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 “When we beat Arsenal, we have to wait four weeks after our last league game to play the Cup final.” Steve Clarke, the Reading manager, in his last pre-match press conference. We are the cup holders and in the semi-final again, so it is not surprising to see the statistics …
If you were a football supporter in England in 1985, you will remember the Bradford stadium fire in which 56 people died. At the time we were reminded of the appalling state of many of the lower league grounds that we went to in those days. Indeed I recall a book of football stadia, which …
Read More “The Bradford Stadium fire alleged to have been arson”
By Tony Attwood Manchester City were bought by Sheikh Mansour, with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion with a family fortune of at least $1 trillion, in September 2009. He removed Manchester City’s accumulated debt of over £300m and has since worked, and is continuing to work, on the infrastructure of the …
Read More “The press are telling us Arsenal can win the league. But why can’t Man C?”
By Tony Attwood Having celebrated the record breaking of Mr Wenger and of the club in terms of reaching the most FA Cup semi-finals, and noted that alongside Man U we are the top performers in the Cup (we’ve each won 11 and been runners’ up seven times), I thought I’d move on to this …
Read More “Arsenal v Reading: Reading’s recent form, and other past meetings.”
By Tony Attwood It’s getting a bit boring talking about our record of WWWWWWWWWWW or whatever it is these days so I thought I might try and fill in a bit of time this week by building up to the little ol’ game at Wemberleeee on Saturday. Meanwhile, and speaking of which, although the press …
Read More “Arsenal v Reading: Arsène Wenger extends his FA Cup record”
By Tony Attwood In retrospect it was a pretty dumb thought. One of my dumbest in fact. For it was based on the notion that something which was within the ambit of the semi-skimmed kamikaze-by-proxy fruitcakes who run football would be sensible. And yet somehow after this season’s tough start with players drifting back over …
Read More “Why 2nd and 3rd are more of a trophy than 4th, especially in 2015”
Ladies FA Cup Quarter final. Arsenal v Chelsea By Andrew Crawshaw A report from a sunny but windy BorehamWood ground. Attendance 964 Arsenal Kelly Smith (C), Emma Byrne (GK), Alex Scott, Emma Mitchell, CaseyyEmma Stoney, Vicky Losada, Jordan Nobbs, Danielle Carter, Leah Williamson, Natalia De Pablos Sanchon, Jemma Rose Arsenal and Chelsea were the …
By Tony Attwood Now here’s a thought I missed: David Ospina has a higher win ratio that any other player in Premier League history. It’s been 12 games, with 11 wins and six without a goal again. That is a win percentage of 92 per cent. “No other player in the history of the …
Read More “Columbo and the Columbian; and how a word from Untold can sort out the press.”
By Tony Attwood We have won 16 of our last 18 games in all competitions so we are consistent. We have won eight league games in a row – and you can’t really do better than that. We might well also get Champions League qualification for an 18th consecutive season. These are not bad runs. …
Read More “It’s hard to knock 8 out of 8, and 16/18. But journalists find a way.”
