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 This article concludes the discussion on why change is needed in the way football is run in the Premier League. As the Guardian pointed out, when Southampton were beaten 6-1 by Manchester City, the expected goals result suggested a 2-2 draw. And we say, ah well, stuff happens. Or we might …
Read More “Is football fixed? Part II: why we need to have change”
By Tony Attwood There are two answers to the notion that football is fixed, which journalists and bloggers like to trot out over and over again. The first is that the people who suggest football is fixed are simply loopy – that they go around wearing tin hats, believe that the BBC is the universal …
Read More “Is football fixed? Part 1: The logical reason why we might well think so.”
By Andrew Crawshaw The Women’s World Cup gets underway this coming Friday (7th June) when hosts France take on South Korea in the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris. The semi finals and final will be held at the Parc Olympique Lyonnaise in Lyon. There are 24 countries taking part in six groups of four. …
by Blacksheep I must say, from the start, that I started this past season with low expectations. I thought we’d miss out on the top four (when Tony often said we’d make it). I expected we’d do better in the Europa League than last season because, well, history tends to suggest that a little …
By Tony Attwood In the 15 years since Arsenal’s unbeaten season – an event which has not yet been emulated of course – only four teams have won the Premier League: Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Leicester City. Noting this I thought it might be worth asking the question, “Does that mean that the …
Read More “Football is getting so predictable one season seems much like the last.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It seems that a few people took a look at my recent little amble through the backwaters of what is laughingly called football journalism and thought either we were making it up, or that we took these tales seriously. So a quick explanation: each year for the past few years we …
Read More “The 36 players Arsenal are now tipped to sign and no sign yet of Edu.”
by Tony Attwood As we know, last season the difference between Chelsea in third and Arsenal in fifth was just two points and two goals. So in the simplest of terms we could argue that Arsenal just need a small adjustment to get back into the top four. Team P W D L F A …
Read More “Why we really only need one new defender to get into the top four.”
By Tony Attwood Prior to the Europa final an article in the Guardian contained the comment, “…it is difficult to overstate just how critical this match is to Arsenal. Returning to the Champions League after a two-year hiatus has been their No 1 aim all season. No one is under any illusion about the perils …
By Bulldog Drummond All told it has been a far from happy build up to the Europa League final, although just as the FA always shrug off problems at Wembley cup finals and carry on doing their own thing, I am sure Uefa haven’t even noticed that fans are not ecstatic about the journey nor …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: the preview, the teams, the managers’ records and Wrighty.”
by Bulldog Drummond This decade has been a good one for Chelsea, with three doubles: 2009–10: League and FA Cup 2011–12: FA Cup and UEFA Champions League 2014–15: League and League Cup In addition they won the League in 2017, the Europa League in 2013, and the FA cup in 2017–18. Whatever we might think …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: Europa Final. Using past stats to predict the result”
By Tony Attwood Summer is always the time for a bit of a meander around the subjects we’ve plodded through during the past season, looking for bits we’ve missed and issues that maybe we could take a bit further. And of course it is also a time for taking a deeper look into what other …
Read More “Untold Arsenal providing stats for the Guardian? Well yes, so it seems”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The window hasn’t even had a key inserted in it, let alone has it been opened but we already have 32 players coming to Arsenal this summer. And eight of these are new in the past few days. We also have one new player who is on his way out making …
Read More “8 players just announced to be coming to Arsenal; plus the complete list”
By Tony Attwood It may seem hard to believe but there was a time in the latter part of the 20th century when the Football League Division 1 had a “big four” made up of Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Everton. Sometimes that was a big five, because Manchester United were included when they were …
Read More “The finances of the top clubs are weird and not wholly sustainable.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Each year we gather together the rumours of players coming and going in relation to Arsenal, and then at the end look at how many we got and how many were correct. The normal figure is around 110 players rumoured to be coming and most of the existing squad leaving. The …
Read More “The 27 players Arsenal are tipped to buy and the 16 who are leaving”
By Tony Attwood With the media awash with nonsense rumours about who Arsenal are going to sign I thought it might be worth looking back at the players we signed last summer and in January. Here is the table, with the values taken from Transfer Market, although quite how they calculate the market value of …
By Sir Hardly Anyone This week I met up with Poswinch McKillybody, to get the latest “Fleet Street” ravings. I must admit I thought he looked under the weather, looking somewhat like a halibut which had been asked by another halibut to lend it 20 quid till next Wednesday. When I mentioned this to another …
Read More “Laca off the Barcelona, Auba to Real Mad & Sokratis leaving if no Champs League”
By Tony Attwood This is the time when newspapers do their summary of the league season, an exercise which is in part the offering of opinion (fair enough) but also an exercise in deflection. “Deflection” is known by many names but in essence it involves focussing attention on one topic while ignoring another, which is …
Read More “Gripes, innovations and bias: the curious world of the football journalist”
by Andrew Crawshaw After our agonising third place finish last season, one point behind Manchester City, hopes were high at the start of this season that second place and Champions League qualification would be an achievable objective this time round. We had recruited well in summer with Pauline Peyraud-Magnin, Tabea Kemme, Lia Walti, Viktoria Schnaderbeck …
Read More “Arsenal Women WSL Champions – how the season unfolded”
By Tony Attwood For this article I’ve looked back over the last ten seasons, comparing the key aspects of each season. Here’s the table for the top six at the end of this season… Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts 1 Manchester City 38 32 2 4 95 23 72 98 …
Read More “How did Emery compare with Wenger? A comparison of seasons”
By Tony Attwood I have no objection to people presenting their opinions, and of course I do it all the time. But I am troubled by some of the opinions I see. For example, the Guardian newspaper recently ran a column in which one supporter of each Premier League club was invited to write a …
Read More “The aftermath: what one fan thought of Arsenal’s season”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Of course Liverpool v Tottenham will not be the first Champions League final involving a club that is not a champion in their own country. Indeed I am not sure if there haven’t been Champions Leagues finals in which neither club involved is a champion either in the season of the …
Read More “Presenting a champions league final without champions – and without comment”
by Andrew Crawshaw I know I am late with this review, I can only apologise and claim extenuating circumstances. The Women’s Super League Season finished on Saturday, a day before the Men’s Premier League and whilst it didn’t have quite the same drama, as Arenal had won the League with a game to spare, it …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City (Women) match review of the end of season game”
By Don McMahon We beat Valencia 4-2 at their home ground. What a useless lot of twits Arsenal are, taking so much time to beat a team that had almost never lost in Valencia! That’s the inveterate critics view….. From a psychological and cognitive point of view, backed up by neurological evidence and a vast …
Read More “Arsenal: When rightful criticism turns into baseless negativity”
By Bulldog Drummond In a later post I will consider how this season has gone compared to recent Wenger seasons, but as we all know we already have four more points than we had at the end last year. As for how it will all pan out in this game, the manager said in the …
Read More “Burnley v Arsenal, past games, coming below the Tiny Totts, and the teams”
By Bulldog Drummond And this is it for another season, except for that little issue lurking a few weeks away of the 7th European final in the history of the club (I’m not counting the super cup) to be played in front of 6000 Arsenal fans in the furthest reaches of Europe with no direct …
Read More “Why a win against Burnley is utterly vital to avoid chaos at the start of next season”
