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 Arsenal have a first team squad (according to the official Arsenal website) of 27 players. These are players who are clearly part of the elite group at the club – irrespective of their ages (which is why it is possible to have over the regulation 25). Now this squad is not the …
Read More “How big a squad does a club like Arsenal need? And why is Man U so different?”
by Tony Attwood In theory, referees don’t influence matches at all – it is the players’ actions that determine what decisions a referee has to make. But in effect referees do have to decide which tackle is a foul and which foul is worth a yellow card, and this is where big differences can be …
Read More “The phenomenal differences in the way refs treat each of the big six teams”
By Tony Attwood It’s the old media game – if the result goes the way that suits your narrative, you big it up like mad, calling the match the turning point, or the dire warning. Suggesting the club is on its way or that collapse is imminent. Of course the real world isn’t like this …
Read More “How the media missed Arsenal’s big story but now can’t even apologise”
By Sir Hardly Anyone There is an article in the Athletic, (Daily Football Briefing 15 November), that suggests that most people believed that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would be a success as Manchester United manager, for the simple reason that, as a former player, he understood the tradition of attacking football at the club. It is …
Read More “Do Man U know how to attack? Or is it just journalists making it all up?”
Here’s the worrying figure (so you don’t have to read the whole article to get to the central fact – although it would be nice if you did). Only four Premier League teams require more shots to get a goal than Arsenal: Norwich, Leeds, Southampton and Tottenham. The good news is that if we could …
Read More “The one simple factor that Arsenal need to sort out to be in the top four”
By Tony Attwood One of the most curious factors about football is that it has evolved its own unreal set of causes and effects. Unreal in the sense that the causes do not actually have the effect that is imagined, but despite this, they are regularly touted as the issues that determine how well a …
Read More “Does changing the manager or buying new players really help a Prem Lge club?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Vanishing spray first hit the agenda in Brazil in 2014 when it was used in the world cup. And anyone looking at the story’s history would have noted the reports that the spray had been used in Brazil for quite some time. Fifa took up the notion of the vanishing spray …
Read More “Fifa steals patent and refuses to pay debts! Who would have thought it?”
By Bulldog Drummond I guess most of us thought we would thankfully never have to watch anti-football again once Wimbledon were relegated from the Premiership in 2000. But here it was, in all its horrors. The return of anti-football, and in of all places the Women’s Super League. Those with memories of football in the …
Read More “Behold: Arsenal meet the Wimbledon of the Women’s game in 1-1 draw”
By Tony Attwood I’ve not received a match preview for the north London derby today from Andrew, our usual correspondent, so I am going to try and put something together myself, just in case you have not noticed that the match is on. If Andrew does forward something I’ll get it up straight away …
Read More “It’s Tottenham v Arsenal today – and its live on TV”
By Tony Attwood Let’s ask a simple question. If everything was straight and above board in Qatar, why have secrecy? If there is nothing amiss why not open up every aspect of Qatarian society, and the organisation of the world cup? If everything is running in a way that we would all immediately approve of, …
Read More “Small publication threatened by Qatar World Cup Committee over slavery allegations”
By Tony Attwood I don’t think I have ever seen an analysis of yellow cards year by year, and so I’ve just undertaken one using the Premier League’s own list of who gets carded. Now research students at university are always told not to gather data just to see what it looks like. No, you …
Read More “The yellow card count this season is truly weird. So what’s going on with the refs?”
HB Köge v Arsenal WFC – 2021 Champions League match report By Andrew Crawshaw The one question in my mind leading up to this game was “would Köge start the match in the same manner as they did against Barcelona”?. The answer turned out to be an emphatic no. Against Barcelona they were aggressive and …
Read More “HB Köge v Arsenal WFC – 2021 Champions League match report”
By Tony Attwood The view is growing that clubs throughout the Premier League are uniting in an alliance not to sell players to Newcastle United, as a protest against the takeover of the regime so awful even football supporters can’t find it in themselves to say a good word about it. This policy has been …
Read More “Anyone but Newcastle: how the league is seeking to control the lunacy it has created”
By Tony Attwood A tackle from a Manchester City player is 83% more likely to get called as a yellow card offence than a tackle by a Chelsea player. While most of us will, I suspect, be quite happy with the way things are going for Arsenal, and certainly relieved that the maniac journalists and …
Read More “Tackles, fouls and yellows: why are Man City and Arsenal being punished so much?”
