By Bulldog Drummond What is it that marks out West Bromwich Albion from other clubs this season? There are three factors that seem to make them special in the the Premier League. First the number of yellow cards. While Crystal Palace have picked up 15, West Ham 13 and Chelsea 12, WBA are …
Read More “Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion; they don’t pass, they get few cards, they don’t win much at the Ems.”
By Tony Attwood Aaron Ramsey has made 215 appearances for Arsenal. A lot of people believe that for £5m he was a sensational buy. There is talk of him being the complete central midfielder – a position a lot of players want to play in, but not so many get an absolute chance to do. …
Read More “A moment to pause and celebrate the contribution of Aaron Ramsey”
by Tony Attwood First off I thought you would like to know that “Santi Cazorla is unlikely to be involved in first-team matters until the turn of next year.” That is from goal.com Actually it would be rather worrying if he were involved in first-team matters this year since he is not listed in the …
Read More “Over 100 PL players entered this season in the last year of their contract, with a total market value of £5bn”
By Sifarzone It pains me to write an article positing an opinion opposite to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Although I cannot remember the specific authors, my impression of She Wore is that the articles are generally well written, well-meaning and mostly pro-Arsenal. However, the recent publication of the article “Stop getting easily offended …
Read More “On She Wore’s “Stop getting easily offended at the football””
by Tony Attwood I do on occasion wonder if the mainstream media ever have a peek at what Untold is saying. It’s not a constant question in my life, but just occasionally when we run a long term campaign, and then suddenly we find that someone in a newspaper writes about the same issue, …
Read More “Arsenal could have won the League… but they didn’t”
by Sir Hardly Anyone So we have given in. Bonkers news, and football transfers are now an all the year racket, and it is not as if someone has stolen the ball. (Ball / racket geddit?) Because amazingly we have apparently just made a signing. And a really weird one it is. And I want …
Read More “Arsenal’s new signing, worst signing, dumbest race, and best article not on Untold”
By Walter Broeckx Having just returned from my holiday in Spain/Catalonia I think we might be at a turning point not just in geography but also maybe in the football world. First I have to say that when Barcelona got Cesc I vowed to never go back to Catalonia as long as they had him. …
Read More “Will the power in European football shift soon as a result of Catalan independence?”
By Tony Attwood “ARSENAL FANS ANGRY WITH WENGER’S DECISION MAKING” So screamed one bloggetta headline, with the writer, in my humble opinion, utterly missing the whole point of what was going on. Mind you, so did several people who complained that Jack Wilshere got tired and wasn’t up to much in the latter stages. What …
Read More “The problem with Wenger’s selection policy is that there are invisible forces at work”
By Tony Attwood Much is being made of the fact that we have just seen the lowest attendance ever at the Emirates Stadium. Where reported it reads like a shock horror tale of absolute decline. But sadly although there are some big headlines around, the reporters don’t give any background to help us make a …
Read More “Misleading crowd comparisons for Arsenal, and PL bail out Liverpool.”
By Bulldog Drummond 23 September 2008 was one of the most famous days in the years of austerity. For it was the day that a team of youngsters was put out by Arsenal in the league cup, much to howls of derision from the rest of football. We were told it was unfair on the …
Read More “Arsenal v Doncaster. The Arsenal team, and memories of thumping Sheffield Utd 9 years ago.”
By Bulldog Drummond First off the tickets: I think there are still some tickets available at the usual prices of upper tier tickets £20.00 Adults and £10.00 Concessions and lower tier tickets £10.00 Adults and £5.00 Concessions. They will be on sale until 4pm and then that’s that. There is no purchasing of tickets thereafter. It is …
Read More “Arsenal v Doncaster: tickets, injuries, form, cards, Totts at Wembley, Liverpool 4 without a win”
by Tony Attwood Probably the key thing you know about Doncaster is that their manager is the son of Sir Alex Ferguson: Duncan. He has been manager of Preston, and Peterborough (twice). He joined Doncaster in October 2015. And well, if you didn’t know that, you know now. In recent years the club has had …
Read More “Can Doncaster repeat their previous triumphs against Arsenal?”
by Tony Attwood How many Premier League teams are under American control? Come to that how mean English league teams are under American control? It’s an interesting question, because despite all the mega power that exists in being sponsored by a country, as Manchester City is, it doesn’t really give the club that …
Read More “Kroenke and other American owners plan Premier League revolution, and its going to be big.”
