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
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Marc Bénier At the end of last season it appeared that Arsenal was a club in crisis. Injuries and a lack of mental strength, combined with some seriously flawed defending horrified fans, and even AW appeared to be promising major changes – including transfers in and out of the …
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood 1. Because as soon as Barca have him they will do the same thing with Ignasi Miquel who left Barca under similar circumstances. This really is a key point because Arsenal transferred Cesc quite properly within the laws of the game, and yet the local mayor talks …
Read More “The three reasons why Cesc should not go to that club in Spain”
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here The Summer of our Discontent By Ian Trevett There is no doubt that this summer has been a disaster and it is a bad time to be an Arsenal fan. Manchester United has spent in the region of £60m. Chelsea and Manchester City are about …
Read More “The Summer of our Discontent: how Arsenal are falling behind everyone else.”
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal By Tony Attwood In the novel “1984” by George Orwell (the book that gave us such phrases as “Big Brother” and “Room 101” and the notion that newspapers exist to make up news that fits a particular political viewpoint), one of the features of the regime that runs the UK …
Read More “Untold Media Watch: how one paper has read Untold and changed its mind about Cesc”
By Tony Attwood If you have read any of my ramblings on the FFP issue you’ll know I did hope that it might have an impact. I was encouraged by Chelsea pulling back on expenditure, until last January when they went wild. I have been discouraged by the way Man City is spending its billions …
Read More “Financial Fair Play, yes, no, maybe? Málaga, Man C & the rest”
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood There is a continual theme that emerges from those people who like to call themselves Arsenal supporters but who criticise virtually everything the club does, and it goes something like this: The club is being run as a money machine, not as …
Read More “How the transfer market has been utterly screwed this year”
By Phil Gregory The Arsenal Supporters Trust isn’t happy. A few weeks back they had a Q&A session with Ivan Gazidis that was feisty to say the least. Despite some of the usual football fan penis measuring “I’ve been a season ticket holder for TWENTY FIVE YEARS …” (therefore my view is more valid than …
By Tony Attwood For Arsenal to win the league this coming season we need four things to happen. Quite obviously the team needs to play well. I know it is patently obvious, but sometimes I like the obvious. Equally obvious is that the under 10s say there’s no chance of that, and they are doing …
Read More “Roman Abramovich and Michel Platini. Who is kidding whom?”
Following the appointment of Remi Garde as manager of Lyon I suggested I might throw in an article or two about French football. Here’s the first. By Tony Attwood Go back fifteen years and you can see a very clear picture of European football. Italy, lauded in the 1990s as the home of great football, …
Read More “The purchase of Paris St-Germain is going to affect the EPL big time.”
By Tony Attwood For a while it looked like Man IOU and Liverpool (previously known as the Insolvents) were going to come a cropper over the Uefa financial rules which aimed originally to make clubs playing in European championships be financially solvent. But with those two, and Chelsea and Man City spending like they had …
Read More “Fifa aim to help Barca with the new 18 player squad rule. Arsenal not affected.”
According to Virgin Money’s Football Fans’ Inflation Index 13% of season ticket holders in football league and Premier League clubs won’t renew for next season. They also claim that in the EPL 31% of regular match-goers who do not have season will reduce the number of games they attend. The Index also shows the average …
Read More “Arsenal tickets. Who is to blame for price rises?”
By Tony Attwood The top four clubs in the Premier League have between them three different models of financing. Money from an established world-wide marketing scheme (Manchester United) Money from a very rich owner (Chelsea, Manchester City) Profit made from running the business (Arsenal) This blatantly obvious fact is easily ignored when the debate rages …
Read More “Just exactly how could any manager do any better?”
By Billy The Dog McGraw Tony and Walter are off playing in the Supporters Club tournament on the Emirates pitch today, and thus have asked me, their trusted colleague and devoted lacky, to take over for the day. In fact I am just off down the pub, but here’s a few thoughts to be going …
Read More “Barca beat Man U in the bankrupt final, but who will sink first in the financial mire?”
By Phil Gregory Right, in order to head off some of the usual confusion around what we have to spend I thought I’d put together this article. The big question surrounds this mythical, unspent war chest that stubborn old Arsène likes to sit on and shout “NON!” when anyone asks about it. Do we actually …
By Tony Attwood The 20 clubs in the Premier League were very careless last year. And I mean very careless. I mean if lose a £5 note I am fairly pissed off. And these guys lost 100 million times that amount between them. £25 million per club on average. Lost. Gone. Down the plug. Vanished. …
Read More “Record losses, and disaster awaits. The Premier League crisis”
By Tony Attwood The main thrust of Untold in terms of corruption relates to the issue of the way in which it seems that the Italian style low-level buying of referees in general as crept into the Premier League. But while this is our main level of focus in terms of the way football has …
Read More “From Ridsdale to QPR, there are corruption questions being asked”
By Richard Bedwell Ticket price increases – a different perspective. I have an above average priced season ticket at Arsenal. The 6.5% increase means that I’ll be paying about £80 more than I did last season. However I also pay £48 per year for my ATVO subscription which will now be included in my membership …
Read More “Arsenal ticket prices: it is not as bad as we thought”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal, as you will know, has said they plan to increase ticket prices by a total of 6.5% from the start of the 2011-12 season. They also said a number of changes are being introduced to ticketing and particularly thanked Arsenal Independent Supporters Association for their positive input over the past couple …
Manchester U are regularly seen as the richest club in the world. This, despite their debts, is once again the feeling of Forbes 2011 Soccer Valuation, in its latest survey. Manchester U have been number one on the Forbes list for seven years running, which is rather dull, and is now valued at something like …
Read More “Arsenal move up and are now third in the rich list”
By Tony Attwood I didn’t see it coming – in fact I have written a number of times on this blog to say that Mr Kronke would not be buying Arsenal. And then lo and behold he does. (Exit editor stage left covered in egg). Good or bad it is certainly the end of a …
Read More “For the first time since Norris, one man owns most of our club”
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Billy the Dog McGraw runs his finger over Uefa’s financial fair play rules, gets it snagged on a sharp bit and scuttles off to the local A and E for a quick repair. There is a report on the BBC web site this morning that “Two …
Read More “Financial Fair Play equals nothing, but someone is going to go bust”
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Billy “the Dog” McGraw, gratefully released back into the community. For our old pals at UEFA Arsenal is seen as the ultimate football club in terms of financial probity. We are the Gods. The people what gets it right. The moral high ground. What …
Read More “The FA is near insolvency; Sir F Word has a laugh, media don’t get it.”
By Tony Attwood Man U’s parent company Red Football has delivered a record pre-tax deficit for the year ended 30 June. Last year it made a £21m profit largely due to the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for £80m. This year the company suffered the £64.7m cost related to the setting up of …
Read More “Red Football Ventures loses rather a large amount of money.”
A brief pause from Walter’s series on football referees, following our coverage on the BBC web site (see the home page for the latest). Here’s a piece on Deloitte’s latest figure fest. Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony by Tony Attwood For some reason the regular table of football …
Read More “Deloitte’s poverty list confirms that Barcelona are in real trouble”
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony By Phil Gregory You may not be familiar with the name Karen Murphy, but I imagine you soon might be. I saw on BBC news last week that Ms Murphy has had her first victory in her war in the European Courts, a …
Read More “Football on TV: will we at last get some real improvements?”
