What is likely to happen in Arsenal’s next four games?

By Tony Attwood Arsenal’s next four games are something of an oddity – for they are all at home: Swansea Ludogorets Razgrad Middlesbrough Reading Swansea and Middlesbrough, our league opponents, sit next to each other in terms of their league fortunes just now.  Here’s the table with the final column showing the results this season …

On an interlull weekend let’s remember when the FA contemplated stopping internationals

By Tony Attwood It may seem strange that the FA, whom we know as an organisation that will willingly crawl on all fours to lick up the droppings from the grand table of Fifa, might actually consider pulling out of internationals, but that is exactly what they did in 1934. Not all internationals I should …

Which teams always benefit from referee mistakes, and which teams are constantly wrongly penalised?

By Tony Attwood If you have been reading the referee reports this season you will know that the Untold referee review team has expanded its work quite considerably. As a result in the reviews this season we have included these two tables: Table 9: Major Wrong Decisions Against Teams Table 10: Major Wrong Decisions in …

Arsenal make first signing of the next transfer window!

By Sir Hardly Anyone One of the things I have noticed is that the further north you get the slower the information travels.   Thus they are still dealing with the last transfer window in Birmingham, as the ReadWestBrom web site tells us “West Brom made a late bid to try to sign Portuguese winger …

A spot of good news, a spot of bad, a spot of gibberish, a spot.

By Tony Attwood Goodness it is difficult running a blog during the interlull.  I mean you try and enter the news desert with some good back up stories ready to roll, but even so you are dependent on some sort of news coming in to keep it all rolling along. So I look for good …

Is Arsenal’s ticket policy really so awful? Compare it, perhaps, with Man U and Bournemouth

By Tony Attwood It is of course commonplace to claim that Arsenal have the most expensive tickets in England, Europe and the world, the solar system, the galaxy, the Local Cluster, the universe and the multiverse, although none of these claims is true when like is matched with like. Pricing is a complex issue, and …

What organisations and what people really have the power in football?

By Tony Attwood Power in football – now that is an interesting topic and I am obliged to the Daily Telegraph by thinking about writing an article on it. It is a bit of a tough read because there is so much puffing up of themselves and all their collective work in coming up with …

There is no open window, but there are ten transfer rumours for Arsenal next January

By Sir Hardly Anyone Now normally I take the honest working man’s regular holiday – September to December, February to May – but quite ludicrously Untold has demanded that I work in October and write a column all about transfer type things. Well!  I mean, “Well!” And to my utter surprise the transfer rumours have …

Revealed: the psychological condition behind the anti-arsenal-arsenal

By Tony Attwood If you feel that the commentary columns of Untold have been rather quiet of late it has been largely because of the fact that (for reasons that are not yet clear) we have dropped off the pages of NewsNow.   I have written to the publishers several times telling them about it …

Referee Appointments and Results Matchweek 06 – with video evidence

By the Referee team 1: Details of the Match Officials and Assistants Manchester United vs. Leicester City [4-1] Referee – Mike Dean 1st Assistant Referee – Simon Long 2nd Assistant Referee – Ian Hussin Fourth Official – Lee Mason Swansea City vs. Manchester City [1-3] Referee – Neil Swarbrick 1st Assistant Referee – Scott Ledger …

How WHU changed from being the darlings of the media to being the most toxic of brands in the space of two months.

By Tony Attwood I have oft made the point that newspapers follow each other.  One club is a great historic family unit that everyone loves, and nothing that happens there can change this.  Another is a stumbling, rumbling disaster of incompetence, and it only takes one hiccup for the old stories to be rolled out. …

Style and Steel: the rise of the polyvalent player

STYLE AND STEEL By Don McMahon While reviewing and watching the fallout from the Burnley game from the pundits, players and media, this comment came up multiple times in describing AFC’s gritty win against a park the flotilla team. Adrian Clarke and Skodran Mustafi aptly described it as an ugly performance meriting all 3 points …

Ref Review Burnley – Arsenal: at least he got that one right

By Usama and Walter IMPORTANT NOTE!! If you hover over the wrong decisions on this page there a few links which take you to videos where you can see the incidents. They should open in a new tab and you can even slow them down in order to watch them. BURNLEY vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier …

It’s not Arsenal who failed in the summer transfer market. We discover who really cocked it up.

By Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood The story is that Arsenal can’t do transfers.  The manager won’t spend money, the club dithers, there is an overarching level of gross incompetence. We’ve heard it often, and of course it is difficult to prove or disprove without having closer access to the club than any of us …

The Untold Banner on TV, continuing the tradition of the club and our blog

A very personal odyssey, by Tony Attwood It started with three of us from AISA having a meeting at the Emirates with the club’s chief exec discussing how the area around the stadium could be made more Arsenal-like.  Never having been a retiring sort of fellow I immediately pitched in telling Mr Gazidis in no uncertain terms …

Professional football: one of the last bastions of homophobia.

By Max Kerr One of the saddest stories for me to have emerged from football, is that of Justin Fashanu (1961-1998). A talented striker, who played for England, scored the goal of the season while playing for Norwich in 1980, and was the first black footballer to command a million pound transfer fee (to Brian …

Burnley – Arsenal 0-1, The Paradox Curse has been broken

By Walter Broeckx As you may have read I was not able to do my usual life match report. The reason was that we had a supporters club meeting straight after the match. And as I am the president of the Arsenal Belgium supporters club I had to be there of course. But I must say that it …

A goal or not a goal? Burnley v Arsenal – the first reactions.

By Tony Attwood Watching the game on Sky and listening to the studio conversation after the match there seemed to be a general consensus that a) the Ox did not touch the ball, it was Kos who kicked it forward, and b) although the ball his Kos’ hands it was not handball. Of course if …

Burnley v Arsenal, the team, two contrasting styles of play and the sequences

Continuing from this morning’s preview… Meanwhile the Burnley manager has been making the usual positive noises about how wonderful Mr Wenger is but he has added to that, “As managers we all understand the fan mentality, the thirst and desire to win and be successful, but from a manager’s point of view you have to scratch …

Burnley v Arsenal. Seven and a half things to look out for and a pic of Mr Wenger down the pub.

By Bulldog Drummond “Seven and a half?” I hear you shout… well all the papers are doing their “five things” this and “ten things” that, so Untold, being Untold likes to go somewhere else.  Seven and a half seems about right. 1: Style and efficiency Leading up to today’s games Mr Wenger said, “In recent …

A reminder of how things have changed and why top four finishes are not to be decried

By Tony Attwood On 24 November 1996  Arsène Wenger took charge of his first derby.  It ended Arsenal 3 Tottenham 1.  It was a victory those of us there celebrated at considerable length as I recall, because Arsenal had not beaten Tottenham in over 3 years and Tottenham were unbeaten at Highbury in the league since …

Burnley v Arsenal Sun 02 October 2016 – The Match Officials. Which Mr Pawson will turn up – Jekyll or Hyde?

    by Andrew Crawshaw Before I start on the preview for this week a quick look at how the refereeing compares this year with previous years. In our six games this year the basic figures are :- Wk Game  Score Referee Link to Referee review Overall weighted score Bias H/A 1 Arsenal Liverpool 3 …

UEFA Champions League – Arsenal v Basel key incidents, plus the under 19 Arsenal/Basel game

By the referee team Danny Makkelie of Netherlands was the referee. Incident 1 – Minute 5 Foul on Sanhcez A possible trip by the Basel player ignored by the ref. Very difficult to see on this replay. I give the benefit of the doubt to the ref. If he played the ball first there is …