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 Headlines from German and French language papers about the current football crisis in Germany give a warning of the path that they might be tempted to follow The German Football League calls for a new order of referee structure in Germany after the recent chaos. An independent organization of refereeing should solve …
By Tony Attwood One of the problems with being in the fake news business, is that you not only have to keep inventing it, each piece of fake news has to outdo the previous bit. Thus we have the headline from ArsenalShorts which reads Wenger confirms 54 goal striker will play for Arsenal next season …
Read More “Fake news index: striker next season, striker we should have kept, horrific loans”
By Sifarzone Expected Goals are all the rage today and it is certainly a great addition to the toolbox we use in analyzing and understanding football. It gives an understanding to the match beyond just the ultimate results, goals. It values long term-performance over short-term results, since long-term performance will eventually return as results. …
Read More “Dear ESPN: Expected Goals do not account for refereeing errors”
By Tony Attwood The time will come when Arsenal need a new manager. I don’t know when, but it will happen. Three options are available: a promotion from within, bringing in a famous managerial name from elsewhere, or finding a person who (like Mr Wenger when he joined) will be unknown to most supporters, unless …
Read More “Who will Arsenal’s next manager be and what we can learn from Moyes?”
By Tony Attwood Oh this is so difficult for the British media. With the commentary that the refereeing of the Manchester City game against Arsenal was not all that it might have been, they went as far as they dared without having their licences from the PL revoked. Now they have scuttled away from …
Read More “How the evolving referee scandal in Germany is causing the English media problems”
By Tony Attwood A couple of changes were made to this article at 9am on 7 Nov after it was initially published I recently wrote a little piece How fake news came to dominate the reporting of football in all English media which traced the history of fake news in the media back 100 years. I’ve …
Read More “How fake news was used to manipulate the Man C story to avoid considering the issues”
By Tony Attwood We first knew something was up when Alan Green, the BBC commentator, suddenly started laying off referees. He’d never suggested there was anything wrong in terms of bias, but constantly reported that they were making mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. Lots and lots and… well you get the …
Read More “Our one hope: the media is suddenly realising there is something wrong with refereeing”
For many years Walter Broeckx has headed a team of experts writing for Untold on refereeing. In 2017 he took a long overdue sabbatical… until yesterday, events forced him to return to his subject… 13 Year On By Walter Broeckx In my match reports I promised myself at the start of the season that I …
Read More “13 years on: the match that has never stopped. Referee influence on match results”
By Walter Broeckx A few not so pleasant surprises at the start of the match with the absence of Per in particular one I didn’t want. So we got a starting line up with Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Monreal, Kolasinac, Coquelin, Xhaka, Ramsey, Özil, Iwobi, Alexis. Both teams attack in the opening minutes. City with a …
Read More “The live robbery report – Man$hester $ity – Arsenal 3-1, As usuall robbed again…”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal injury news: Wenger confirms triple blow, trio to miss Man City clash That headline came from Ron Carne, an interesting variation for him, as his posts often have the word journalist in the headline, in the mistaken belief that if something is said by a journalist it is more likely to …
Read More “Manchester City v Arsenal. The league where Arsenal come bottom.”
by Andrew Crawshaw The mainstream media and blogettas have joined us this year in mentioning referees in advance of Premier League games. Our Officials are :- Referee – Michael Oliver Age 32 from Northumberland and FIFA accredited Assistant Referee 1 – Simon Bennett from Staffordshire and FIFA accredited Assistant Referee 2 – Stuart Burt from …
Read More “Manchester City v Arsenal Sunday 5 November – Media react to the Match Officials”
by Bulldog Drummond While all the newspapers and their lapdogs in the bloggettas are predicting that Arsenal will sell Alexis in January, Arsène Wenger has said that he doesn’t think that will happen and that he anticipates Alexis Sánchez will stay at least til the summer. Of course the fake news outlets are all sticking …
Read More “Why Alexis won’t move to Man C after one Arsenal defeat in the last 9 between the clubs”
By Tony Attwood Certainly if you read many of the web sites on offer at the moment the notion you will get is pretty clear. Arsenal are pretty awful when it comes to playing other top teams in England. These top teams are generally defined as Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur …
Read More “Are Arsenal really utterly appalling against other “top clubs”?”
by Tony Attwood Details of the various treatments undergone by Santi Cazorla have started to emerge, and the full extent of the horrific problems he has faced have been revealed – including the possibility of needing an amputation. But it seems all is over and he really is on the road to recovery. He is …
Read More “Santi Cazorla back in January, Mourinho admits the crime, Evra banned, Wenger on City.”
By Tony Attwood From what I saw, (and as with the commentary about Swansea supporters, people in the ground can only report what they saw), the Red Star fans were what away fans should be. Very positive, very noisy, no fighting among themselves, no flares. They didn’t exceed their ticket allocation in the number of …
By Walter Broeckx Some early nerves with some of the younger players. Macey with a bad kick on a back pass but Holding rescues by making a great block to stop the forward going to the keeper. Elneny with important block on a cross a bit later as Red Star tries to counter the possession …
By Bulldog Drummond So as we get to our final post before the game (given that it will soon be time to jump in the jalopy and gallop off down the M1, what about the jolly old injuries? Well that website that is having a go at challenging our regular reports on injuries, has now …
Read More “Arsenal v Red Star: the Jack conundrum, injuries, Europa records, teams.”
By Bulldog Drummond Supposing someone could read your mind. More than that, could read what you will be thinking in a few moments time. Would that be spooky? If you think so it is it might well be a good idea to lay off the bloggettas for the moment because one of the pop ups …
Read More “Arsenal v Red Star: Lemar, Mahrez, the atmosphere, and the teams first time we met.”
By Tony Attwood All the latest bits and pieces of the day include the rather exciting news that Jose Mourinho is due to be in court on Friday over the issue of tax fraud in Spain. It relates fairly obviously to his time at Real Madrid. The state claims that he owes them just …
Read More “Jose Mourinho in court on Friday, Lacazette leaving.”
By Bulldog Drummond As pointed out by a couple of correspondents very quickly the table below includes the Manchester City game played at Wembley. Sorry that slipped through in the cut and paste job of listing the games. I think that even without that game, there is still a record in the offing – but …
Read More “Arsenal v Red Star: a record at the Emirates approaches.”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsene Wenger has suggested Mathieu Debuchy could stay at Arsenal and play at centre back, which is a position he will probably take up again this Thursday. Given how much playing time he had missed and the fact that he is a full back not a centre back the performance in the …
Read More “Europa game 4. Early thoughts on the team and comparing with Man U’s approach”
By Tony Attwood Olivier Giroud is known in France for all sorts of things. For example, everyone in the country who follows football will agree it was his goals that were fundamental in getting totally unfancied Montpellier to become French champions for the first time in their history. They were also the launch pad for …
By Tony Attwood Each year I tell myself that I am not going to do another analysis of how much the top clubs in the PL spent on transfers and what they have got out of it – mostly because it seems to prove the same thing each year. And then something comes along and …
Read More “How much does it cost to buy a trophy these days?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone We’re not going to publish it but some of the abuse received by Untold following our various commentaries on the match against Swansea was really a little extraordinary and over the top. I mean, we’re used to getting it from some quarters but this was a little out of the …
by Croxley Rebel A game that will certainly not live long in anyone’s memory. The Swans parked the bus and that was Ki to their strategy. After 15 minutes of solid Arsenal pressure, it didn’t Clucas though the Welsh side would pose any sort of threat to the Arsenal goal, but up popped their ginger …
