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 Tony Attwood This is the third and final part of the little series of articles answering the question “What determines if a club is well run or not?” The series began with my own personal view of how I feel about the club I’ve supported from childhood with 10 ways measure Arsenal. Then I took …
Read More “Does TV revenue make a club well run? Or is it just taking clubs to the edge of a cliff?”
by Tony Attwood I wrote in the last article about the issue of measuring club success. It strikes me that this is important because it gives an ideal of a feel supporters have for their club. It is perhaps hard to remember or recognise that before the Emirates and before Wenger, Arsenal was not always …
Read More “Measuring Arsenal’s success: asking silly questions, manipulating the figures.”
By Tony Attwood A recent article in the Telegraph sought to evaluate the best run clubs in England. I found that quite a challenging concept – and what made it all the more difficult to deal with was that the Telegraph produced tiny summaries of the clubs that were nominated for being among the “best …
Read More “How do we measure club success? 10 ways measure Arsenal.”
A FRIGHTFUL REALITY………Don McMahon There has been much written and posted about the PGMOL and its members. Lets be clear and rational about some aspects of these referees: 1) Where they come from probably doesn’t have much to do with how they officiate but who they support does. 2)What they are told to do …
Read More “A FRIGHTFUL REALITY: the world of Premier League refs is not all it should be”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The hunt is on for the winning piece of transfer news of the first month of the window, known as the Prize for the Winning Piece of Transfer News of the First Month of the Window. And there is no doubt about the lead story. It comes under the headline: …
Read More “Done deal: it’s the prize winner and the biggest shock of the whole transfer window”
2015-16 Referee Previews – An introduction to the Referees by Andrew Crawshaw The Official Web Page for the Barclays Premier League has the following to say about the PGMO :- “Led by General Manager Mike Riley, Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) is responsible for the training, development and mentoring of 79 referees and …
Read More “2015/16: An introduction to the Referees. Do not read this standing up.”
Wenger vs. Mourinho, Baker’s Dozen Failure, A Tale of Two Managers By Jerry As Arsenal prepared to face Chelsea on Sunday in the FA Community, everyone was aware (due to the usual media reminders) that Arsène Wenger has managed against the self appointed “Special/Happy One” José Mourinho on 13 (a baker’s dozen) occasions without a …
Read More “Wenger vs. Mourinho, Baker’s Dozen Failure, A Tale of Two Managers”
By Walter Broeckx I have had the luck of being at Wembley when we played there two seasons ago in the semi final against Wigan. I always say that is there where the first signs became visible of our new team. A new team that would go all the way. Only 2 years later we have …
Read More “The Arsenal Belgium flag at Wembley is our Lucky charm”
By Walter Broeckx It would be interesting to see the line up for this first real competitive match in England. Cech to make the start in the first match and that against Chelsea so a bit of extra spice for him. Oxlade-Chamberlain was in the starting line up and Walcott started up front. Giroud was …
Read More “Community Shield : Arsenal – Chelsea : 1 – 0 To The Arsenal!!!”
By Bulldog Drummond I have not noticed anyone mention, in the build up to today’s overture to the season, that since the spring of 2014 Arsenal have played five and won five at Wembley. 2014: Arsenal 1 Wigan 1 (4-2 on penalties) FA Cup semi-final Arsenal 3 Hull 2 (after extra time). FA Cup final …
Read More “Arsenal seeking sixth consecutive Wembley win since spring last year”
By Tony Attwood Remember Dennis Bergkamp? Even if you’ve only come to Arsenal of late you will know the name and most likely seen some of the film. Arsène Wenger called him a genius – which is not something he calls a player very often. Indeed I may well have missed it but I am …
Read More “Community Shield: the preparation for the game tells us what the manager has in mind.”
