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 Yesterday around 50 people died attempting to enter a football match in Egypt. But you’ll be hard pressed to find much detail in the media this morning – even on the endlessly updated websites of the mainsteam press. With football, it seems, in England at least, we have shut off our …
Read More “When absolute tragedy overwhelms what do the press say?”
By Tony Attwood “I totally respect the Premier League as a successful business that generates an enormous amount of income and brings some of the best players in the world to these shores,” said the shadow sports minister in the UK, Clive Efford, recently. “But the way the finances are sucked in perpetuates a culture …
Read More “Right, transfer window over, lets start the Arsenal bashing”
By Tony Attwood On Friday last week the bids for the future rights for football on TV were opened. And yet result and announcement was there none. Partly this is because the old days of Lord Sugar are over. The story is that at the time of the first entry of Sky he telephoned Sky …
Read More “Yet more money is about to pour into football. So what will happen?”
Its a funny old game. Mr Usmanov, the richest man in Russia and the second biggest shareholder in Arsenal has just loaned the Russian FA nearly £4m so that they can pay that old art collector Fabio Capello (whose collection is said to be worth £10m+) his back wages. Mr U said, “I think the situation …
Read More “World football in a bit of a tizz; Mr Usmanov steps in.”
Spurs v Arsenal 07 February 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly following Walter’s reviews of Mssrs. Moss (Arsenal v Stoke) and Dean (City v Arsenal) here is the updated Table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 14 Red Cards 3 13 Penalties 3 14 Goals …
EXPLANATION OF ZONAL MARKING SYSTEM. By Bob Macdonald I am qualified Uefa grade ‘A’ coach, and have vast experience both coaching and managing at a fairly high level. My observations are in fact no more than that, and I would be the last person to suggest I know more than the next person. However I …
Read More “Few people who criticise Zonal Marking actually understand what it means”
On the anniversary of one of the most bizarre referee performances of all time, I thought I’d look at whether the media has changed its stance of late. . By Tony Attwood . A lot of the problem about the debate concerning referees is the very curious way the media follow it up. . For …
Read More “Chelsea complain, Man U complain. But hush, don’t talk about refs.”
By Tony Attwood To some people all Arsenal did in the transfer window was bought Krystian Bielik and Gabriel Paulista. Maybe – but what is the result? According to TransferMarket.co.uk it means we have a squad that is worth £343.02m. Some players have increased in value since we bought them (Ospina is now worth £6.16m …
Read More “The value of each squad, the transfer fee oddities and multiple loans.”
By Tony Attwood I’ll come to the dodgy and indeed the very very dodgy in a moment, but first, a headline from the Daily Telegraph. “Arsene Wenger failed to land a single player before the window shut – despite links to a host of stars across Europe.” Yes, well, considering that Mr Wenger had already …
Read More “All the dodgy doings you might have missed on deadline day”
By Tony Attwood Every day we get comments on Untold which criticise either one or more Arsenal players, or our manager, or the management team. As I have said many, many times before, we will publish such commentaries, but only when backed up by some logic, stats or reasoned argument. Just calling someone at Arsenal …
By Tony Attwood It struck me as Blacksheep and I walked back from the game to Archway underground station, what a warped vision of football is created by the arrant nonsense that is pumped out by so many blogs and the newspapers each day, with their endless story that the only thing that matters is the …
Read More “Villa’s problem, Arsenal’s six injuries and the cost of January transfers”
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: …
Read More “The difficult task of fitting in all the players: Arsenal v Villa”
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 …
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 …
Read More “Tiny Arsène, Arteta signs, we’re buying Suarez, and dictionary lackadaisicals latest”
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 …
Read More “The three ways of fixing matches in the Premier League”
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 …
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 …
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. …
Read More “The transfer window deadline has been pre-recorded”
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 …
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 …
Read More “Gabriel Paulista: he has the work permit, and the medical should be done by now.”
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 …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal, played at Falmer (near the sea)”
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 …
Read More “Arsenal: “You need more than a masters to play against them.””
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. …
Read More “FA to stop obesity, help children, build pitches and do sensible things. Err….”
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 …
Read More “How broadcasters always screw up by ignoring what football means to the fans”
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 …
Read More “Why Arsenal have so many injuries: the complete analysis”
