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
Newcastle v Arsenal 29 August 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Towards the end of last season Tony and a few others here at Untold were saying that they had detected a change in the way our games were being officiated, with fewer rotten decisions being given against Arsenal. At the time I countered that …
By Tony Attwood Changing managers. Does that help a club? The media as usual are perfidious on the subject, the blogettes are as usual blinkered. But it is worth having a look to see what we can find. The questions are, does history show that changing managers helps, is it financially viable, and does it …
Read More “The media and the blogettes want Mr Wenger sacked. So what would happen next?”
Why Aren’t All Clubs Run for Trophies? By Sir Hardly Anyone. Well, bless my soul. The Bleacher Report has sent me an item on Facebook which appears at its heart to turn the whole world of economics upside. Now I know as well as the next knight of the realm that economic predictions only exist …
Read More “The mindless gibberish of a man with an idea but without logic or reason.”
By Tony Attwood A couple of years back I took up an opportunity to add a bit of variety to my working life by joining with a friend in setting up a small house restoration business. Since my previous employment has involved the theatre, lecturing, and running an advertising agency, a training organisation, a publishing …
Read More “Yesterday hasn’t happened yet, but when it does we’ll bend reality. Or ignore it.”
OFFICIALS & INTIMIDATION…………………………Don McMahon As you may know I was an official in the NASL and we had our share of attempted intimidation and confrontation with some pretty nasty specimens (manager, players, owners etc.) whose unique approach to Football was to bitch at the referee or assistants in order to try and hair dry …
By Tony Attwood It is a funny ol’ game. Or maybe something a little more sinister than that. We’ve been doing referee reviews for five years now, including that one season where we had a whole group of referees who supported different teams, analysing matches across the league, and as a result we have been …
Read More “Liverpool set fair to win the league on phantom goals”
By Bulldog Drummond For today’s game the Guardian had a lovely vision of this match… “Enter Brendan Rodgers, accompanied by some notably discordant music.” I love that as a starter. But I wish they wouldn’t then drift into stuff like, “It had been only a few months previously that Arsène Wenger had been heckled by …
Read More “Enter Brendan Rodgers, accompanied by some notably discordant music”
By Bulldog Drummond Here’s a thought to kick off the day. Yesterday (Sunday) Untold Arsenal got over 100,000 page views in one day for the first time ever. Quite a lot of reading really. The average person read two pages – so just over 50,000 visitors in a day. A lot of excitement this …
Read More “Arsenal v the team whose owner says football contracts are worth nothing”
By Tony Attwood It is always interesting to look at the project that is Manchester City, not just because they are seemingly creating a new brand of football development, but also because of the commentaries we always get back. When Untold covers Tottenham, for example, we get a mix of abuse and serious debate, the …
Read More “Manchester City and this summer’s FFP regulations.”
Arsenal v Liverpool Monday 24 August 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly a reminder that Arsenal U21s will play their next game at the Emirates against West Ham on Friday 28 August evening Kick off 19:00 Tickets are on general sale at a cost of £4 (£2 concessions). Here is a link …
By Sir Hardly Anyone On the day after Mr Wenger said that no deal was imminent a quick look around by the spoof sites shows me that either a) Mr Wenger is deliberately being economical with the truth b) Mr Wenger doesn’t know what is going on in the club c) We are in the …
By Tony Attwood “Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger says the club’s season will get better and the focus is on improving existing strengths, not buying new players.” That’s the story that has been out and about in the press of late, and it is pretty much what you might expect. There has also been the Wenger: …
Read More “Don’t be fooled by the press: it is not all about buying a new player”
By Tony Attwood . If I told you that as the final whistle for Arsenal 0 Fulham 0 a small element of the crowd booed, you might look at the score and think, well, not surprising. . It was a frustrating game in which the visitors parked the bus and waited for the break, and …
Read More “Lies more lies and lies again: the story of booing the Arsenal.”
