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 According to those who don’t like Mr Wenger, the Arsenal transfer policy doesn’t work. Wenger is lazy, won’t spend money, and each time there is a player to get, we let someone else get him. As I have been trying to point out all year, there are some big problems with this …
Liverpool v Arsenal 21 December 2014 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Now Walter has posted his referee review of Mr Dean’s sorry performance in the Arsenal v United game – Imagine a ref who only gets half his decisions right: Arsenal – MU ref review here is the updated Table of Shame. Still …
Read More “Liverpool v Arsenal 21 Dec 2014 – The Match Officials. Don’t expect penalties!”
A Friday Night Rummage By Tony Attwood Image a club – one of the biggest in the land in which… There is a constant shortage of money, so that every couple of months the club has to find another million or three in order just to pay the players (the season ticket money long since …
By Tony Attwood And so, continuing the approach to Liverpool Reds (as one of their owners called them not so long ago) against Arsenal, here’s an update on the team… Theo might travel. That is not the same as saying he is even on the bench, and certainly not to say he will start, but …
By Tony Attwood Some mornings the world is full of shocks. Like the headline in the Telegraph. Liverpool betrayed small-club mentality in allowing Arsenal to sign Alexis Sanchez Liverpool being knocked by the Arsenal-hating idea-stealing Telegraph? Well, quite possibly not, because when you come to think of it that headline somehow suggests that we only …
Read More “A “small club mentality” or are players actually people after all?”
By Tony Attwood Arsene Wenger has made the point that Suarez ain’t doing so well in Barcelona because of the dominance of Lionel Messi in the Barcelona team. Suarez has scored once in seven games this season which is not really what is wanted after spending £80m or so. Of course he is playing out …
Read More “Why Suarez flopped at Barce, why transfers are tough, and silly stories”
From the moment Barcelona were found guilty of child trafficking for a second time they announced that they would appeal to the Court of Arbitration in Sport. Technically the appeal would be against the decision of the FIFA Appeals Committee to confirm the decision taken by the FIFA Disciplinary Chamber in which the club was …
Read More “Barcelona sneaks in secret hearing with Arbitration Court”
By Tony Attwood It is a regular complaint made about Untold: the main writers are too pro-Wenger, too biased, and surely should be more middle of the road, able to applaud when the manager, the team, the board and the catering team get it right, and condemn when they don’t. Unfortunately such an analysis doesn’t …
Read More “Amazing what a couple of convincing wins can do.”
By Tony Attwood It’s Arsenal v Monaco – “after the draw was incredibly kind to the Gunners” according to the Independent. The games will be Wednesday 25 February: Arsenal vs Monaco Tuesday 17 March:Monaco vs Arsenal Arsène Wenger made his name in Monaco, and won Ligue 1 with them in 1987-88. But as the table below shows, although …
Read More “Cue pictures of Arsène as a young manager and suggestions it is a doddle”
By Tony Attwood The current prediction is that the Tiny Totts are going to be the big spenders in January. Or Man U. Or Man C. Or QPR. Or indeed Arsenal. Of course it depends which paper you read. I’ll come back to Arsenal in a mo, but first… QPR certainly have the desperation, …
The AAA a case study: the man from row 9 Tony alluded to this incident in his post Newcastle article where he also highlighted the very vocal support for our manager. I was one of the many in the North Bank who were chanting ‘One Arsene Wenger!’ as we beat Alan de Pardieux’s* Bar Codes …
By Tony Attwood I have put forward the argument several times that fans can influence a team, and that one of the simplest, easiest ways to bring your team down is to boo them, jeer them and criticise them publicly. As we know, the jeering of Arsenal by Arsenal fans at Highbury really annoyed Herbert …
Read More “The impact of fans on a team, and the doings of Ian Wright”
Bulldog Drummond There are some interesting historical perspectives for Arsenal against the Newcastle zebras, like for example 6 December 1997 [sorry there was a misprint when this was first published and it said 1987] when Arsenal beat Newcastle U away 1-0 in a sequence in which we won just two out of eight, but still went on …
Read More “Arsenal v the Zebras; just like when we won the Double.”
Arsenal v Newcastle – 16 December 2014 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Referee – Lee Mason Assistants – S Burt & A Halliday Fourth Official – R East The Referee appointments for Arsenal games don’t get any better, but for followers of Untold that will hardly come as a surprise. Mr …
Premier League referees have to stop bottling decisions or someone is going to get seriously hurt Wow. Take a look at that headline. Apart from the fact that the style is not very Untold, it could have been written on this site. But it wasn’t. Which is quite remarkable. Because it shows that whereas …
Read More “Suddenly the debate about referees is on, big time”
By Tony Attwood Liverpool’s position in football at the moment is of interest to Arsenal because the two clubs have done things very differently of late – and received different coverage in the press. Arsenal, endlessly accused of not spending, have continued to act with caution even when buying. The extra defenders that most people …
Read More “One fine win for us, and a cockup for them, and the media’s off…”
Dear Santa – My Arsenal Wish List By Andrew Crawshaw 1. A new Centre Back, preferably with proven Premier League Experience – to provide support to Per and Kos and to enable Chambers to grow into the role gradually. Must be a battler and not prone to rushes of blood to the head. 2. A …
By Billy the Dog McGraw, Chief Psychologist at the University Hospital of the North Circular Road I received the call just before kick off. Something, I was told, was going to “kick off”. “Yes,” I replied, “I know, I’m a doctor. It’s called the kick off. It’s a football thing.” But the caller explained that Arsenal …
Read More “Hilarious Sky, Muddled Merse, Nervous Nicholas and Krazy Claude”
By Tony Attwood Imagine just for a moment that you were invited by a country that is applying to be part of Uefa to help them put their footballing on a sound basis. You’d probably take the standard model of three or four organisations, one which ran the league, one (probably a trade union) which …
Read More “How we can show that refereeing in the Premier League has gone wrong”
By Tony Attwood This is the month when we are supposed to see the first impact of the new Premier League Financial Fair Play rules but there seems to be a significant silence surrounding these – and I have wondered if the Premier League is taking steps backwards, or has simply decided to ditch the …
Read More “Man C, QPR, Leicester, Man U, Leeds… yes it is FFP season again.”
By Tony Attwood Following a football match at home by getting summaries from Sky every five minutes is not really very good for your health. Or at least I am not too sure it is very good for my health. The panellists on the show were bubbling with glee and joy at the demise of …
Stoke v Arsenal 6 December 2014 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Referee – Anthony Taylor Assistants – J Collin and I Hussin Fourth Official – R East Anthony Taylor – Mr Taylor is a Cheshire FA referee, he was born in 1978 and (possibly for his extreme bias against Arsenal) is now FIFA …
By Tony Attwood There is of course transfer news and transfer news – much of it made up by drunken hacks meandering around parts of East London, unable to believe their luck at having a job in which they invent tripe, get paid for it, and find (amazingly) that people believe it. Indeed as one …
Read More “Benik Afobe – and others who might join Arsenal.”
By Tony Attwood Last night, for the Southampton match, I bought a ticket for the game for a friend, using my silver membership. It was a lower tier in the East Stand and cost £28.00. Personally I don’t think that was too bad – when you buy a ticket you don’t know what you …
Read More “Does the price of last night’s ticket actually matter?”
By Bulldog Drummond In the good old days, the very good very old days, when a player went down injured on the pitch an old boy (usually a wizened guy who had finished playing 30 years before and who had no medical qualifications whatsoever) would trot onto the pitch carrying a bucket full of iced …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton; everyone’s injured (as always)”
