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 Andrew Crawshaw As Arsenal didn’t have a match this weekend you may chose to stop reading now, but I hope not. Information about the men’s game is everywhere – searching for information about the women’s game can take a while. The group phase of the competition has the 22 competing teams – 11 each …
Read More “The FAWSL Continental Cup week 2. The Untold Arsenal review”
Tech note: Sorry about this article. It was published and then vanished as we are still upgrading the whole of Untold Arsenal to https:// and other unfathomable places. Here is a quick rundown… The Yaya Toure story came and went in a flash and our tale in the midst of it “What technical ploy …
Read More “What happened about Yaya Toure, and what question should we be asking?”
By Tony Attwood It seems reasonable to take it that clubs that are doing well, touch the ball more often, both because they are controlling the game and so have higher possession rates, but also because they are evolving complex movements between players which can be harder to defend. Of course it is not a …
Read More “Arsenal under Emery: What do the stats actually say?”
By Tony Attwood Situations are complex. Virtually all situations are complex. Some are incredibly complex. Of course the brain simplifies them by putting habits in place and skills in place so we don’t actually have to think how to move the muscles to put one foot in front of the other, but that just hides …
Read More “Emery vs Ozil: Fact or the wild ramblings of deluded telepaths?”
Mariana Trench, the head of Better at Sky TV, gives us her views on how football blogs are teaching the multi-channel platform a thing or three. It is of course very important in 24 hours a day TV to keep the “discussion” going. It isn’t a discussion of course because one person sets up questions …
Read More “Why don’t players sue newspapers and blogs for the downright lies they tell?”
by Tony Attwood A big player turnover in the January window? Promotion of some of the very promising kiddies from the under 23 squad? A constant sniping, increasing to all out attacks on every player in the squad? Rumours of discontent among the players growing into talk of outright rebellion? Talk that the Emery is …
by Bulldog Drummond This is one of those occasions where there is little agreement as to what team the manager should put out. My constant pleading for the classic forward line of the latter half of last season has made no odds – but maybe that was because the manager was picking a team for …
Read More “Arsenal v West Ham: the teams, the mistakes, the predictions.”
By Bulldog Drummond We have over the years had the better of things with West Ham beating them 65 times, losing 34 times with 39 draws. But some of these games have been quite remarkable. Historians will particularly recall the games in the Cup in 1923… 14 Jan 1925 West Ham United v Arsenal D …
Read More “Arsenal v West Ham; past events; injury news, and the issue of choice.”
By Bulldog Drummond As we approach the game against WHAM it appears they have been a bit lackadaisical with the old data stuff by revealing personal details of lots of season ticket-holders. It seems that in writing to supporters of WHAM (for such people do exist I’m told) email addresses of all the other recipients …
Read More “Arsenal v WHAM: West Ham’s local difficulties and a very modest away form”
by Andrew Crawshaw Here is the full list of Match Officials for this weekend’s PL games courtesy of premierleague.com :- Saturday 25 August 12:30 Wolves v Man City Referee: Martin Atkinson Assistants: Stephen Child, Constantine Hatzidakis Fourth official: Stuart Attwell 15:00 Arsenal v West Ham Referee: Graham Scott Assistants: Scott Ledger, Mick McDonough Fourth official: Kevin Friend …
Read More “Arsenal v West Ham United: Matchweek 3 – The Match Officials”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The honeymoon is over. In the world of copycat headlines and 40 posts a day all written by computer, it had to come sooner or later and it came sooner. It came sooner. After two games in fact. Arsenal news: Ray Parlour reveals who he wants to replace Unai Emery It …
Big 6 Match Referees- Cutting Through the Moss By Jerry Did you get a sense of déjà vu when seeing Martin Atkinson appointed as referee for Week 2’s Chelsea – Arsenal match? My reaction was “again?” or “what the heck?” if you change heck with a much stronger word. Walter pointed out in the comments …
By Tony Attwood Oh what mixed times we live in. Just after it seemed that Alex Iwobi could stand out as the one player not being attacked, so the first articles appear on the issue of the club’s “biggest mistake” in the summer. It appears it was not buying a winger, because Iwobi is not …
Read More “A return to the dark days when an explanation is needed more than an apology or arrest”
By Tony Attwood Behold the league table… Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts 17 Arsenal 2 0 0 2 2 5 -3 0 18 Fulham 2 0 0 2 1 5 -4 0 19 West Ham United 2 0 0 2 1 6 -5 0 20 Huddersfield Town 2 0 0 …
Read More “What happens if Arsenal lose to West Ham on Saturday?”