Tim Charlesworth I was recently on holiday in Madrid and took the opportunity to tour the Bernebau stadium (Real Madrid) with my son. It was interesting to look at a famous stadium and compare it to our own. My first impression was how small the stadium seemed (narrower, but also higher than the Emirates/Grove). This …
Read More “On visiting Real Madrid: thoughts on expanding the Emirates Stadium.”
By Tony Attwood Why did the ref not send Coquelin off in the match against Palace? Of course there can be many reasons offered, ranging from the fact that he didn’t deserve to be sent off, through to the notion that the ref didn’t see the fouls as yellow card offences, and on to something …
Read More “The great Pardew intervention: how Pardew ensured that Coquelin was NOT sent off.”
By Tony Attwood Remember Gonzalo Higuaín? In 2013 Arsenal were pronounced by the press to be about to sign him. It was everywhere all the time, non stop. So non-stop that even Untold (or to be more precise, me,) said that “it looks like we are signing Higuaín,” which was rather embarrassing because I was the one who …
Read More “The Telegraph pronounces: “Real Madrid accept £48m offer for Karim Benzema.””
Can Arsenal Win the League this Season? What is the Long Term Trend? By Pete I have noticed that, over recent history, Arsenal seem to be more successful in seasons leading up to major international championships than in seasons following them. For example we can see that we won the League in 1998, 2002 and …
Read More “Can Arsenal Win the League this Season? Here are the factors it depends on.”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal have agreed to loan Gedion Zelalem to Rangers until January or for the whole season. With every position in the first team covered not just covered by a back up player but also by players who can play well in more than one position, promising youngsters are going through the academy …
By Tony Attwood Untold Arsenal, as the banner headline on the site suggests, presents football news from an Arsenal perspective. But as publisher of the site, I’ve always had the vision that we could do more than that, by picking up issues that others ignore and seeing where they lead. Of course when I launched …
Read More “How the media is destroying football day by day by day”
By Tony Attwood Once upon a time having foreign players in the Arsenal team meant having a couple of full backs whose name began “Mc”. Then came the EU, then Bosman, and suddenly clubs woke up to the fact that one could sign players without thinking so much about where they came from. Which then …
WENGER IN, WENGER OUT, WENGER IS NOW OUT & ABOUT………..Don McMahon Don’t you just LOVE it! One defeat and the aaa are gleefully screaming from the rooftops about relegation, failure, disgrace, incompetence, Wenger’s time is up etc. Here are a few reality checks they need to stem their tide of offal and bitter bile against …
Read More “WENGER IN, WENGER OUT, WENGER IS NOW OUT & ABOUT”
By Tony Attwood Very unusually, the BBC picked no less than three Arsenal players for its team of the weekend. First off was Santi Cazorla, of whom the Corporation said, “Only team-mate Mesut Özil (five) created more chances this weekend in the Premier League than Cazorla (four). “After last week’s somewhat inept performance against the …
Read More “The Arsenal Golden Triple, double victories, perfidious journalists”
By Bulldog Drummond And so the FA Cup (won by Arsenal for the last two seasons and tipped by Untold – although probably no one else – to do it for a third successive season) has started with matches including the likes of Leicester Nirvana, Coventry Sphinx, Jarrow Roofing Bolden CA, and West Allotment Celtic. Meanwhile …
By Tony Attwood I don’t claim to be a fount of all knowledge, but in publishing Untold Arsenal with its audience of 1 million page views a month I do feel the need to keep up. And when the Benzema story first broke I felt a certain amount of unease. I felt, surely this is wrong. …
By Tony Attwood Last night Arsenal under 21s beat Fulham 1-0 at the Emirates. It was a terrific game full of the most amazing skills from incredibly talented players; an absolute joy to watch. It was one of those games where right up to the 86th minute when Zelalem scored there was a doubt if …
Read More “Arsenal 1 Fulham: but the low crowd suggests cost of entry isn’t the issue”
