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 You know the world has gone even madder than it was yesterday when you wake up and see the Daily Telegraph (that most sneering, jibing anti-Arsenal of papers) has done a double somersault and turns itsself on its head (if you see what I mean). Of Arsenal against Olympiakos they said, “little …
Read More “What are they smoking at Anfield? (And Fleet Street)”
By Bulldog Drummond I rather like the new phrase on Untold Arsenal: “Evidence based football reporting”, and as anticipated a survey of the media this morning shows very little of it. Endless opinion of course, but very very few stats. Indeed the few that I have found seem to involve journalists knocking Arsene Wenger …
Read More “Arsenal v Man U: the evidence based preview of the game”
The Referee Preview by Andrew Crawshaw Following Usama and Walter’s review of the Chelsea game Ref Review : Chelsea – Arsenal. How Mike Dean & Co screwed an entire game… here is the updated table of shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 7 Red Cards 0 6 Penalties 0 …
Read More “Arsenal vs Manchester Utd. Expect elbowing and wrestling with impunity.”
By Tony Attwood . Gary Neville has written a little piece in the Telegraph about how the only thing that Arsenal need to change in order to win the league is their preparation before a match. . As is the way with the modern Telegraph article it is a piece full of pictures (because we …
Read More “Gary Neville the telepathic footballer, and the drive towards evidence based analysis”
By Tony Attwood When Arsène Wenger arrived on his first day at work at Highbury, he found, somewhat to his surprise, that there was a large gathering of journalists on the steps of the Marble Halls. Enquiring within why they were there, he was told that no, this was not how press conferences were held …
Read More “At last, after years of our waiting, Arsène Wenger changes his approach.”
By Tim Charlesworth So the Goonersphere is full of hysteria and disappointment again. Olympiacos was a horrible game and a horrible performance, however you look at it. We’re all full of blame and recriminations. The hysterical attacks on Wenger for picking Ospina are plain silly, as if to imply that it was predictable that …
Read More “Hysteria and disappointment: the defence of Piers Morgan”
By Tony Attwood Platini is no revolutionary but a hindrance to true change at rotten Fifa That headline from the Daily Telegraph marked an interesting moment in the history of commentary on Uefa and Fifa, one of the first articles that turned against Platini in the English press, and which started to question Uefa. And …
Read More “It looks like Platini and the FA are made for each other.”
By Tony Attwood Theo Walcott has scored 12 goals in his last 13 Premier League starts. It is the sort of scoring that takes the mind back to someone like the incredible Jack Lambert who in Arsenal’s first ever league winning season scored 38 league goals in 34 games. That was in 1930/31, and I …
Read More “As the entity behind shouted “You’re useless Walcott” a dark despair overwhelmed me”
By Tony Attwood So for the second Champions League match running we are playing a club whose ownership is deeply involved in scandals and corruption allegations. Oh well, so it goes. Funny that the press in the UK don’t seem overly concerned. Why is that I wonder. But at least we have our banner …
Read More “Football Should Be An Art: Tonight’s match against the rather dubious Olympiakos”
By Tony Attwood On a day when yet more illegal activity swirls around Barcelona (even more than I managed to cover last night in what I thought would be a full review of their activity – as Gord pointed out in comments on yesterday’s article), and on a day when we play a club whose …
Read More “FOOTBALL should be an ART. The Untold Banner is unveiled tonight at the Emirates Stadium”
By Tony Attwood Catalonia didn’t actually hold a referendum on independence recently; it held elections to the regional assembly. As a result the main separatist alliance and a smaller nationalist party won 72 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament. So they won most of the seats, although they didn’t get half the vote. Such …
Read More “Barcelona to be excluded from Spanish League; Neymar assets frozen, Messi injured”
By Tony Attwood “A willingness to attack, a high velocity, and sophistication.” That is by and large what today’s Guardian report on on Arsenal says. But I am going to highlight a handful of other things that can out of yesterday’s game. First the number of shots. Arsenal have more shots than anyone else per game. …
Read More “The exact reasons why Arsenal came good – so very good at Leicester”
By Tony Attwood Yes we sure did our bit. As of saturday morning over 102,000 people had signed the petition demanding that Dean never again can do an Arsenal game. Now we shall see what PGMO does. If you still haven’t signed the petition is still there. Follow the link from the home page. The …
Read More “The lovely Tinkerman against the Arsenal as Dean petition passes 100,000!”