Pre-match preview by Bulldog Drummond. The 93rd Community Shield fixture. It used to be called the Charity Shield until the Charities Commission realised that the FA were keeping no proper records, were not giving enough money to charities, and generally making fast and loose. The Charity Commission could have sued the FA and closed them …
Read More “Not very charitable Shield preview part 1: the context”
By Tony Attwood On 9 August 2012, I published the article If Gillingham FC are guilty of racist behaviour, what will the FA do about the club? It was an article which raised a number of comments from Gillingham supporters and regular readers of Untold at the time, all of which are of course still on …
Arsenal Ladies – a busy fortnight by Andrew Crawshaw Whilst we have all been interested in the Arsenal First Team pre-season games, the Ladies have been in full on competition. The Ladies season re-started following the World Cup with a visit from Liverpool Ladies and an unaccustomed loss. Arsenal Ladies v Liverpool Ladies – …
Read More “Arsenal Ladies – a busy but very successful fortnight”
By Walter Broeckx On the facebook group of my supporters club in Belgium, we have had, over the last few weeks, time to run a poll over each position on the field and consider who we think should be played in that position. The result of this poll gave us the following team Goal: Cech. …
Read More “DONE DEAL. Yes we really have built a team while the media weren’t looking.”
By Tony Attwood (and absolutely not by Sir Hardly Anyone, not at all, not one jot, certainly not in anyway, ok?) Matters are getting serious as the Metro accuses Arsene Wenger of lying. Yes I will run that again – they accuse our manager of lying. Not the journalists of making up stuff just to …
By Tony Attwood On 27 March 2014 Sport England announced that it was cutting its funding of the FA’s grassroots football programme for failing the deliver results and value for the public money it receives. It was also told to improve its performance if it did not want further cuts. The money that Sport England saved …
By Walter Broeckx In between the first (rather meaningless) cups we won this season and the first real trophy being at stake in the next weekend we are also still in the middle of the transfer madness season. Let’s start with that. One of my board members of the Arsenal Belgium supporters club posted on …
Read More “Avoid cold porridge. Watch the young guns instead of reading the transfer rumours”
By Tony Attwood My last piece showed that what the manager of Chelsea says isn’t always accurate, which really didn’t come as much surprise. But there is another element to the story which really ought to be mentioned – that Arsenal in recent years would have found it a little harder to make ends meet …
Read More “How Barcelona have kindly helped finance Arsenal over the years”
by Tony Attwood In an ideal democracy there would be some way of getting information untarnished and unmolested from the source to the populace. It’s a dream of course, because the mere selecting of some information rather than other information corrupts the model. But it doesn’t stop people trying, and there is an amazing …
Read More “DONE DEAL: A totally new way to report these amazing unexpected Arsenal transfers”
By Tony Attwood You may recall that State Aid to football clubs is something that riles me. Arsenal have never had any support from the British taxpayer, the owners of lots of oil fields, nor even the Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE. Indeed the last time we were given any money which (had it …
Read More “It is time Arsenal stood up to fight state aid to football clubs in England”
By Tony “all I want is a semi-decent coffee” Attwood Arsenal supporters arrived at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday desperate to welcome a man who has already done it all in English football, but left talking about a summer signing whose career has only just started. So said the Telegraph once it had woken up …
Read More “Arsenal fans worried over Gunnersaurus as club abandons coffee but discovers Jeff.”
By Walter Broeckx Following up on our article about the good things we have seen in the Emirates cup we continue with some looking back at the second match. The match against Wolfsburg was another story. A more difficult one. Wolfsburg played like a typical German team. Players who can run for 90 minutes and …
Read More “The wonderful Adelaide, superb Gabriel, Cech confirms, advice for Akpom”
By Walter Broeckx Looking back at the Emirates Cup we have a lot to feel happy about. Of course the amazing 6-0 win against Lyon was the most eye catching but the win against Wolfsburg was also very promising. Let us first analyse the win against Lyon a bit deeper. One could argue that we …
Read More “Looking back at the Emirates cup: doing that old Özil-Ramsey thing.”
Introduction We have suggested for some time that the constant decision by PGMO (the organisation that employs and selects referees for Premier League matches) to employ a very small number of referees is one that should be changed, for the simple reason that if there is a rotten apple among the refs there is something …
Read More “Revealed: How referees are able to manipulate the results of Premier League games.”
