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 Back in April it was widely reported that Arsenal were limited to a transfer budget of £50m. Then at the end of May it was said that Arsenal had had their budget increased to £70m. And that is where the figure has stayed ever since – unless we made a big money …
Read More “We seem to have spent the £70m transfer budget. Have we covered everything?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone I have been remiss, for I have failed in the past to dedicate my regular transfer column to all the “journalists” (I use the word lightly) of the various bloggettas and newspapers (I again, use terms without a clear definition) from the mighty Foot Lond with its 40 Arsenal stories a …
Read More “Some transfer stories make no sense while others are like the wheels on the bus”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Last time around we passed the 100 mark with transfers. And if previous seasons are anything to go by all the media will pile in one day ahead of the transfers that are actually happening, and then do the “As reported in the Daily Gibber” thing as if to suggest they …
By Sir Hardly Anyone So what’s what and who’s who, whose coming whose going and all that sort of caper…. The big ongoing story of the day is that Lucas Torreira “will be joining Arsenal very soon”. That is what it says in Arsenal Fever, and loads of other places. The other one that keeps …
Read More “Who are Arsenal buying? Opinion, it seems, is divided.”
by Tony Attwood There were several reasons why I stopped watching football on TV: the cost of my subscriptions to Sky Sports and BT Sports was getting ludicrous, and my anger at the way Arsenal was portrayed by both media were enough, but when I took the step last August I did so in the …
Read More “A year ago I stopped watching football on TV. Nothing changed except I have more money.”
by Tony Attwood There are articles on some of the web sites of the English national media that have been on their sites for weeks. They are kept there to make it look as if there really is some new news around what Barney Ronay in the Guardian calls “the ceaseless clamour around an ever-more engorged …
Read More “What else is on beside the daily jamboree in the WC?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone What makes a football journalist? It is tempting to think of her or him as a layabout who stumbles from the public house to the computer, bashes out some wild story and then stumbles back. But maybe we have got this wrong. What if the football journalist was doing this …
Read More “The factual list of your actual transfers and no exaggeration!”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road with apologies to China Miéville. There are two Arsenal’s: The Arsenal and The Arsenal. They sit next to each other but to each the other does not exist. You cannot be in both and cannot easily travel from …
Read More “The Arsenal and The Arsenal: two realities, no communication, worlds apart.”
By Tony Attwood It’s funny to think that the draw for the opening round of the European competitions has already been made, while the WC is plodding along as the media and governments make it clear they have no concerns about the corruption and fraud associated with the organisers. Anyway in exactly one week the …
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw There is something odd about the way the bloggettas work. The march not exactly to one beat, but with an emphasis that they all seem to understand. Then almost without a clear sign the beat changes and positivity moves to negativity. So it has been in the last few …
By Tony Attwood I don’t follow World Cup football largely because I don’t approve of Fifa. Not some high and mighty one man boycott so much as the fact that I don’t feel drawn to the whole thing. But Blacksheep texted me to say that all the Arsenal players apart from Danny Welbeck are now …
Read More “Squad news plus Emile Smith Rowe – another name to add to our Cup team”
by Tony Attwood I have been writing a few rambling pieces of late about the defence, reflecting the arrival of our new men. My general point is that playing four at the back we have a wide choice of players – enough to cover for injuries, and to put out a different but still very …
Read More “So the defence is sorted. Now what about Arsenal’s attack and midfield?”
by Tony Attwood Arsenal have apparently completed the signing of Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Borussia Dortmund for a fee of €20m. He was, as you may have read, at Dortmund with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and on his signing Sokratis said, “They said to me the best things about this club, that it is one big family and …
Read More “The deal is done: so what does that mean for Arsenal’s defence?”
by Tony Attwood As we know from keeping tabs on player transfer rumours in recent years the mongers go on mongering inside and outside the windows, irrespective of how many players we have in each position. They are also (as in previous years) talking up more and more stories without any regard to either the …
by Sir Hardly Anyone Journalists who announce transfer rumours as the truth, researched by themselves through utlilising their deep rooted set of contacts are, in my view, not to be trusted as far as I could throw them, and I am a poor thrower of people, lacking both distance and control. These fellas have cold, …
Read More “Number of players tipped to be signing for Arsenal this summer reaches 101”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Can you imagine the mind of the journalist whose job it is to invent football transfer rumours and pretend then that he is reporting reality. He must delve into his subconscious hour after hour to make up this goo, and believe me the subconscious of a journalist is not the place …
By Sir Hardly Anyone and some mates. So just as one group of youngsters leave – with no one unexpected and no nasty surprises on the departure board – the word is out about new teenagers coming in, and one player signing a new contract. The new kiddie, the one Arsenal and Liverpool are said …
Read More “The strange tale of Dragomir and Fortune’s departure. What are we not being told?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, knight in the shires (daytime in bed) It is a good rule for the football commentator never to apologise. The right of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort only take a mean advantage of your discomfort when you utter the words “I got it wrong”. Such is the …
By Sir Hardly Anyone But no, it turns out that all this time he hasn’t been an Arsenal man at all, and we’ve just been keeping on keeping on. And on. And… well you know what they journalist johnnies are like. But no, lo! and behold! yes, the Telegraph tells us “Unai Emery is close …
Read More “It’s been going on so long I expected to read a rumour that Torreira is leaving Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood This summer I have been keeping tabs on some of the bigger clubs in Europe and a few other clubs that are interesting in terms of their buying and selling. This page gives the updates as of today 28 June. Figures from different source always vary, so for consistency I’m using the …
Read More “Who has spent the most, who has gained the most, and which clubs are moribund?”
by Tony Attwood Last night a number of fans from the more positive of the Arsenal supporters groups were invited to the Emirates Stadium for our first meeting with Unai Emery. It turned out to be a really solid performance by the manager who, I think, impressed many of us by a willingness to speak …
Read More “Unai Emery meets Arsenal supporters. From winning 5-4 to players leaving this summer.”
by Tony Attwood There comes a moment in each transfer window when the fantasists and their make believe chums from the fairy woods give up on trying to invent ever more unlikely tales of transfers and instead start writing about the people who are not coming to the club. These are of course the players …
Read More “Who opens against Man City, and when the rumours run backwards”
By Sir Hardly Anyone As we expected things have slowed right down in the World Cup era as the writers keep going around in circles talking about players in Russia rather than making up rumours. What a bunch of slackers! If they wanted to do something really useful they could count our boys back home …
Read More “The 96 players Arsenal have been tipped to sign this summer: the complete list”
By Sir Hardly Anyone In the part of the independent kingdom of Rutlandia whereupon I have my castle, we tell children not to make things up. “Don’t tell fibs” is what mater and pater say, and jolly right they are to say it too. But when I said just that the other day after returning …
Read More “Latest Arsenal rumoids: ten stories that you really might not believe – but you might!”
By Tony Attwood The name “Untold Arsenal” was chosen over 10 years ago to represent two ideas: to cover Arsenal in a positive manner which supported the club, and to cover the Arsenal stories that the mainstream football media and the blogs that imitate them would not cover. One of those story lines has been …
