The difficult task of fitting in all the players: Arsenal v Villa

By Bulldog Drummond Quite a big day for the Untold Collective: Andrew, Walter, Blacksheep and Tony all at the game together.  Untold doesn’t manage that very often. And glory be, what a difference a few weeks makes.  From the December doom gloom and doom and gloom and we are finished, to this, in the Guardian: …

Fifa Sponsors quit and more might follow

By Tony Attwood With each passing outrage from Fifa Untold has raised the issue of the sponsors of the dictatorship, and suggested that the sponsors should take a good look at what is going on in their name. Of course we can’t expect much to happen, not least when the Football Association in England, always …

Tiny Arsène, Arteta signs, we’re buying Suarez, and dictionary lackadaisicals latest

By Tony Attwood ‘Arsenal to make audacious swoop for Suarez’ Roll up roll up all the nonsense you want to have.   Suarez plays for a club quite rightly banned from transfers because of its child trafficking policies, and Arsène Wenger says that we are not signing anyone, and so we get that headline.  Oh what …

The three ways of fixing matches in the Premier League

By Tony Attwood The oldest, one might almost say, the traditional way of match fixing, was established by Liverpool and Manchester United at the end of the 1914/15 season.    Yes, 100 years ago this season. Manchester United were looking likely to be relegated while Liverpool were comfortably placed mid-table.  So the two clubs worked …

Why is threatening a criminal act less offensive than being derisory about women for the BBC?

By Tony Attwood Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys were dropped by Sky after making off-air comments during a game in January 2011 saying that female officials “don’t know the offside rule” and predicting assistant ref Sian Massey would make mistakes during a game a couple of days later. The comments were boorish, sexist and …

Barcelona guilty. Now Real Mad?

By Tony Attwood Ever since Barcelona were caught out for their child trafficking activities some people have been poking around Real Madrid to ask if they have been doing the same thing. It hardly makes a news story that they have said no. But Real Mad has also recognised that Fifa has asked the Spanish …

The transfer window deadline has been pre-recorded

By Tony Attwood Maybe I blinked and missed it, or maybe its all been called off because of a dodgy medical, but the big Arsenal transfer, seems to have stopped. Instead we have… Arsenal transfer news and rumours: Real Madrid to sell Karim Benzema to Arsenal to fund Raheem Sterling move That’s the big news. …

Define ‘lackadaisical’. Define “Tottenham H”

By Tony Attwood OK I know the story has got around a bit and I am very much not the first to find it, but hacking with humour does still amuse me – although not necessarily when I have to try and clear up the mess. So the story is this Go to www.Google.co.uk In …

Gabriel Paulista: he has the work permit, and the medical should be done by now.

By Tony (some of this might be right but dont bank on it) Attwood Well, you know, I’m sure, but just in case not… Mr Wenger had the deal all set vis a vis the work permit and Gabriel Paulista will be granted a permit to work in the UK.   Now he just needs …

Brighton v Arsenal, played at Falmer (near the sea)

  150 word match preview to be published with the above code; Welcome to the FA Cup fourth round clash between Arsenal and Brighton at the Amex Stadium, brought to you by Arsenal’s Official Car And Van Rental Partner Europcar. The Gunners take part in another stand-out clash in this season’s FA Cup, this time …

Arsenal: “You need more than a masters to play against them.”

By Bulldog Drummond “Oh please let us be the exception” Cup cock ups can occur anytime and bring down anyone.  Herbert Chapman knew that with the defeat to Walsall (his last ever FA Cup match incidentally), after which he immediately transferred out of the club the players he felt were responsible. Managers don’t do that …

FA to stop obesity, help children, build pitches and do sensible things. Err….