By Tony Attwood (trying hard not to say “I told you so” but failing totally) There is a story about Cesc Fabregas’ first coach at Mataró which say that he did not select Fàbregas for matches against Barcelona because he didn’t want Barcelona scouts to see the player and so sign him. As we know …
Read More “Thierry Henry wipes the floor – and in passing supports Untold’s vision of Coquelin”
By Bulldog Drummond I’m late. Terribly sorry. You see there was this dance in St Neots, and there were these three sisters, and… Anyway today we play Burnley. It should be good. Thank you. —– Hello, Tony here. It seems Bulldog is a little overcome with events so I’m taking over for a moment. Sorry …
Read More “The world famous Untold match preview, Burnley v Arsenal. Well, the match preview anyway”
Blackburn v Arsenal 11 April 2015 – The Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw I am on holiday this week and so this is a much briefer preview than usual. Referee – Mike Dean Assistants – Mssrs Burt and Long Fourth Official – Mr Attwell The referee for tomorrow, as I am sure you …
By Tony Attwood And so we begin our usual weekend wall to wall carpet to door head to tail front to back preview to review analysis and commentary. Or something like that. Anyway here’s the prelims, up next is the ref preview, and after that is something else which I haven’t worked out yet, but …
By Tony Attwood Arsène Wenger really didn’t bother himself with the thought of Man City popping in to pick up Jack Wilshere. He didn’t have to for three very good reasons. First, there is no question of Arsenal not being able to compete in terms of salaries and transfers. If Arsenal want to keep a …
Read More “The chances are there will be no more Sagna’s, RVP’s, Nasri’s…”
By Tony Attwood Ten years ago we knew where we were. Refs made mistakes, but it didn’t matter because it all evened out in the end. Five years ago we knew that referees made mistakes and it most certainly didn’t even out in the end – but no one would talk about it, except us. …
Read More “The world of refereeing utterly and totally shattered”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal is not a top European team. That’s the official word. And yet year on year we get into the last 16, and sometimes the last eight of the Champions League. For the three years from 2008 to 2010 we got to the quarter and semi-finals. Which is more than quite a …
Read More “Just how good is this Arsenal team compared to top clubs in Europe?”
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you will know that about once every couple of weeks I point out that the reason England don’t win tournaments is nothing to do with quotas and the number of youngsters in the Premier League, but instead to do with the coaching. Then, because modesty is …
Read More “What did Arsenal do to bring about this turnaround?”
By Tony Attwood Having played in a reserve team friendly last week, they were out at it again last night, the old guard. Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Abou Diaby, and less we forget the youngsters, Serge Gnabry. All playing for the under 21s (in which the rules are that you can have three over 21s …
By Bootoomee There is nothing new about the media being negatively biased against Arsenal in their reporting of everything that the club does. If we perform well, we get reluctant praise through gritted teeth, with compulsory caveat about us slipping soon. If we fail to win, especially from a winning position, it is always reported …
Read More “The 2014/15 Season’s 4th Place ‘Trophy’ Battle & The Media Hypocrisy”
By Tony Attwood Alexis Sánchez has been involved in 31 goals for us this season. 20 goals 11 assists. Mind you, the way he plays I wouldn’t be surprised if he assisted with his own goals sometimes. Still, not bad for a debut season. And Özil is showing us what he can do. He can score …
Read More “Arsenal about to sign wonderkid Maxi Romero, Cabaye, Wimmer, Khedira, Smalling…”
By Tony Attwood As you may know apart from publishing Untold, I’m also responsible for the History of Arsenal website. Aside from the regular articles about past events and players, and the occasional in depth analyses (for example into Arsenal’s involvement in the changes to the transfer rules and the interesting allegations about the re-arrangement …
Read More “Another Arsenal record broken… looking back at the history of sequences”
Since I posted this article an hour back there have been a couple of comments from Liverpool fans taking issue with what is here. That of course is fine, but I would urge first time visitors to take a look at all the comments here and indeed the home page of this site first. It …
Read More “What do you think they’re smoking over there at Anfield?”
By Bulldog Drummond So, Arsène Wenger has been named Barclays manager of the month and Olivier Giroud player of the month. Which is normally the kiss of death. Liverpool to win 8-0 then. Actually the Arsenal History Society (housed in the same offices as Untold Arsenal) were recently doing some research into Arsenal’s biggest home league …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: the award, the teams, the sequences.”
By Tony Attwood . “Liverpool is one of the superpowers of football,” said their manager this week. Is that true? . Most certainly they have a history to be envied. Between 1977 and 1990 they won the Football League nine times – having done what Arsenal wanted to do after our European and Double exploits …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: “Liverpool is one of the superpowers of football””
Arsenal v Liverpool 4 April 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Here is the updated “Table of Shame” following Walter’s three recent referee reviews :- Kevin Friend Ref Review : QPR – Arsenal – another sub 70% showing with two wrong Important Decisions (second yellow, red cards, penalties and goals) where at the …
Read More “Arsenal v Liverpool: the referee preview. Be afraid, be very afraid.”
