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 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 …
by Andrew Crawshaw Pre-Season matches for Arsenal are :- July 14 – Borehamwood v Arsenal 15:00 Meadow Park Borehamwood July 26 – Arsenal v Atletico Madrid 19:30 local time (12:30 UK Time) National Stadium Singapore July 28 – Arsenal v Paris Saint-Germain 19:30 local time (12:30 UK Time) National Stadium Singapore August 4 – Arsenal …
Read More “Pre-Season thoughts on Arsenal’s squad and who can break through”
By Tony Attwood We’ve been emphasising of late the need to keep an eye on the total number of players that Arsenal can register – not just the “25” players aged over 21 who can fit into the squad but particularly the number of Non-Home-Grown players which is limited by PL rules to 17. With …
Read More “Arsenal’s transfer problem: Who leaves in order to fix the “17” issue?”
By Bulldog Drummond As you may recall I have been posting about predicting possible England results in the World Cup through looking for sequences, and following a few emails and comments decided to take the plunge and expand this approach further. You might also recall that the process is very simple: it focuses on the …
Read More “Uruguay v Russia in the world cup might be more interesting than you think.”
By Tony Attwood There was a lot of comment when the fixtures came out for the coming season over the fact that we start with Manchester City at home and then have Chelsea away. That seems a little curious but could of course just be the way the fixtures came out of the hat. However …
By Tony Attwood It is said that Article 54 of the Fifa disciplinary code outlaws the “provoking the general public”, an offence that carries a two-match ban. Clearly Fifa have not been following their own disciplinary code since I can think of a whole range of events and incidents of Fifa, not to mention the …
Read More “The size of Brazil, Bellerin’s diet, and provoking the general public.”
By Tony Attwood One of the problems with transfer rumours is that they tend to be confined, in the reporting thereof, to issues relating to an individual player, and not to the team as a whole. It is not always thus, but this is the tendency. If we take Lucas Torreira he is variously described …
Read More “Arsenal’s four big signings: how they fit in the squad and the HG rules”
by Sir Hardly Anyone There has been a major change of late in pundit reporting as we have moved from “linked to” to “serious talks in progress” within their endlessly inventive minds. In terms of players leaving, the pun-dits have now had a major issue removed from their discussion sheets as we all know Jack …
Read More “Transfers – more Arsenal activity on the way? The punditry certainly think so although..”
By Tony Attwood It was upon this day last year that Walter and Blacksheep combined to hi-jack this site and publish a birthday greeting to me, so it was with a fraction of hesitation this morning that I opened the trusty laptop to check the site. But as I suspected both gentlemen have more style …
Read More “Arsenal’s first team for 2018/19, and why have Arsenal sacked the travel manager?”
By Bulldog Drummond Having predicted the England score correctly for the nation’s first World Cup match in the finals, I am emboldened to try it again, using the very simple system we’ve used over the last couple of seasons of looking at runs of results. All runs come to an end of course, so the …
Read More “England v Panama. Can the Untold system predict the score”
By Chayasai Two of the top three targets that can be achieved at Arsenal this season are, if not winning the EPL, that they must finish in the top 3 and secondly, must win the Europa League and finally, the third target: the F A Cup. Let no one tell us that all these are …
by Andrew Crawshaw I believe that Arsenal currently have eleven goalkeepers at the club who will be looking to play for the U18 team or higher. Here is a quick breakdown of them in descending order of age :- DOB Team HG Contract Expiry Petr Cech 5/20/82 First N 6/30/19 David Ospina 8/31/88 First N …
Read More “The Arsenal Goalkeepers – how many do Arsenal need, and who will be first choice?”
