We cannot have a situation like the Summer of 2015

By Billy “le chien” McGraw, visiting professor of psychology at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Dijon, Dijon, France. Well mes amis here I am at the University of Burgundy (I chose it because of the wine) and yet still keeping up with the ins and outs and roundabouts of the world of football. And casting my …

Arsenal v Crystal Palace Sunday 17 April 2016 – The Match Officials. Arsenal achieve the 1 in 2 billion chance.

by Andrew Crawshaw Following the Referee review of Anthony Taylor’s performance in the Watford game  – here is the updated Table of Shame.  The performance had only one wrong Important Decision when in Min17 Prodl clearly pushed Welbeck in the Watford penalty area with Taylor seeing it quite clearly and deciding not to give a …

Are Arsenal fans the only fans who are endlessly miserable? It seems not.

By Tony Attwood Whatever the scenario there is always someone worse off than you.  (Ok, not always, like, not when you are having your head eaten by a wolf, but most of the time). Not that I think we are that badly off.  I know there are a lot of people around who are tearing …

PGMO admits Untold Arsenal was right

By Walter Broeckx With taking away the match  between Stoke and Tottenham from referee Friend next Monday the PGMO has opened a can of worms it seems. Because for the first time the PGMO has openly admitted that not all refs are completely and always impartial. And well… it is rubbish to believe they are. …

Forget the training and the preparation. Get these two things right and you will win the league.

By Tony Attwood “The trouble with this club is that it has no plan B.” We must have heard that so many times over the years about Arsenal.  They always play the same way, no matter what the opposition are up to, no matter what the referee and assistants are doing. “Arsenal have no plan …

The figures that show that a 30+ goalscorer is not always the answer.

by Tony Attwood Olivier Giroud has scored 20 goals in 42 games this season, and that is clearly not enough.  I know this because everyone tells me so. But this week an article turned up on the Goonernews blog that suggested that maybe this wasn’t so bad at all.  It showed me that in 1998 …

State Aid Utd become the first club ever to get their landlords to insure them against failure

By Tony Attwood My company rents an office block and behind it, a warehouse block.  In each case we pay the landlords a fixed rent, and every three years the landlords have the right to put the rent up.   They do this in accordance with the rents that are being charged elsewhere in the …

The question of evidence, Arsenal’s injury crisis and why Leicester City’s finances are a suitable case for investigation

By Tony Attwood Well, I have tried, I have really tried, to explain what I mean by evidence.  And I have failed. Yet I still think my point is simple: there are opinions and there are facts.   Opinions are interesting, although if one hears the same opinion over and over, that is a bit …

Exclusive: The Official Arsenal Transfer Rumour List

By Sir Hardly Anyone Of course it has been a great honour indeed to be awarded the right to publish the regular Official Arsenal Transfer List each week.   Being “official” doesn’t in any way mean that the list is actually “official”, any more than a “£50m centre forward deal done, contract signed” headline means …

Come and meet ex-Arsenal player and Arsenal scout Danny Karbassiyoon on 25 April

By Tony Attwood Danny Karbassiyoon, the ex-Arsenal player, the Arsenal scout who discovered Joel Campbell and Gedion Zelalem, the occasional columnist on Untold Arsenal, and the author of the book “The Arsenal Yankee” will be the special guest at an Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association meeting in central London on Monday 25 April. The meeting is …

The task facing the next manager: tactics, referees and candidates review

By Josif . This article continues from yesterday’s article The task facing the next manager, what he has to achieve, and how can he do it? . 8. At the same time as this we need tactical flexibility.  How is that to be introduced at the same time as everything else? When you add a real …

The task facing the next manager, what he has to achieve, and how can he do it?

By Josif Arsenal FC have had quite a few great managers but Mr Arsene Wenger will have a special place in the history of the club regardless of when he is going to wave goodbye to all Arsenal fans at the Emirates. He has been our manager for almost 20 years which means that he …

How to intimidate an official on the football pitch (and come to that, how to do it beforehand).