By Tony Attwood It is not a topic I have seen debated at all – which seems to imply that everything on the transfer front will continue as now when the UK leaves the EU. Except there have been a few players where the story of late has been that a work permit has been …
Read More “What difference will leaving the EU make to the Premier League importation of players?”
By Tony Attwood With just two matches gone it seems that every single Arsenal first team player who has played (except two) has been seriously attacked by pundits and self-styled experts. The only two who have escaped the mauling thus far are Iwobi and Monreal – and of course those players who have not played. …
Read More “Arsenal suffer co-ordinated attack from pundits aimed at bringing down the club”
by Tony Attwood The perennial question: how can we make refereeing more accurate? And of course there is a whole range of answers available – at the heart of which is the obvious fact that in all human endeavours there are always mistakes. I mean, although it may seem hard to believe, Untold Arsenal itself …
Read More “These referee actions (which they openly admit) clearly help one team over another”
by Tony Attwood I have often railed against the FA for getting things wrong. For example throughout last season when Arsenal were the holders of the FA Cup, the FA’s official site refused to accept this, having a picture of Liverpool on its front page and a list of winners that was completely out of …
Read More “The FA gets itself into a muddle. What are the chances of that?”
by Tony Attwood I don’t think too many people predicted what would happen this season once there was no Arsene Wenger. What we were used to was a daily assault on the manager which had the benefit to a certain degree of reducing attacks on the players. Of course some players were heavily criticised but …
Mariana Trench, the newly appointed head of Better Football, Sky TV, gives us her views on how football commentary and in-depth analysis is being enhanced by the broadcaster. Reinventivisational momentum. Is there such a thing? Well I can tell you that yes, no there certainly is. And the point is that as every journalist …
Read More “Football reporting gathers around enhanced reinventivisational momentum”
By Tony Attwood In the old days it was easy – if Arsenal lost some fans and a lot of the media knew what to do – knock the manager. Indeed I noticed one of the old timer blogs that the Daily Mail still seems to like, continuing to do that, putting the boot in …
Read More “The 10 Arsenal players who the media think should be sold now.”
by Andrew Crawshaw Following a good pre-season this match was serious and potentially a decider for first and second places in our mini-league group between the two Premiership clubs. Our team was :- Back row – Sari Van Veenendaal (GK), Louise Quinn, Leah Williamson, Lisa Evans, Dominique Bloodworth (nee Janssen), Katie McCabe Front row – …
Read More “Arsenal begin their defence of the Continental Tyres Cup with a 3 – 1 win”
Untold Arsenal will be unavailable on Monday because of technical upgrades. Details are on the home page. If the work takes longer than expected we’ll publish on our Facebook page instead. By Tony Attwood I see that Manchester City have brought out an electronic gizmo worn on the wrist which gives their supporters “everything …
Read More “Football is teetering on the edge and it is too disgusting for words”
By Tony Attwood Please note that Untold Arsenal will be unavailable for a while on Monday as we upgrade the site. If the delay continues for beyond the expected time we’ll do updates on our Facebook page. Please see www.untold-arsenal.com for more information. My general view after games is that with Walter’s coverage of …
Read More “The media turn on the fans; an interesting twist after two defeats”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal team at the start : Cech, Bellerin, Sokratis, Mustafi, Monreal, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Iwobi, Ozil, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang. On the beach : Leno, Lichtsteiner, Elneny, Torreira, Ramsey, Welbeck, Lacazette. So one change was forced as Maitland Niles got a broken leg against City and lucky this time Monreal was fit so we got …
