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 Cesc has just had the “privilege” of spending some two months in the Spanish team during the world cup and its preparation. And in this period he has kept his mouth shut about his future and if he said something it was in fact saying nothing. But we must keep in mind …
Read More “Cesc: the reality and the truth. (Thanks Puyol and Picque)”
By Billy The Dog McGraw, landlord of the Toppled Bollard and Rampager of the Northern Hordes. Continuing the unique and specialised services offered to you by Untold, and having indulged in a bottle of apple and mango juice to celebrate the new season, I present my first column of the 2010/11: to wit and viz, …
By Tony Attwood The members of the North Korean branch of the Arsenal supporters club tend to consider Arsène Wenger a renegade running dog who can’t admit his mistakes, who clings to power when all the world that victory is inevitably theirs. Their world view is a simple world view. First, they set up a …
Read More “The philosophy of Arsène Wenger and how the North Koreans don’t get it”
By Walter Broeckx Finally the world cup is over. Time to start looking ahead and think about real football, club football and Arsenal. But just a final word from my point of view on the refs in the world cup. We all have seen the big mistakes some refs made and I am going to …
Read More “The world cup final: being bald does not make you into a good ref”
By Tony Attwood It seems like forever since we had any real football, but there’s only five days to go before we start again – as usual at Barnet. Last season the game was curious: we had two different teams out for the two halves (that’s fairly normal) but with some of them playing out …
Read More “Let the football begin: Arsenal back in action on saturday”
By Tony Attwood If you ever care to meander out of the present day to the dim and distant past you might have noticed that on the Woolwich Arsenal site we are running a series on the players who started the first match of the 1910/11 season for Arsenal. Which made we want to think …
Read More “Arsenal’s First Team 2010-11; the complete run down”
Having pulled out of the reserve league structure Arsenal have agreed to return, having won a number of concessions from the league. The key change is that during the winter months when the pitch at Barnet can get rather rough and bumpy, Arsenal has the right to play its reserve matches behind closed doors at …
Read More “Arsenal back in the reserve league, after major concessions”
As you’ll know, Laurent Koscielny is our latest new signing. If we want to be honest before his name was linked with Arsenal not many of us had heard his name. And I have to confess that I never had heard of him before either. I must say that I did on occasion look at …
By Nick Tolhurst The truth about the success of the German national team and what it means for Arsenal. Despite losing to Spain in the semi-final, the story of this year’s world cup has without doubt been the rise of a new, exciting and multi-cultural young German team that has put much heralded and more …
By Phil Gregory Before you start reading, check out What’s really going on (if you haven’t already). It explains all of the terms and whatnot, which makes all that follows easier to, well, follow. Liverpool FC hasn’t been out the news for much of last season for both financial and on-field reasons. It’s probably best …
Read More “Imagine a top EPL club being owned and run by its bank. Stop imagining – it’s true.”
By Walter Broeckx When Robin Van Persie got his very bad injury last season when he played with Holland against Italy it was clear that he would miss the biggest part of the season for Arsenal. I then wrote that probably Robin would be fit for the world cup and have a big impact. Well …
Read More “A Gunner in the world cup final: Robin van Persie – the inside story.”
Introduction by Billy McGraw… I met Maximillian Alexandra Magenta Cappuccino at Askadors, the infamous nightclub in northern Wembley just off the North Circular Road, where FA officialdom meet their secretaries for debate on attacking manoeuvres, defensive structures, and the thrust of everyday footballing matters. There was something bleak about his looks, rather as if he …
Read More “Billy the Dog McGraw interviews the England manager. Exclusive!”
By Tony Attwood, king of the predictive arts, emperor of the future, master of the middle-distance, irony champion 2010, and knower of all sorts of stuff. No one likes a smart-arse. So I am preparing to be disliked. FC Barcelona, who have just signed David Villa, is attempting to negotiate a 150 million- euro bank …
Read More “Barcelona teeters on the edge of financial collapse. How? Why? What? Err?”
The players are doing a bit of pre-season limbering up, our new man from the Orient is already here, there’s Chamakh too, Henri Lansbury looked last season like someone we ought to sign (and hey! we have him anyway), Jack Wilshire is back, Theo hasn’t been injured in the world cup, Djourou is fit, and …
Read More “Supposing we didn’t have Wenger, but had someone far more frightening”
By Walter Broeckx Another lovely page seems to be written in the lovely way of perfect live as it is according to Fifa. A few days ago claims have been made about Australia’s team bidding to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. They seem to have been given some gifts to try and influence votes. …
Newcastle United financial review By Phil Gregory This continues our series of articles about the finances of EPL clubs. There’s a full index of the articles in this series so far, by clicking here. Matchday income Credit to Newcastle for having a transparent set of accounts, but the finances themselves totally baffle me. Matchday revenues …
Read More “Welcome to the strange financial world of Newcastle United”
By Walter Broeckx Every now and then you have such a game where in a few minutes so many things happen in a game that you can write a whole article on it. Paraguay – Spain was such a match. Before we go to the penalties let’s look at the disallowed goal from Paraguay. A …
Untold: It is a great honour to be talking to you Mr Cappuccino. Cappuccino: Yes it is Untold: And may I say how improved your English is Cappuccino: Yes you can. Untold: So what message of hope do you bring to the fans of England’s football team now the world cup is over? Cappuccino: We …
Read More “Exclusive Untold Arsenal interview with the England manager”
by Tony Attwood With Wellington Silva joining us full time in January, Arsenal are stepping up the South and Central American connection. Samuel Galindo is Arsenal’s latest transfer costing €500,000. He is Bolivian, captain of the under 20s, he is 6′ 3″ tall, left footed, an attacking midfielder who can play either in the centre, …
Read More “Arsenal sign Samuel Galindo. Is Celta Vigo our new reserves club?”
by Tony Attwood There is a school of thought that says that no matter what, a club as big as Liverpool will always be able to carry on. The banks would never foreclose on those irritable little scoucers and besides, they are just too important to go bust. Someone will buy them. Quite possibly this …
Read More “Liverpool chairman admits, the owners no longer have any control of the club”
Egg on face, custard all over face, total red face… how do I express my utter embarrassment? After weeks if not months laughing at the Tiny Totts and others not managing to put together a reserve team, Young Guns (exquisite, up to date and far more accurate than Untold on such matters) has revealed that …
by Walter Broeckx One of our readers, Adam, wrote a comment a few days ago and it goes like this: “If you truly wish to ascertain blame then you should look in the direction of “Neuer” and “Tevez” true sportsmen who should both receive awards for honesty. All other arguments are a waste of time. …
By Thiru I have been in this country since 2001 and in common with anyone coming from India as I did during that time, I arrived having had limited exposure to football. I was more or less used to names like Man Utd, Madrid so on and so forth but not many outside that group. …
Read More “When you move to a new country, how do you pick a football team?”
Welcome to the Untold Intrepretation By Tony Attwood As the transfer guessing game starts (according to my diary tomorrow’s July 1), here’s where we are starting from – the squad for the new season. This season for the first time the “25” year rule applies. We’ve been through this in detail a number of times …
Read More “Arsenal’s 2010/11 squad – the new rules, the transfers, the list”
English Premier League financial review – a look at a few of the issues in the League as a whole By Phil Gregory First up, a couple of general notes. As most of the teams in the Premier League are privately owned, they are much slower at publishing their accounts than you might expect. But …
Read More “The English Premier League: where is it all going wrong?”
