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 and Tony Attwood Knocking the Arsenal is an important part of the job of every reporter. To be fair some do back off when we are playing brilliant football and winning stuff (only the Guardian and Observer did snarling cynical pieces about the club in the days after we finished the unbeaten …
So everyone is “carrying knocks” or is downright injured. I have often wondered about “carrying a knock”. I mean, carrying where? In my pocket? And what, after all, does a knock look like when it is carried? Is it perhaps a bit like the dark matter that physicists keep talking about every time they try …
Read More “When you are carrying a knock, do you put it in your pocket or hold it in your hand?”
By Phil Gregory Arsenal welcome Liverpool to the Emirates stadium for Wednesday’s Carling Cup tie. The Reds, already six points off the pace in the Premier League despite a solid home win over champions Manchester United are expected to put out a below strength side for the tie with an eye on their match at …
Read More “Arsenal/Liverpool: team sheet and complete analysis”
So having spent a day arguing about when people were signed and the value of our youth system, the Lord Wenger now tells us it is all going to be pulled to bits by the new FIFA plans to limit transfers of players under 18. Our Great Leader pointed out that we have the “90-minutes” …
As Adam Smith pointed out yesterday, you couldn’t watch last night’s game on any sort of TV system anywhere south of Pluto. In fact if you tried BBC radio you would have found that in the summary half hour from 10 to 10.30 (when a couple of extra times were going on) the match actually …
By Phil Gregory West Brom, managed by Roberto Di Matteo (formerly of MK Dons) are Arsenal’s opponents in the Carling Cup on Tuesday. They will undoubtedly be coming into this match on a wave of confidence, having beaten Middlesborough 5-0 at the Riverside, and holding a one point lead over Newcastle at the top of …
Read More “Arsenal v WBA: the style, approach, players, prediction”
Starting next season all EPL clubs will have to name 25 players over 21 before the season begins as their registered players list. Eight of those players must have been developed for at least three years by an English or Welsh club before their 21st birthday. The clubs can also have a limitless list of …
Read More “Wenger’s genius revealed as clubs face new “home grown” rule”
At last, a club willing to stand up and fight against the insane, bent and discredited UEFA. Arsenal’s statement over the Eduardo affair was everything we could have wished for – a complete catalogue of everything that is wrong with the warped European governing body, including its arrogant belief that it can get away with …
During the 1990/1991 season a group of Manchester IOU (then known as plain Manchester Thugs) players ran around some Arsenal players and there was a bit of pushing and shoving. In typical idiotic, insane, pathetic, stupid, disgraceful, bizarre and incomprehensible style the League decided to take two points away from Arsenal, and thus scupper their …
Read More “SFA could be banned for 2 matches; Arsenal United”
The general view among the more thoughtful fans of Arsenal (well, my mate Ian and the two guys I met down the pub) is that the Lord Wenger really has had a masterplan and has not deviated from it. And it is now being revealed in all its glory. And in common with earlier Wengerian …
Welcome to Season 91. In September 1919 Arsenal started to play in the First Division, having been awarded a place in the reshuffle that followed the end of the First World War. The top division was expanded by two clubs at that time, but the issue of promotion was made very murky because the last …
Read More “Welcome to Season 91. Plus Amazing growth of the soaraway Sun”
Going off on holiday for a couple of weeks always makes me feel that when I return there ought to be something BIG – some incredible news that has changed the world while I have been away. Of course it is rarely like that and I returned late last night to see that Newcastle are …
I am about to leave for a holiday for a couple of weeks – out of the rain of Northamptonshire to the sun of Italy. During this time I am leaving the site open so that comments can be posted by those who have posted before. However anyone new posting, or anyone posting with a …
Read More “What did Wenger say about defenders, and the issue of bent football clubs”
I can’t remember ever being this excited about the Barnet game. This blog is, of course, dedicated to giving eternal support to Arsenal, and so every season is full of hope and expectation, but this one is something else. The last time I felt this good pre-season was after the unbeaten season. I think the …
Read More “Half the perfect front line will play. Oh joy; it’s starting again.”
There I was, pausing in my busy daily schedule of writing stuff, to take a quick Florida Salad Sandwich, when the news pops up. Arsenal will sell Cesc for £40 million. And you know it must be true because it is in that central and vital source of all news about Arsenal, the people on …
Last season the excellent magazine Highbury High invited a range of supporters to participate in the prediction game, where the writers nominate the player who would make the breakthrough in the season to come. The publishers very kindly included me in their list of guest writers and so I duly cheated and put in two …
Articles on Untold Arsenal are so good that they also appear on Team Talk. The same is true with much of our correspondence. The name of the “author” is changed on Team Talk. Team Talk have been told repeatedly, but won’t stop the activity, so, I think we should celebrate this situation. Read it here, …
Read More “There are 3 ways of running a top EPL club. (Two don’t always work)”
As we entered the close season I planned this as a sort of weekly revue of EPL clubs, and how they are coping. I expected to be fighting off the usual “Oh my God its a disaster, Man IOU has signed everyone and we haven’t” but in fact its not quite like that at all. …
Read More “This transfer window, who is doing well, who is quivvering, & who is on police bail”
There’s a story that has cropped up a few times recently, and it goes like this… Arsène Wenger is on holiday or in the Far East or both, when he should be concluding deals in Europe. If he can’t take the club seriously he should be sacked. As has already been said here by others, …
There is muttering in Spain. Real Mad are known to have government support – the deal they did over the training ground, the way they can borrow when others can’t – I won’t go into that in detail – you can read it all elsewhere. So Barca et al are unhappy, but, at least for …
Read More “What does Ronaldo’s move mean for Arsenal and the EPL?”
Arsene Wenger’s Magical Embryo Farm -Benik Afobe by Jonathan Neale Ahhh scenic Dagenham – the shining jewel of East London. A place so evocative Linda Smith once wrote, “Erith isn’t twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham”. It may have a bit of a run-down, rough-as-nuts, working-class reputation but, in …
Read More “Arsene Wenger’s Magical Embryo Farm – Benik Afobe”
Understanding how the transfer window works (A large dose of realism required) by Terence McGovern The transfer window is upon us once more. This annual merry-go-round of sloppy journalism and internet speculation is eclipsed only by the immoral level of spending money not owned on things not needed that would make Paris Hilton Blanche. It …
Arsene Wenger’s Magical Embryo Farm – Oğuzhan Özyakup by Jonathan Neale Snaffled from Alkmaar Zaanstreek, and whisked from under the eager snouts of some of Europe’s biggest clubs including Barcelona, AC Milan and Ajax, ‘Oğuzhan Özyakup’ is a scary name to try to pronounce. It may also prove to be one to remember. Helpfully, I …
Read More “Oğuzhan Özyakup: Arsene Wenger’s Magical Embryo Farm”
After those of us with a bit too much time on our hands gave the Mirror and News of the World a bit of a run around over their “Everyone wants to leave Arsenal” campaign, they’ve retaliated twice – once with the old-fashioned “snub” standby, and now today with with Wenger clearout story. The “snub” …
Read More “Invented Arsenal stories + a rundown of all the clubs that have gone bust”
The first summer deals are now being announced. As a starter, Cheltenham have confirmed that 15 year old Jamie Edge will join Arsenal immediately. Edge has come through Cheltenham’s youth programme and has been playing for Arsenal in an under-16 tournament in Italy. Chairman Paul Baker told the club’s website, “Cheltenham Town have reached a …
Read More “Arsenal make 2 signings, & Hleb enters the desert”