By Tony Attwood It’s FA Cup weekend in case you didn’t notice, so I had planned to run this final article before the preview of the Brighton Cup match, on the subject of the FA. And I am staying with that – but with the addition of a few results. Chelsea 2 Bradford City 4. …

How broadcasters always screw up by ignoring what football means to the fans

By Tony Attwood OK, if you are not a viewer of English TV or don’t listen to English radio you might not know who Adrian Chiles is, and this article mentions him a lot.  But stay with me, because this is not just about one TV presenter who has been sacked, but about almost all …

Why Arsenal have so many injuries: the complete analysis

By Tony Attwood. On 23 January Danny Higginbotham wrote an article in the Independent newspaper in which he said: I still can’t quite believe what I saw when Jan Vertonghen, of Tottenham Hotspur, was ruled offside for scoring against Sunderland last week, when he had received the ball five or six yards inside his own …

The PGMO v Arsenal – the half time report. How are the refs doing?

by Andrew Crawshaw In the last two articles we have looked at the  matches played so far this season by Arsenal.  In case you missed them you can see the articles here: Part 1 Part 2 Now we pull all these figures together Summary The Good – Mike Jones (Aston Villa v Arsenal) 82% overall …

The fixing of top football matches: how it works and why it is not reported

By Tony Attwood There are two prime ways in which top football matches are fixed. One is the gambling model where people bribe players or refs to fix a game in a particular way, and bet on the outcome. The other is a much more complex system and is often known as Calciopoli after the Italian …

The curious case of an ARSENAL selfie.

ARSENAL 13.   After the ManCity victory Rambo tweets a pic of himself, Giroud, Ox and Per-fect Mertesacker. This was followed by Alexis Selfie or whatever they call it, which sends Liverpool legend into a rantorgasm. He sure loves that, doesn’t he. Understandable he is annoyed seeing ARSENAL win, but this outburst wasn’t necessary. Though …

FA Youth Cup Fourth Round: the match report

FA Youth Cup Fourth Round  Arsenal v Royston Town (2 – 1) Wednesday 21 January   Match Report by Andrew Crawshaw   Royston is a small town bordering Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire population 16,000 approx.  Their Football team are known as the Crows and play non-league football in the Southern League Division One Central.  The club …

Switzerland take a greater interest in Fifa – at last

By Tony Attwood As you may have seen, I’ve taken quite an interest in the Barcelona child trafficking case since Fifa first ruled on it. In one of my comments however I suggested that although Fifa had very much done the right thing in the cases against Barcelona and the Spanish FA, we couldn’t be …

For once, an Untold prediction is right: 6.5 years of Francis Coquelin

By Tony Attwood Francis Coquelin’s agent is now negotiating a new deal for the player at Arsenal, what with his contract running out at the end of the season. Meanwhile the story of Coquelin runs in two different ways depending on whose version you read.  Either Arsenal stumbled from crisis to crisis plucking players here …

The PGMO v Arsenal: the half time report part

This continues our series of articles reviewing the way referees have affected Arsenal games.  Part one of the review is here. The PGMO v Arsenal – the Half Time Report by Andrew Crawshaw This is a series of articles that review the first 19 weeks of the season, who were the referees, were they Good, …

He’s not fit to…

NOT FIT TO……..Domhnal MacMagthamhna The subject of this article is, of course, all our useless deadwood and second rate management that, season-in,season-out, fail to achieve the lofty summits of the Invincibles and who, to boot, are lazy, overpaid and slothful regardless of actual reality. I wanted to review some of these lesser beings in the …

Three comparative Arsenal tactical reviews. Part 1 Arsenal v Liverpool

Arvind I haven’t written for a while for a number of reasons, and felt like writing again recently. As older readers probably (hopefully☺) remember, I tend to focus on the actual football and take a fairly microscopic look at the truth on the football field. Who really did well and who did not, and why? …

Man City 0-2 ARSENAL: player ratings.

By Navnit Man City 0-2 ARSENAL: player ratings. Arsene doesn’t do tactics. He is stubborn. ARSENAL will lose 3 nil. ARSENAL will lose 3-1. ARSENAL lose big games. Its down to the manager, he is responsible for all the big defeats. He is the past. We should look to the future. And when we win …