By Tony Attwood Last weekend the Arsenal programme for the match against Watford contained a chart of how various Arsenal managers had done in their first 100 games as a manager. The chart was not complete but nevertheless saved me a fair amount of time in calculating the figures. I’ve completed it, including adding in …
Read More “Mikel Arteta, Arsene Wenger and George Graham: the first 100 games compared.”
By Tony Attwood Sacking a Premier League club manager is expensive, and dangerous, and doesn’t always work. In fact it doesn’t normally work. In fact, it rarely works. But is generally expensive Fortunately for Arsenal, the board are now made of sterner stuff than before, and there was never any real chance that Arteta would …
Read More “Why do clubs sack managers when it normally does no good?”
by Andrew Crawshaw Our Women flew to Denmark yesterday prior to the third of their six Champions League games. They play the Danish Champions Köge both this Wednesday and also at Borehamwood next Wednesday, 17 November. Köge is a small town about 45 minutes south of Copenhagen and their team became the Danish Champions for …
Read More “Arsenal Women v HB Köge – Champions League preview; it’s live on Arsenal.com”
By Tony Attwood I’ve no doubt that the recent run of results comes about from the tactical revolution that Mikel Arteta has introduced, and the changes made to the team. By bringing in players who were able to adjust to that tactical revolution and develop the style of football he wants the club to play, …
Read More “How mileage affects results, and why sacking the boss is not helpful”
By Tony Attwood The headline in the Guardian reads “Women’s Super League: talking points from the weekend’s action“. Below that there are pictures of three players: one from each of Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. After that the article starts… “Manchester City are starting to get back on track, Jessie Fleming is in flying …
Read More “Why is all the reporting of Arsenal so incredibly negative?”
By Tony Attwood Untold likes to investigate tackles, fouls and yellow cards. Watford as we know from this coverage are a high fouling team. In fact before this weekend’s game they had committed 19 more fouls than any other team in the league. Yet even that simple stat could not have prepared anyone for what …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: Watford create all-time PL record of 19 fouls in one match”
By Bulldog Drummond As we saw in the last piece, Arsenal are now top of the league when measured across the last six games, but in case you missed it I’ll run it again… Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Arsenal 6 4 2 0 11 4 7 14 …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: the sillyness and the teams selected by the media”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal beating Watford: six great videos from across the years Who Scored confirms that a lot of Watford players missing, including Kabasele, Etebo, Sema, Baah, Sierralta, and Femenia. They also note that Emmanuel Dennis is back available after serving a one-match ban in the Premier League last weekend. He will reclaim his …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: have Arsenal “finally got going” (the media awakens)”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have played Watford 32 times in the clubs’ history, with Arsenal winning 18 and Watford 12 – a higher number than you might expect at first sight. Watford are not a club for trophy collectors, but a club for those who live in or were brought up in the town in …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford: past games and a nice video from 2020.”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal are seven points and ten places above Watford in the league at the moment, and yet both clubs have scored the same number of goals – 12 each. Watford however have let in five more than Arsenal. Team P W D L F A GD Pts 6 Arsenal 10 5 2 …
Read More “Arsenal v Watford. Arsenal top of the league across the last six games”
By Tony Attwood Yet another story the press won’t report because it undermines their entire thesis that refereeing is accurate, and PL referees are the best in the world. However because as ever, no one else will spill the beans, we’ll be the ones to kick the can over (or words to that effect, although …
Read More “Home and away results have NOT returned to the old normal this season”
