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 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 …
Read More “How do we measure club success? 10 ways measure Arsenal.”
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 …
Read More “A FRIGHTFUL REALITY: the world of Premier League refs is not all it should be”
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 …
Read More “2015/16: An introduction to the Referees. Do not read this standing up.”
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 …
Read More “Wenger vs. Mourinho, Baker’s Dozen Failure, A Tale of Two Managers”
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 …
Read More “Arsenal seeking sixth consecutive Wembley win since spring last year”
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 …
Read More “Community Shield: the preparation for the game tells us what the manager has in mind.”
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 …
Read More “Not very charitable Shield preview part 1: the context”
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 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 – …
Read More “Arsenal Ladies – a busy but very successful fortnight”
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 …
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 …
Read More “How Barcelona have kindly helped finance Arsenal over the years”
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 …
Read More “DONE DEAL: A totally new way to report these amazing unexpected Arsenal transfers”
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 …
Read More “It is time Arsenal stood up to fight state aid to football clubs in England”
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 …
Read More “Wenger’s dilemmas: the attack, and the players who will always play”
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’. …
Read More “Wenger’s Selection Dilemmas for 2015/16: the questions in defence”
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 …
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 …
Read More “The Tottenham Experience and the Cathedral of Football”
By Tony Attwood The Transfer League web site has produced a table of the amount of money spent by clubs in the past five seasons. They take the amount of money spent in total minus the amount received in total and from that generate a total outflow or inflow of transfer cash. Divide the total …
Read More “How much did each club spend on transfers for each trophy won?”
THE FUTURE……………..Don McMahon In my most recent post on Untold Arsenal, I briefly outlined and proposed a series of actions which could help bring Football into the 21st century. I will now attempt to elucidate how I know they could be applied practically speaking : My first proposal was that a draft system be created and …
Read More “THE FUTURE… how football could be dragged into the 21st century”
By Tony Attwood On 8 July Untold ran a little piece about Tottenham and Chelsea and their plans for a new stadium, mentioning that there had been quite a bit of talk about Tottenham going to Wembley for a season. The thought was raised in that piece, that this could be an issue if …
Read More “Tottenham told by the League to forget Wembley and move into the Emirates for a season.”
By Tony Attwood One of the things you can be sure of with football journalists is that they always behind the times. If you’ve been reading Untold for a little while, you’ll have read so many stories where we have pointed out that the world doesn’t quite work in the way they say. Things move …
Read More “Arsenal: the atmosphere changes as the journalists wake up”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Star Arrives For Medical, Arsenal To Make OFFICIAL Announcement Tomorrow Now that headline looks like business as usual for the spoof sites of whom I have writ in the past, but in fact I spy a significant change. Untold has been making a bit of a thing about how the sites …
Read More “The deal is almost done, star arrives for medical, picture proof of shocking move”
By Bulldog Drummond So what’s the news? Sanogo has gone to Ajax, as Bellerin signs a long term contract. (Mr Wenger said, “Hector is a very mature, very focused player, and I am confident he will have a good season again.”) Elsewhere, Jenkinson goes back to WHU, Cech to make his first appearance today, Dortmund …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal. The Untold match preview. Wooopeeedooooo…”
By Tony Attwood I have created a first draft of the list of readers of Untold who were kind enough to donate towards the cost of the Untold banner which has now been designed, printed and delivered to the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal has confirmed they have it, so we are just waiting for confirmation from …
Read More “The Untold Banner – preliminary list of supporters”
By Tony Attwood The press has been having its usual fun whipping up storms: Arsenal are not buying everything that moves shock horror and there is already discontent in the camp most notably around the issue of Jack Wilshere seeking assurances. “I will talk with the manager,” announces Jack. Well, not exactly. But the …
Read More “Arsenal’s shocking player strategy for 2015/16 revealed”
