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 Walter Broeckx In their haste to blame Wenger for: 1. Welbeck missing a first chance (AWshould have bought Falcao instead of Welbeck 2. Welbeck missing another header seconds later (see it’s AW his fault should have bought…. 3. Welbeck shooting to weak (see AW should have….) 4. Jack Wilshere missing the easiest of chances …
Read More “Dean Did It Again. We present the proof of his “errors””
By Walter Broeckx Let me start by saying that I would love it if the ticket prices at Arsenal would drop. I would be very happy with that. As for most people it is expensive. And as most of Europe is in not the best economical conditions (certainly my country is doing badly we are …
Read More “It’s cheaper at the Emirates. Arsenal ticket prices and the hidden facts”
On Saturday I eschewed nearly all of my pre-match rituals and we lost to the worst United team since the dawn of time (or sometime in the 1970s I think). Why did I stop? Well because for most of the season they haven’t worked and frankly I’d reached the point (it was Anderlecht at home …
Read More “A confession: when we lose it is all my fault. Football rituals and me”
By Tony Attwood An Arsenal match is, for journalists, a moment for making stuff up… or if not that then a moment for exaggerating and giving undue emphasis to some events while ignoring others. I’m wondering what we can do to stop it. For example the David Hytner Guardian piece today says: “An Arsenal supporter …
Read More “Football Betrayed: would public flogging be a fair punishment for football journalists?”
By Tony Attwood Last season there was mass wild ravings from the AAA and their backers in the mass media, to the effect that Olivier Giroud was no good, useless, a waste of space, tedious, pointless and various other things that I’m too busy to mention. I replied once or twice with an analysis which …
By Walter Broeckx As I had other obligations this evening to which I had committed myself I had to stop watching the match at half time. We had booked tickets for a stand up comedian who not just was telling jokes but who also talked about some not so happy things in her life. And …
By Bootoomee I have not written any article for a while now because I have had no issue that I feel strongly about enough to spur me into writing one….well, until I received this from a friend in London. This is attention-seeking stunt from a group of individuals about some nefarious act that a PRIVATE …
Read More “Maybe AST Should Be Running Arsenal Football Club”
By Tony Attwood, Quite often it seems that football moves at an extraordinarily slow pace. Or at least that is how it seemed to me on returning to England from Australia to find a bit of a broohaha exploding about the fact that a group of the worst musicians in England played (I use the …
Read More “Being ahead of the game, behind the time and raging against the dying of the light.”
By Andrew Crawshaw Before I go into this weeks officials, here is the table of wrong Important Decisions extracted from Walter’s referee reviews. Three wrong Important decisions from the Swansea game, matching not given penalties and a not given red card to Ashley Williams at the start of the second half, a game changer if …
By Walter Broeckx On the website arsenal.com on Thursday we could find some good news. The first good news wasn’t mentioned at all and that I think is good news. Some have said that Welbeck got a knock against Scotland in the international match and hobbled before coming off. Hodgson said afterwards that there shouldn’t …
Read More “Giroud and Walcott back, a whole backup attack available”
by Don McMahon Inspired by an article that Tony recently penned and as a follow-on to my recent articles dealing with the ins and outs of refereeing, I felt it was apropos to present a brief overview of more of the tricky and difficult path an aspiring referee has to travel to get to the …
By Walter Broeckx In an article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday under the header: “Jack Wilshere: I want to play in holding role for Arsenal like I do for England, but Arsène Wenger will not let me”. Now that is what I call an interesting question. Could he? Would he? Can he? Will he? Playing …
By Bob MacDonald Van Gaal has followed on from Fergie and Moyes in playing quite a strict 4-4-2 formation, though he has changed slightly to a diamond midfield, not that you can actually notice. The basis in their system is that the wide MF actually play as wingers (here come the Dinasoars) attacking and defending …
Read More “The Untold tactical preview: UNITED – AND HOW THEY WILL PROBABLY PLAY”
By Walter Broeckx As far as I could find out all the Arsenal players have played their matches for their national teams and weren’t injured! An unseen achievement for Arsenal. Probably Wenger’s fault…. And when looking back at their performances one can say that in general they did rather well. Jack Wilshere was again voted …
By Tony Attwood If anything seems to represent the style and approach of Professional Game Match Officials Ltd company which employs Premier League referees, it is a combination of complacency and secrecy, with a side order of arrogance thrown in. This is a most dangerous combination, because the secrecy inevitably leads to a lack of …
Read More “The extreme danger we face of PGMO doing nothing”
By Walter Broeckx We all have probably seen the headlines in the media that provoked a firm reaction. Headlines saying: Wenger will offer Diaby a new contract. One of them said: Abou Diaby will be offered new Arsenal deal if he regains full fitness, confirms Arsène Wenger. With an accent of course but I …
Read More “Offering Diaby a new contract or not, what Wenger really said”
By Tony Attwood Although I don’t want it soon, one day it will happen. Mr Wenger will leave Arsenal. So who will we get? Will Arsenal do a Man U, and appoint a seemingly decent manager, fail to give him the proper support he needs, and then chop his head off after a year, wasting …
Read More “13 men who might or might not take over after Arsene Wenger”
By Walter Broeckx I think it was halfway September that I for the first time predicted that we would have Dean for our match against Manchester United. And who did Mike Riley appointed for this match this Monday? Yes, the Untold prediction on referees once again was spot on. Mike Dean it will be. In …
Read More “As predicted by Untold months ago… the ref for Arsenal – MU”
By Walter Broeckx I think we can say that we have survived the first round of international matches. And the best thing is that all you out there crossing your fingers, praying, hoping, wishing for no injuries to Arsenal players have done a good job so far. Because as far as I could find I …
By Walter Broeckx Thanks to a good wind we have the end of season report from the PGMO over the season 2011-2012. A season Untold Arsenal also covered in their ref review history for a big part. In the first article we looked at the way the PGMO rates their referees and who it would …
By Tony Attwood Having learned to stand upside down, deal with very large lizards and not get frightened by some very alarming bird calls, and having been stung by a jellyfish the wildness of transfer rumours, well, half a a world away. But I must say the Daily Mirror gave me a laugh-out-loud moment with …
“Blatter has long clung to the comforting falsehood that the English media only reports all this because England lost out, but he should realise there is outrage here that the FA spent £21m of football money, and £3m public money from 12 hard-up local authorities, courting a corrupt Fifa.” That paragraph, from the Guardian, is …
Read More “Germany stands tall while pathetic FA and UK press still want us in Fifa”
By Walter Broeckx When I got my hands on the end of season 2011-2012 report from the PGMO (the secret organisation that runs the referees in the PL) I compared this with the numbers we gathered over the same season. I talked about this in a first article that you can find here and then …
Read More “We all live in a PGMO dreamland…more strange numbers”
by Walter Broeckx Untold Arsenal is a positive blog. We always look at things in a positive way. We don’t believe that moaning about the players and managers 25 hours a day is first of all making any difference and secondly will change anything. So why moan and make yourself and the rest of the …
By Walter Broeckx In my first article I said that I had an end of year report from the PGMOL still with the L in those days in which they said that they only have noticed 43 wrong key decisions in the whole season 2011-2012. Of course if you think about that number for more …
