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
Guest appearance By Mike T Its one of those things that you say “ok yes” and you think you will do something but after an hour or two when reality kicks in you think to yourself why on earth did I agree to do that? I thought I better point out that Tom Cruise I …
Read More “The unofficial referee review: Leicester – Arsenal or Mission Impossible”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal drawing at Leicester is when you look at our recent history not that strange. As in the pre match article we pointed out even the invincibles had to settle for a 1-1 draw. And when you look at the fact that that season Arsenal won the league unbeaten and Leicester went …
HE GOT THE BALL……by Don McMahon Recently, there has been a lot of debate about a statement that pundits, media types and commentators on TV and other media regularly use to justify a serious foul during play, often committed in a manner that is excessively dangerous and careless/reckless. As Tony mentioned to me in a …
Read More “But….. he got the ball (or “It’s the consequences squire, not the intent””
By Walter Broeckx As you may recall from an earlier post, a few months ago I was voted chairman of the Arsenal Belgium official supporters club. Since then our new board has done an amazing job. We have used all the resources we had on social media and our own website to spread the word …
By Walter Broeckx So Arsenal have done it again. For the 17th consecutive year we have managed to qualify for the CL group stages. And we all know how important that is for a club like ours. As long as we are paying for the stadium it will be an important part of the income …
Read More “Showing character is as important as playing nice football”
By Walter Broeckx Well that was an interesting match I think. Just as in Turkey we didn’t get it handed over on a platter. It was hard work from the start to the finish. Not helped by a ref who just as the one in Turkey managed to go from brillant to blind within seconds. …
Read More “Alexis on the score sheet, Arsenal go in the group stage”
By Walter Broeckx After a few articles about our match against Everton a few interesting discussions could be read in the comment section. I thought it would be interesting to go in to this matter a bit deeper. As an assistant with over 100 matches done including teams of the Jupiler League in Belgium I …
Read More “Everton, the assistant, carrying the flag and an experiment”
by Don McMahon The above expression is a direct translation from a local French expression (I bet Walter knows it and maybe has a similar one in Flemish as well) and it basically means that a double-standard is being applied to some decision or judgement or use of tools that need to be encouraged. In …
Read More “One weight, two measures: double standards on the field.”
By Walter Broeckx Referee : Kevin Friend Date 23/08/2014 At the start of this match it seemed that the ref got an easy game. No real fouls. I think he fell asleep after some 10 minutes and then when he had to act he lost his touch somehow. There was hardly a foul being committed …
By Walter Broeckx Yes it’s over. What is over? The season. Why do I know this? Ah because the experts told me so. Which experts? Ah the self declared experts on twitter and facebook and even on Untold they can be seen. This is where we stand today. And tomorrow. The season is over because …
Read More “Warning: get to the life boats, woman and children first”
By Walter Broeckx If we compare this match with the one on Saturday it is almost unbelievable that the final score was 0-0. From the first second and you can take this literally: it was an open match. Ba trying to shoot directly at goal from the kick off and if it wasn’t for an …
By Walter Broeckx As I couldn’t see the match live as I was appointed to do a match as a referee myself at the same kick off time as the Arsenal match I had to see the match already knowing the final score. So the tension then is missing a bit compared to seeing it …
By Walter Broeckx Match: Arsenal – Crystal Palace Ref: Jonathon Moss Date 16/08/2014 So the PL is underway again and so are our referee reviews. Only of Arsenal matches this season. Another interesting fact is that the predictions in our referee review were again rather spot on. After a promising start ref Moss is …
Read More “The Untold Referee review: Arsenal – Crystal Palace”
By Walter Broeckx Last year around this time the non-existing AAA were all over the place. Predicting their gloom and doom. The main point of their reasoning was: as long as Wenger is here we will never win another trophy. I remember that I even wrote a few articles about it. Saying that if you …
By Walter Broeckx The first thing I have to say is that I wrote this article two days before the match against Manchester City for the Community Shield. So as I write I don’t know the result. If we won against City you will understand that I will be over the moon. If not… then …
Read More “Football is not always about today (and why good things happen in threes).”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal started this first chance to win a trophy with the following team: Szczesny, Debuchy, Chambers, Koscielny, Gibbs, Arteta, Wilshere, Ramsey, Alexis, Cazorla, Sanogo. So a first start for Alexis in the first match with something at stake. And Sanogo was preferred to Giroud after his 4 goals in the Emirates cup …
By Walter Broeckx I must admit that when I saw the first mention on twitter about Howard Webb retiring I thought it was a joke. It actually was a joke. Something in the style of erecting a statue outside Old Trafford. And something about the bookmakers changing the odds for the worse for MU becoming …
Read More “Howard Webb, gone from the pitch but not gone in terms of influence”
By Walter Broeckx After our first article on the video ref in which we set the scene and our second article in which we showed what the football authorities from Holland are doing to improve the refereeing standards we have shown in a third article what the PGMOL are doing in England to improve refereeing. …
Read More “The video ref is on his way part 4: how PGMOL works to silence its critics”
By Walter Broeckx In our first article on the video ref we set the scene Then in our second article we showed what the football authorities from Holland are doing to improve the refereeing standards Now we can write down what the PGMOL is doing in England to improve refereeing. …
Read More “The video ref is on his way part 3: the Premier League”
By Walter Broeckx In the first article I tried to give a short resume of what happened in the past. And on how the Dutch who always have been rather innovative in the past are once more taking the initiative in terms of something that is now still very controversial but that in my opinion is …
Read More “The video ref is on his way. Part 2 of our review of this innovation”
By Walter Broeckx Since I started writing for Untold a few years ago one of my main interests has been in writing about referees. As a referee myself I think I can add a bit of extra insight in the refereeing world and from my own experience I can see how and what can improve …
Read More “Standing still is not an option. The Video ref is on his way”
By Walter Broeckx With Tony at the Emirates I have not idea what BT will do today so for those who want to inform us you can do so. With Valencia winning with 3-1 against Benfica they took over the lead from us and we had to at least score a goal to win the …
By Walter Broeckx On this site we have spend a lot of time debating not only the decisions of the referees in matches but also have done a lot of work in analysing the way the PGMOL works. And one of the things we have found is that for a rather unknown reason there is …
Read More “Refereeing the referees: is it a Northern thing or worse?”
By Walter Broeckx As Arsenal this summer wants to drive us poor bloggers to the limit another signing was announced yesterday. Hardly 36 hours after the last signing of Ospina we now were informed that young defender/midfielder Calum Chambers joined Arsenal coming over from Southampton. This is not the first time in history that Arsenal …
Read More “The pain of Southampton as Calum Chambers joins Arsenal”
By Walter Broeckx Dear Arsène, Dear Ivan and Dear Board members, I hope you don’t mind that we call you by your first name (this is of course for you Mr. Wenger and Mr. Gazidis). But as we have been very supportive for you all these years you will probably forgive us for taken that …
Read More “Official complaint towards Mr. Wenger, Mr. Gazidis and the board”