By Don McMahon Everyone involved in football, professional or amateur, has been intimidated or seen such events happen to others during their years in the sport. However, the art of intimidating the officials is something that has reached new heights and even influenced the FA and the PGMOL stuffed suits, to such a point that …

How the match fixing will pan out this weekend and then stop, leaving me with a choice

by Andrew Crawshaw Thanks to the requirements of Sky Sports, this coming Sunday I have to make a difficult choice.  Our Mens first team game against Crystal Palace has been moved from Saturday 15:00 to Sunday 16:00 at the Emirates.  Our Ladies first team FA Cup Semi-final against Sunderland is at Meadow Park Borehamwood on …

Ref Review : Arsenal – Watford, a game of two halves…

By Usama & Walter ARSENAL vs. WATFORD COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 31 DATE: 2nd April 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Anthony Taylor 1st LINESMAN: Harry Lennard 2nd LINESMAN: Peter Kirkup 4th OFFICIAL: Andre Marriner First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

Do referees influence results or not?

By Walter Broeckx For many years Untold Arsenal have been looking at referee performances. When Arsenal lose a match and we point at the errors of the ref some people dismiss our analysis and call it sour grapes or say we are bad losers. But as you can see in our reviews we also don’t …

36 points behind the leaders. More wishes to be wary of.

By Tony Attwood On 29 April 1995 Arsenal and Tottenham drew 1-1 at Highbury.  An Ian Wright penalty gave him 18 for the season and left him top league scorer for the club.  I’m sure he was pleased. But in the league Arsenal were 10th, 36 points behind a team that had not won the …

If you love Arsenal, be careful what you wish for

. By Blacksheep Yesterday’s disappointing draw – disappointing mainly because we seemingly threw away a 2 goal lead by allowing a clod hopper like Andy Carroll to score a hat-rick – led to the display of 2 banners at the Boleyn Ground. One read: Love Arsenal / Hate Kroenke and the other (sadly) had the …

State Aid Utd v Arsenal. Lots of stuff that might happen and some that won’t.

By Bulldog Drummond And thus and so, verily, it comes to pass forsooth  The last ever venture to the Boleyn Ground invariably wrongly known as Upton Park by those silly people in the media.  Next time around we shall play at the Tax Payers Stadium, funded by those of us who live in the UK, …

Arsenal and The Quest for the Holy Grail

Arsenal and The Quest for the Holy Grail By Jerry In my opinion, Arsenal have not been awarded a penalty in 2016 (last time Dec  13, 2015) due to a comedy of errors by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) men in the middle. Instead of just listing the multiple missed penalty opportunities and …

West Ham v Arsenal Sat 9 April – The Match Officials. Has the ref learned his script?

by Andrew Crawshaw Following the review of Mr Clattenberg in the Everton v Arsenal game here is a revised Table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 1 41 Red Cards 1 12 Penalties 3 28 Goals 0 11 Total 5 92 Possible Cost in Points 0 25 No further cost …

Why is the organisation that runs refereeing in the Premier League so utterly secretive when other top refereeing organisations are not?

By Tony Attwood To put people into boxes, there are broadly three types of football fan.  Those who look at all the issues considered in the previous article about possible corruption in the Premier League and think, “this looks odd, there should be an investigation,” those who really don’t care about such matters and just like …

There’s a bit in the latest Uefa fiasco that the media is missing, and it is a key issue.

By Tony Attwood I’m sorry you’ve read it all before, but somehow I feel that if I give up now, all the stuff I’ve written before will be a bit wasted.   The argument is still the same: that Uefa and Fifa are so utterly hopelessly corrupt that Football Associations around the world should withdraw, …

The Brickfields Gunners Blog – Fantasy Football Series Part 2.

. . After receiving 7 million LIKES so far ( nb – each AKB’s  LIKE is equal to a million!), for the first part of this Fantasy Football series, I’m suitably moved to present the next instalment of our sincere endeavours  to clear the site, stadium, the Arsenal Universe and the world of those vermin, …