Arsenal v Chelsea: How to misunderstand football and its fans.

By Tony Attwood I do like it when football journalists let slip just how out of touch they are with the real everyday fans – the people who pay out of their own pocket to watch games, often being given grotty seats in stadia where the niceties of life such as actually obeying the Licensing …

Arsenal v Chelsea 26 April 2015 – The Match Officials

Arsenal v Chelsea 26 April 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly following Walter’s review of the Newcastle game Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal: an overwhelming bias here is the updated “Table of Shame’ Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 0 19 Red Cards 4 16 Penalties 4 …

Who you can buy depends an awful lot on who you have got.

By Tony Attwood The aaa spent much of the early part of the season saying that we should have gone out and bought more players.  My answer was the same: it ain’t that easy.  You have to ask Does the player want to come Does his agent like the deal If non-EU can we get …

Why it’s far too early to announce Moss as ref for the Cup final

By Walter Broeckx I must say that I was rather surprised to hear that Jonathon Moss had been handed the FA cup final. First of all my surprise is because of the fact that the decisions has been made already. We still have some six matches to play in the PL and in those matches …

The **** goes on, and on, and on, and…

By Walter Broeckx In an excellent article Andrew made a summary based on the referee reviews we have done this season. The question has been asked a few times before in the last weeks: are referees giving us a fairer crack of the whip lately? Statistically the answer is no. The bias is still appalling …

Arsène Wenger: the beautiful pragmatist

By Tony Attwood “Wenger can signal power shift to Arsenal – but only by ending his Mourinho hoodoo”  screamed the Telegraph this week.  They and the rest of the press will follow this up with a piece that says “Five things we learned this weekend.” It is all nonsense of course, based on the childish …

Have the referees been any better in Arsenal games recently?

Have the referees been any better in Arsenal games recently? by Andrew Crawshaw This question arose as Tony, Blacksheep and I were having a drink in a bar before the Cup Semi-final.  The essence of the conversation was that both of them were convinced that the refereeing had improved in more recent games. I was …

High wages do not ensure victory… but they can help

By Tony Attwood The new financial analysis of clubs’ finances for the season 2013/14 makes familiar reading.  Manchester United with its world wide marketing earns the most and spends the most on salaries.  Indeed the clubs vying for the top four places in the Premier League earn the most and spend the most on wages …

At last, our complaints about state aid for football are heard

By Tony Attwood Sometimes it seems like screaming at a concrete bunker.  Those odd campaigns that Untold takes on, when few other people want to notice.  We keep on plodding away, reporting each bit of news, in the hope that in the end the story will unfold and people will get interested, at least for …

Bayern’s medical team resign, and the forgotten cause of injuries

By Tony Attwood When Untold gets its teeth into a story we like to dig in deep, and not give up until we’ve got to the bone. OK, perhaps not the best idiom when I am about to talk about injuries, but I’m sure you know what I mean. You’ll remember the era when we …

Women’s Super league – Arsenal’s start to the season

Women’s Super league – Arsenal’s start to the season By Andrew Crawshaw The WSL is now well under way, all eight teams have played three games, here is the table :- Pld Pts W D L F A G.D Pts Chelsea 3 9 3 0 0 7 1 6  9 Arsenal 3 7 2 1 0 …

It’s not who we can afford to buy, it’s who we can fit in

By Tony Attwood I’m not sure that Arsenal actually needed any additional publicity among the football playing fraternity in order to ensure that the players the club wants, want to come to the club, but if they did, then achieving the FA Cup records they have just gathered ought to do it. Everyone must know …

Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal: an overwhelming bias

Ref for this match was Mike Jones The first foul only  happened after 12 minutes but the Ameobi kicked Alexis in the chest. Not with hit studs but a high foot making contact should have been punished with a yellow card.  Ref Jones let it go and as a result Cabella only a minute later …

Fear and Loathing at Wembley Park

By Tony Attwood It is, by any standards, a grotesque and appalling place, made worse by the avarice of capital and the incompetence of inefficiency.  But its foundations show something far more sinister and dispiriting. In a week when we learned that British industry and commerce is now so inefficient that the French as a …

Reading – Arsenal, 1-2 after extra time. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves.