By Tony Attwood As expected the Swiss authorities have started criminal proceedings against Sepp Blatter. Just as expected Platini has been asked to provide information. Here’s the statement… “On the one hand, the OAG suspects that on 12 September 2005 Mr. Joseph Blatter has signed a contract with the Caribbean Football Union; this contract was …
Read More “Slowly the finger points at England over Fifa corruption”
Leicester v Arsenal 26 September – the Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Firstly here is the updated Table of Shame following the review of the Stoke game refereed by Jonathan Moss. Two wrong Important decisions right at the end of the game with the not given penalty and sending off of Pieters for wrestling Giroud …
Read More “Leicester v Arsenal 26 September – the Match Officials and the table of shame”
By Tony Attwood It had to happen sometime: Barcelona currently banned from making transfers are begging Fifa to allow them to play Arda Turan, now. Turan was signed in the last transfer window as Barcelona found a loophole in their banning order realising they could sign the player, but simply not play him. Now they argue …
By Tony Attwood In a recent article Blacksheep asked, What is wrong with football. I was re-reading this and found myself asking “what is wrong with football supporters?” I found myself asking why commentators on this site sometimes find it necessary to write, “if you think x you are an idiot,” where x is fairly obviously, …
By Tony Attwood 1: Kane isn’t scoring Apparently on Tottenham’s tour of Australia, so many fans buzzed around Kane while he was shopping he had to be rescued by minibus. And so highly esteemed is he in tot-land this season in plays in Adebayor’s old shirt which he told the Telegraph he had adopted in …
Read More “Ten things we learned at the ground of the tiny totts”
By Bulldog Drummond. First the afternoon result: Arsenal under 18s 5 Tiny Tottenhams 3. Our goals from Fortune, Nelson, Robinson (2), Nketiah. And so here we are again, at the soon to be closed for repairs White Hart Lane. And here we are with a team in the League Cup which is probably not going …
Read More “Arsenal 5 Tiny Totts 3. And now its the teeny weeny cup”
Let’s see the funny side Tim Charlesworth I’m really going to stick my neck out here, and post a defence of public enemy number one, Jose Mourinho. Everything I have ever read about this highly successful manager suggests that he is a perfectly reasonable chap, who spends time with his family, and has a sense …
— The petition “Prevent Mike Dean from refereeing another Arsenal game” now has almost 90,000 signatures. Please sign up if you agree. —- Watching newspapers jump left and right as they try to work out which way the bandwagon is rolling is never an edifying site, but it can on occasion be amusing – in …
Mahdain Ignoring facts and turning a blind eye to further an agenda Let it be known that I am writing this while I am still seething from the extreme injustice that we faced yesterday. It has happened far too often for my liking and still nothing has being done about it. You would have thought …
Read More “Ignoring facts and turning a blind eye to further an agenda”
By Tony Attwood Once upon a time the mainstream media was there to tell us some news. In football terms that meant giving the football results and having a factual run-down of the match. Now we don’t need that because we have the internet, so instead the mainstream aims to hold its position by telling …
By Tony Attwood The season before last I watched a Chelsea shot going away from the goal, and then be handballed. The referee sent a player off, which is the wrong punishment because the punishment for deliberate handball which does not prevent a goal is a yellow card. But worse, his lack of vision of …
Read More “PGMO 2 Arsenal 0: why on earth should we even bother to play the matches?”
by Bulldog Drummond Jose Mourinho, hero of the aaa, said recently,”Normally when bad results happen the first thing that comes into your laptops, iPads and pens is to find a dramatic story: ‘Somebody punch somebody in the dressing room’, ‘The manager doesn’t want to speak with this guy’. “‘Diego Costa fought with John Terry and …
