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 Walter Broeckx The current PL season still has some 10 matches to go and a few Wembley outings hopefully but the first news about the season 2015-2016 has been made public today. And so we see that Arsenal will play together with Everton, Stoke City and a Singapore Select XI team for the Barclays Asia …
By Walter Broeckx We know that some people only take a look at the last 30 minutes to decide if you are any good or total rubbish. At Untold we try to be a bit more balanced. We certainly will not say that Giroud is a complete waste of space when he misses a few …
By Walter Broeckx A lot of changes compared with the team that beat QPR last Wednesday. Szczesny came in the place of Ospina and Koscielny and Monreal came in the place of Gabriel and Monreal. Oxlade-Chamberlain came in the palce of Rosicky and up front Welbeck came in the place of Giroud. The starting line …
Read More “Fa Cup : Mu – Arsenal 1-2, we are going to Wembley! Again”
By Walter Broeckx Apart from the FA cup matches that have been played up to now there was not much football around. The noisy neighbours went to QPR and won. The ref at the whistle seemingly being blinded when some things happened in the tiny penalty area. Lloris bringing a striker down without a penalty …
By Walter Broeckx The life behind the scenes of Untold is sometimes very funny. After my article that I had written about Wenger I read a comment that said that it was a “Very AKB written article”. I think I will take this as a compliment then. He was first time poster so he can …
By Walter Broeckx From time to time I get interesting mails from people who send me links or extracts to things they have read on the internet. And I am grateful for this because I do tend to stay away from the serious media as much as possible but in order to be able to …
Read More “Arsène Wenger is more than a manager, he is part of the soul of our club”
By Jerry Mesut Özil is an amazing player in my opinion that has received unfair criticism from the media since his arrival from Real Madrid last year. The criticism, in my opinion, has been over the top and I have failed to understand why. Is it because of the huge transfer fee, contribution to the …
By Walter Broeckx How strange football can be is something that we see from time to time. Apart from Tony who has seen his quality all these years ago when his vision was much sharper than it was recently most of thought that Coquelin was a lost cause. Coming to Arsenal at the age of …
Ref for this match was Mike Jones Mr. Jones certainly wasn’t at his best in this match. After two early fouls not much happened till Upson pulled Alexis down with a holding offence around the neck when he could have gone one on one with the last defender in the middle of the goal was …
By Walter Broeckx Before the match some people might have said that we should beat QPR with our fingers in our nose (as the expression is in my mother language). Meaning it should be an easy win. One you don’t have to make any effort, just turn up and you will get the 3 points. …
By Walter Broeckx A few changes as one could expect but maybe not the changes one expected. Per Mertesacker comes back in the team in the place of Koscielny and so Gabriel stays in the team. I wonder if it has something to do with the tendonitis that Koscielny has and that maybe makes it …
By Walter Broeckx First article on this can be found here In the previous article I looked at how one journalist in the Guardian was arguing that no one should be criticising referees. Continuing to look at that article I have to go to his words on saying that referees are needed just as crossbars …
Read More “1984: it is forbidden to talk about referees. Part 2 – why it is wrong to stay silent”
By Walter Broeckx I think I have mentioned the book 1984 before. As Tony has done many times. It is not the best book I have ever read. But it is a very intriguing book. One that makes you want to look further than what the mass media are shoving down our throat. And one …
Read More “1984: It is forbidden to talk about….referees – part 1”
By Walter Broeckx A few changes compared to our last match. Gabriel comes in the team and Mertesacker drops to the bend and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain comes in the place of Danny Welbeck. Cazorla will be the captain for this match today. So the team was : Ospina, Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Cazorla, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, …
By Walter Broeckx In November 2014 I wrote a short series of articles to the effect that the PL was not that superior league that we all think it is. . They can be found here, there and everywhere if you want to read them first. I linked this to the year of 2009 with …
Read More “PL decline seems to continue, media helps to keep our heads in the sand”
In case you have not come across this series before, we have reviewed hundreds of matches over the past few years – both matches involving Arsenal and those not. At the end of the seasons we’ve also compared the way referees have handled different teams. Ref for this match was Martin Atkinson A few interesting …
By Walter Broeckx The Arsenal team that started this match against Monaco was Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Cazorla, Sanchez, Ozil, Welbeck, Giroud. On the bench we had Szczesny, Gabriel, Monreal, Chambers, Rosicky, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott. Arsenal started rather well with an early chance for Welbeck who turned good but his shot sailed over the …
Read More “Oh lady Luck, where have you gone to? Missed chances cost us dear”
By Walter Broeckx Yesterday the story was on Arsenal.com about the first time Wenger visited Arsenal. The article can be found clicking on this link For those who don’t want to click I will tell you that Wenger visited Arsenal at Highbury for the first time in 1989. On 2 January to be exact. As he …
Read More “Wenger, Monaco and Arsenal : a strange love story”
Don McMahon A number of Gooners have asked about how referees get promoted to the top of their profession so I am humbly submitting my experience and will happily accept any corrections our readers can bring to my attention. I will be speaking in general for both genders and North America officials but worldwide for …
By Walter Broeckx 1. Sanchez grew up at Tocopilla a small town north of the capital Santiago de Chile. The name Tocopilla means in fact ‘The Devils corner’. Devilish because the little town is divided in two parts in between a big power plant and a saltpeper factory so not the most healthy environment to …
In the last article we looked at how Mourinho is playing games with the media, the FA and PGMO. All this – and indeed the whole threat of Type III match fixing (in which club owners seek to persuade refs to hinder the progress of other clubs, rather than fix the results of their …
Read More “Other countries are more open than the PL and the PGMO”
By Walter Broeckx For this match we had the following 11 players in the starting line up : Ospina, Chambers, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Cazorla, Welbeck, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud. On the beach we had : Szczesny, Gibbs, Bellerin, Gabriel, Wilshere, Rosicky, Walcott. So a few changes with Ooooospina coming back in goal for Szczesny. Chambers …
Read More “Crystal Palace – Arsenal, too close at the end but 3 golden points”
By Walter Broeckx and Tony Attwood Over the years we have been talking a lot about referees. Now one of our most favoured persons over those years was Mike Dean. And I have given many possible reasons for why referees might be biased against Arsenal. We suspect one of the reasons was and is still …
Read More “How the passing of time has affected the way Arsenal is refereed.”
By Don McMahon The core issue with being an official is one’s integrity. IF the referee or his/her assistants lack the moral courage and integrity, even in making a difficult but self-evident call on the field, even ONCE, then they are certainly very susceptible to being ” influenced” by those who make it their profession …
Read More “A referee’s dilemma: do you report the corruption of your colleagues?”
By Walter Broeckx A few days ago Tony pointed at the (amazing) fact that Untold has published 5000 articles since it all started on 14 January 2008 with the first article. I must say that around the turn of the year I noticed that we were approaching this number. And I decided to write an article about it. …
Read More “Some late celebratory thoughts: long may it continue”
