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 Fishpie With this weekend’s 2-1 victory over Everton, we have officially completed the first quarter of the league season and entered into the second. Those long, hard, dark, cold Autumn and Winter months lie ahead. So I think its a good moment to pause, take stock of how its gone so far and …
Read More “After a very good start, we need to do even better”
By Tony Attwood My intention having got home in time to make a bacon sandwich and watch Match of the Day was to then write a report on the game highlighting the total ineptitude and lunacy of the referee. But then the best laid plans… the computer went onto another planet and short …
Read More “It was fun, it was nervy, and even the bloody computer got over excited. But we made it.”
By Bulldog Drummond Continuing from the earlier piece, previewing today’s game, the biggest threat we can see is that Everton are unbeaten away this season. Against that we have won five of the last six in all competitions, scoring 17 goals along the way. Not bad considering that the last six included Man U and …
By Bulldog Drummond As I suspect everyone has worked out, we’ll be top if we win, although quite possibly only for a day. But even so it’s not a bad feeling. Indeed looking at the table built just from the last six league games we are indeed top: Pos Team P W D L F …
Arsenal v Everton Saturday 24 October – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw No new Referee Reviews from Usama and Walter so no update to this season’s table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 11 Red Cards 0 6 Penalties 0 7 Goals 0 3 Total 0 27 …
Read More “Arsenal v Everton Saturday 24 October – The Match Officials”
By Tony Attwood That heading may have taken you a bit by surprise but it is true in terms of the parallel trophy that is played alongside the Champions League – the under 19s competition, once upon a time called Next Gen, but now taken over by the all-encompassing Uefa. The games are played in …
By Tony Attwood Being away on holiday while the season runs along its merry course is always an interesting experience. A chance to do the usual recharging of the batteries in the sunshine, and in this case, the opportunity to watch Watford v Arsenal in a bar on the island of Crete, with the landlord …
Read More “In 8 days Wenger retired and signed six players while Shearer ate his own tongue.”
By Metalhead Recently Arsene Wenger called for the media to be held accountable for what they say on television and write up in newspapers/articles. One can imagine his frustration, considering how some of them get away with saying pretty much anything they like with no logic or evidence to back their claims. Prior to the …
Read More “Should there be more accountability in the media?”
By Proud Kev Walters great articles on some of our unsung and ‘cheap’ young talent, should make people think. Why do we have this obsession on transfer values and spending money? Do you really have to spend big money every transfer window to have success? Now the FFM’s would state categorically that the answer to …
Read More “The Wenger narrative, defending, and the funny Kolo Toure trial.”
By Tony Attwood Owen Gibson in the Observer has reported that the Football Association will save £12m a year after refinancing its Wembley debt. Another £18m is being saved by making about a third of the FA’s staff redundant as the FA tries to do something, aything, to redeem itself in terms of the world …
Read More “Will Tottenham and Chelsea bail out bankrupt FA by moving to Wembley?”
By Don McMahon Well the house of cards that was FIFA, EUFA and perhaps, soon the English FA seems to be finally tumbling down around their corrupt ears. Let us NOT forget that this is a tragedy for the Beautiful Game and we are the victims of this perennial fraud! The tragedy lies in the …
The wheel’s still in spin… By Tony Attwood Very, very slowly there is a movement away from the reform of Fifa to a total revolutionary overthrow of the old regime. It is of course something that is not at all welcomed by the entrenched powers – Fifa and Uefa, the FA and all the other …
Read More “It’s not that we don’t need THIS Fifa, we don’t need ANY Fifa.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is a curious fact of life that you can wait all summer long for a defensive midfielder without one appearing and then two appear all at once. Even more curious is that Arsenal don’t need one since we currently have one of the very best DM’s in Europe. But …
Read More “Deal Agreed with Brazilian Striker, and perfect DM replacement found”
By Tony Attwood The other day, having torn what remains of my hair out and eaten half the furniture in my humble abode I finally got to express my frustration and anger over the way the press continue to talk up international football while talking down Arsenal. In particular my annoyance was raised to unbearable …
Read More “Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Yes!”
By Tony Attwood It has, both for those people who play fantasy football and for the journalists who base their regular commentaries around fantasy football, while nicking their news stories without checking from wholly unreliable news stories, been a bit of a topsy turvy season so far. One minute Arsenal is in total meltdown and …
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader of Untold you must be sick to death of me referring back to the article I wrote five years ago about why England is so rubbish as an international football team. I refer back to it because it is evidence based, it shows in clear stats …
By Tony Attwood Lionel Messi tax charges dropped in Spain shouted the Daily Telegraph, always keen to lend a hand to the very rich and famous – although you can always tell when they know they haven’t checked the facts properly because the article was attributed to “Telegraph Sport”. Lionel Messi tax fraud case: Barcelona …
By Tony Attwood You may have seen on a number of other sites an analysis of the last 38 league games played by Premier League clubs. It has turned up without attribution on a number of sites but I think it originated with @goonerdesi. If I’ve got that wrong my apologies. Anyway, it was …
Read More “The “last 38 match” table – Arsenal and Man C neck and neck to take control.”
Triumph and Adversity: a review of progress since the last interlull By Tim Charlesworth The second interlull is upon us, and it’s another chance to step away from the hurly-burly and review how our season is going. Just after the first interlull, I had a look at a series of tricky fixtures ahead, and suggested …
Read More “Triumph and Adversity: a review of progress since the last interlull”
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw (senior weaponry advisor to Professional Game Match Officials Ltd) The secretive organisation, PGMO, which is believed to control football refereeing at the professional level in England, have long been rumoured to be closely associated with the Italian Mafia, and it seems that the influence of their patrons is spreading. …
Read More “PGMO ready to recommend that all league referees should be armed during matches.”
By Tony Attwood. One of the great consquences that there might be if Fifa falls is that the FA, a big supporter of Fifa, of Jack Warner and of Platini, might fall down into the hole with them. It doesn’t matter whether it has been the FA’s inability to deal with Richard Scuadmore’s sexist commentary …
By Tony Attwood Just how good are Arsenal players in relation to those of other clubs? Obviously one answer is to look at the league table, and I will come to that in a moment, but there is another source of such information: the analyses of the type put out by WhoScored.com One of the …
Read More “Just how well are Arsenal doing on a player by player basis?”
. By Tony Attwood. . How to be a millionaire – 1. Be a billionaire and start an airline. How to be a millionaire – 2. Be a billionaire and buy a football club. . Same old same old. You’ve almost certainly heard one or probably both of those before. But such …
Read More “Why big clubs are no longer being bought and sold: re-interpreting the evidence”
By Kev The sad rise of the Fantasy Football Manager So Brendan Rogers is the latest casualty. After failed attempts to destabilise Arsenal and manoeuvre Wenger closer to the exit door, the FFM get their other man. But who is the FFM? Saturated TV coverage, Dream Team Competitions and computer games consoles have created a …
By Tony Attwood This week I heard someone interviewing two guests on TV. They disagreed over some point or other and the interviewer said, “That’s what we like about football – everyone can have an opinion.” And yes of course in a moderately open democratic society everyone can have an opinion. That opinion might be …
Read More “Where does Liverpool sit in relation to evidence based football analysis?”
