do know what it all means. I must be rather slow because I don’t quite get it all. But they do produce a …
Read More “Arsenal’s best players this season: statistics and where they go wrong”
By Tony Attwood What matters to you? A strong, exciting Premier League in which Arsenal play, or a strong England team that challenges for the World Cup? I’ve always been in the former camp, and let the FA that runs the England team just get on with their pathetically muddled way, mostly commenting only when …
Read More “If you care about the Premier League, it’s time to be very afraid”
By Tony Attwood I tried my best with a silly April Fools gag today, and then looked around at what the rest of the world was doing in terms of April Fools in football. (I should explain it is a day when one is supposed to tell stories that are really silly but are dressed …
Read More “Spotting the April Fools – sometimes it is hard to tell”
The intensity of the battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona to find the very best youngsters and nurture them in their academies can never be underestimated. And for those of us who thought that the depths that Barcelona had sunk to with the importation of children from outside the EU without their parents, in violation …
Read More “Spanish clubs exposed as involved in “artificial footballers” project”
By Tony Attwood The cynics have written him off time and time again. Indeed the ever gloomy Daily Telegraph wrote on 22 January 2015: Abou Diaby looks to have played last game. And it needed some faith to think he could return after so many injuries. The Daily Mail had told us on 5 December …
Read More “Diaby returns along with Arteta, Wilshere and Debuchy”
By Tony Attwood And so back to Rangers, with my normal caveat that I am writing from a long way south of the border, and simply observing from far away. But as with all the articles before, I think the observations are worthwhile, not least as a warning to us all as to what can …
Read More “Beware men bearing gifts (and men who refuse to give you info)”
By Tony Attwood (and a calculator) It must have been pretty quiet at Arsenal these last few days as no less than 23 players were away on international “duty”. I’m not sure if this is an all time record but it must be close to the highest number ever. Here’s the details. 1: Chuba Akpom …
Read More “23 Arsenal players on international “duty”. Was this a record?”
By Tony Attwood The management of Liverpool don’t like the management of Arsenal. There are many origins of the dislike, probably going all the way back to 1989, but the current round of dislike centres on the remark made in 2013 when John W. Henry put a message on social media saying “What do you think …
Read More “Sterling to Arsenal slowed by the enmity between Liverpool and down south”
By Tony Attwood Ah… remember the old days? Arsenal transfer rumours: £15.8million Mario Balotelli fee and personal terms agreed ready for move That was the Daily Mirror last July. It was dumb, childish and silly but at least it didn’t have any RANDOM words in capitals. Which is more than can be said for SNAPPED: …
Read More “All these players are coming to Arsenal! Strange statistics, false analogies”
By Tony Attwood The issue of players getting injured On 10 October 2006 Arsene Wenger picked up on a comment by his old pal Lyon coach Gerard Houllier then at Lyon, who compared international managers to car thieves saying, “what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from the garage without even …
Read More “It’s time to make Welbeck and Ramsey take the consequences”
By Tony Attwood Earlier this week we published a two part series called “Football for the fans”. (The second article follows on directly from the link above). Just days later the Guardian has rushed out (on its website this Sunday) Reclaiming football for all: presenting the manifesto for a better game by David Goldblatt Sometimes one …
Read More “Football for the fans: now the Guardian strikes back”
By Tony Attwood . Walter recently wrote a piece here about the progress Untold is making in having the views we express accepted into the mainstream. He focussed on the remarkable case of his article on stopping players harrassing refs and how it was rapidly picked up by the so-called Sports Writer of the …
Read More “Should Untold start charging the Telegraph for its articles?”
By Billy “The Dog” McGraw. IN GOAL Petr Cech (Chelsea) Luiz Felipe Scolari accused Čech and others of getting him sacking because a group at Chelsea “did not accept my training methods or my demands”. Scolari said this was because Čech insisted on being given a personal coach. Čech said he merely wanted a better car. …
Read More “All the things the media don’t tell you about the players they say we are going to sign”
This continues our list of requirements to make football better for the fans, rather than better for everyone else. Part one is here. 6. Reducing the number of internationals. This is obvious – but in fact the reverse is happening – the old friendlies are about to be replaced by yet another mindlessly conceived competition. …
Read More “Football for the fans. Our second set of demands”
By Tony Attwood Recently, Walter, Blacksheep and I started to talk about the changes we would like to see in football. Changes not for the benefit of Arsenal, but for the benefit of us – the fans. Changes that would make our watching of football more enjoyable, and which might encourage more and more people …
Read More “Football for the fans: the visions of three Arsenal supporters.”