by Andrew Crawshaw There are a number of very significant changes this season for Arsenal Women. The WSL starts this weekend having reverted back to a winter league. The Club’s name has changed from Arsenal Ladies to Arsenal (with Women added when necessary to distinguish from the Men’s team) There have been significant personnel changes …
Read More “Arsenal Women – Season Preview. New name, rearranged season.”
by Tony Attwood Some people are game changers. Some people like Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born Piers Stefan O’Meara now known as Piers Morgan) are name changers. He’s the man of whom the Leveson enquiry said,he was “sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it”. Anyway he was at the GQ …
Read More “Corbyn and Bellerin excommunicate Piers Morgan,”
By Sir Hardly Anyone As I have said before, by now I should be on the estate in the heart of the Rutland Forest hunting wildebeest, but it seems we now have a 365 days a year transfer rumour window and these pesky devils at Untold have me on a contract that says when there …
Read More “What exactly does it mean when Arsenal are on red alert over a player spotted at the airport?”
by Tony Attwood The notion that if only Arsenal could replace the manager we would then have someone who will ruthlessly identify the players needed and bring them to the club, is, in my view, not a reasonable one. The expenditure by Manchester City and Manchester United is now getting so far ahead of Arsenal, …
Read More “Arsenal are not going to match the expenditure of the Manchester clubs no matter who is manager”
By Tony Attwood And so the world spins, and the statistics are chosen to back up a point and fairy stories continue. On the fairy story front we have “A number of Real Madrid stars are reportedly not keen on the idea of a January move for Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez,” from the ever fanciful …
Read More “Chelsea on track to get 23 red cards this season and Arsenal to get 53 yellows.”
By Walter Broeckx The late match report. A bright start of the match with Chelsea going forward with more speed and Arsenal building up things a bit slower. Apart from a short taken corner has to be cleared by Welbeck to prevent further danger on the low cross. An unfortunate contact knee against knee between …
Read More “Chelsea – Arsenal : 0-0 – the Untold match report”
By Tony Attwood Seeing a club lose their third player to a red card this season it was hard not to think that had it happened last season or the season before it would have been Arsenal who would have had at least one man sent off in this match, not Chelsea. To lose one …
Read More “Chelsea’s problem with the Reds and a red, and China’s problem with Arry the Red.”
By Bulldog Drummond To start with an admin note: you may have seen that pages on Untold suddenly reduce in size to allow extra advertising. This normally works with the text but screws up our tables. I’m talking with our ad agency about this, but if you do find it affects your reading just click …
Read More “Chelsea v Arsenal: the supporters and the team; the injuries and the discipline.”
by Tony Attwood This is a translation of what the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitungde put on its website in the aftermath of the Cologne game 15,000 Cologne fans travel to London for the first European League game for 25 years, but only a few have tickets. But how big was the chaos? Peter Stöger [head coach of …
Read More “Arsenal v Cologne: what did they think of the fiasco in Germany?”
By Bulldog Drummond In March 2014 Andre Mariner sent off Kieran Gibbs for doing … nothing, in a match against Chelsea and gave Chelsea a penalty. Two mistakes – one, as replays showed, was that the ball was not going into the net when the Arsenal player touched it, and two it wasn’t Gibbs. In …
Read More “Will the referee’s change of style seen in the Cup Final continue on Sunday”
by Andrew Crawshaw Our officials for Sunday Afternoon are :- Referee – Michael Oliver Age 32 from Northumberland FIFA Accredited Assistant Referee 1 – Simon Bennett from Staffordshire and FIFA Accredited Assistant Referee 2 – Stuart Burt from Northamptonshire and FIFA Accredited Fourth Official – Neil Swarbrick Age 51 from Lancashire So a FIFA Accredited …
Read More “Chelsea v Arsenal : Sunday 17 September – The Match Officials”
By Tony Attwood Gradually the issues following last night’s fiasco have begun to emerge. Cologne have been charged by Uefa with crowd disturbances, setting of fireworks, throwing objects and acts of damage. Arsenal have been charged with the blocking of stairways in an away supporter section. Arsenal’s statement however includes the comment that, “Many tickets …
Read More “It is ludicrous that Arsenal are still saying they are trying to stop ticket touting”