By Walter Broeckx Compared to our match at Burnley Arsenal made a few  changes. Szczesny started in goal and Ospina was on the bench. At right back Debuchy made his first start since his injury and Bellerin didn’t play or was involved. Gibbs started at left back and Monreal was on the bench. Up front …

Reading vs Arsenal: The Europcar Live Blog

The Gunners are back at Wembley. Welcome to LIVE coverage of the clash between Reading and Arsenal at the most iconic football stadium in the world – brought to you by Arsenal’s Official Car And Van Rental Partner Europcar. It’s a winner-takes-all battle between English football’s on-form team – Arsene Wenger’s side have 16 wins …

FA Cup semi-final: It is Mr Atkinson. He doesn’t like us, but there is some good news.

Reading v Arsenal FA Cup Semi-final – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw The Officials for the two semi-finals are :- Reading v Arsenal Referee – Martin Atkinson Assistants – Michael Mullarkey and Gary Beswick Fourth Official – Andre Marriner and for completeness, Aston Villa v Liverpool Referee – Michael Oliver Assistants – Stuart Burt and …

Spare a thought for Thierry as Sky take their revenge

By Tony Attwood Poor Thierry. Last week he slaughtered the odd bods gathered in the studio to pick the meat out of Burnley v Arsenal, he turned Coquelin into the Police Officer, and showed just what those funny digital screens they have are actually there for.  With a breathtaking analysis of how Arsenal controlled the …

Theo, Mikel and Tomas will stay.

By Tony Attwood Over the years of building Stadium Wenger, we’ve got used to players deciding to move on. Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri, Bac Sagnay, Ashley Cole, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, Alek Hleb, Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Alex Song… Some have done well, some have quite simply taken the money and run, some have …

Are we going to beat Reading in the semi-final?

By Tony Attwood   “When we beat Arsenal, we have to wait four weeks after our last league game to play the Cup final.”   Steve Clarke, the Reading manager, in his last pre-match press conference. We are the cup holders and in the semi-final again, so it is not surprising to see the statistics …

The Bradford Stadium fire alleged to have been arson

If you were a football supporter in England in 1985, you will remember the Bradford stadium fire in which 56 people died. At the time we were reminded of the appalling state of many of the lower league grounds that we went to in those days.  Indeed I recall a book of football stadia, which …

The press are telling us Arsenal can win the league. But why can’t Man C?

By Tony Attwood Manchester City were bought by Sheikh Mansour, with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion with a family fortune of at least $1 trillion, in September 2009. He removed Manchester City’s accumulated debt of over £300m and has since worked, and is continuing to work, on the infrastructure of the …

Arsenal v Reading: Reading’s recent form, and other past meetings.

By Tony Attwood Having celebrated the record breaking of Mr Wenger and of the club in terms of reaching the most FA Cup semi-finals, and noted that alongside Man U we are the top performers in the Cup (we’ve each won 11 and been runners’ up seven times), I thought I’d move on to this …

Arsenal v Reading: Arsène Wenger extends his FA Cup record

By Tony Attwood It’s getting a bit boring talking about our record of WWWWWWWWWWW or whatever it is these days so I thought I might try and fill in a bit of time this week by building up to the little ol’ game at Wemberleeee on Saturday. Meanwhile, and speaking of which, although the press …

Why 2nd and 3rd are more of a trophy than 4th, especially in 2015

By Tony Attwood In retrospect it was a pretty dumb thought.  One of my dumbest in fact.  For it was based on the notion that something which was within the ambit of the semi-skimmed kamikaze-by-proxy fruitcakes who run football would be sensible. And yet somehow after this season’s tough start with players drifting back over …