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
Of course the Lord Wenger might have asked for more respect at some time, but I can’t recall it happening. The nearest I can recall him getting to this was after the 0-0 with Fulham when in the usual media scrum he was asked if he was happy with the tactics he had used in …
Read More “Have you ever heard Wenger ask for more respect?”
In fact I can’t even think of when the last piece of balanced, honest writing about Arsenal turned up. But then suddenly the Times came up with by far the best Wapping Swamp piece on the Lord Wenger since I don’t know when. Well yes I do know since when. Since the 1930s. Then the …
Read More “Extraordinary! Three excellent articles about Arsenal in the press”
That awfully nice Mr A Cole of KGB Athletico Fulham has been arrested at something like five in the morning for being drunk and disorderly. What bemuses me is, given the general standard of his behaviour over the years, how can anyone tell. Meanwhile that awfully nice Mr K Bates is finding that people …
Jose Mourinho said yesterday that he thought the ref was biased against his team in their game against Manchester United – and the big news today was that for some reason he is not going to be sanctioned by UEFA. Not that I want him sanctioned – but I just like to understand the rules. …
I have just been struck by the number of players we currently have on loan. I suspect this must be an all time record for us – and maybe for any league club. Jay Simpson: WBA Gavin Hoyte: Watford Rui Fonte: Crystal Palace Henri Lansbury, Scunthorpe Utd Paul Rodgers: Northampton Town Rene Steer: Gillingham Armand …
100 years ago football was in total crisis, with games regularly ending 0-0, and 1-0 being a treat. The football authorities responded (although rather belatedly) by changing the off side rule from needing 3 opponents to 2 in front of the attacker when the ball was kicked, and restricting handling by the goalkeeper to the …
In fact there are two types of person. Those who divide the world into two types, and those who don’t. But leaving that aside, there are also two types of Arsenal supporter. Those who believe that what is in the football pages of the papers is most likely to be true, and those who think …
Well not quite every time, but quite often. Like my call that Arshavin would join us, same with Nasri, Denilson being a great defender, and just before the Cardiff match, about Bischoff. I pointed out with calm and quiet aplomb that is the trademark of these ramblings, that he was rising up the ladder, noted …
During the time before the Icelandic banks and Northern Rock went bang, it was obvious to a number of people who were watching from the wings that things could not go on as they were. I remember a colleague saying to me one day, “either we’ve totally misunderstood how finance works, or they have.” I …
Read More “A difference in financial approach: Arsenal & Chelsea”
I get so hooked on all the youngsters coming through the ranks all the time, Wilshere, Vela, Ramsey, Merida and the rest, that it becomes easy to forget that the Lord Wenger has a fair old ability to work with old timers too. It was widely said that when he arrived at Highbury he extended …
Having wandered into a mathematical world of unreal numbers yesterday, today we face the big issue. Where do negative stories come from? Right up to the signing of Mr A yesterday there were stories saying the deal was dead – one I saw said that the FA were going to refuse the deal for being …
There are two ways to rubbish players. One is to dismiss them in one line, just saying “he’s ineffective” and leaving it at that. The implication is that he is so bad everyone knows it, you don’t have to say another word. The other is to argue the point constructively, using the stats, showing comparisons …
The headline suggests (in the way that journalists do) that there is a connection – although of course there is not, unless I really start believing that the Curse of Arsenal can be put on banks as well as on players and teams. I wrote a slightly amusing piece (well I thought it rather droll) …
Read More “Bank shares fall after Arsenal blog issues warning”
If you have followed my ramblings in the past you’ll know I am rather critical on occasion of my fellow professional scribblers who, I suggest, have been known to take a list of players and a list of clubs, slide them up and down, and come up with links. It is easier than working. My …
Read More “Invented player to sign for Arsenal according to The Times”
This is actually one of two headlines that have made me giggle of late. It is on the Guardian’s web site, and I’ll come back to it in a moment. And the other headline was “Barca tell Arsenal to stop talking about Yaya Toure” So starting with BarBarBarcaSheep… Of course it is just dribble from …
I got the idea for that headline from the one that says Arsenal could lose Theo for just £400,000. That story is in the Mirror in its football news section. Now the word “News” has within it the word “new” which means, well, sort of new – as in not old. The actual story is …
Read More “Journalists could be sued for giving false transfer stories”
One of the great things about supporting Arsenal under Wenger is that I haven’t got a clue what is going to happen. Take Diaby – the notion that he could occasionally run into the top third of the pitch, behave like a proper forward, and score a goal or two, was about the last thing …
There are three big reasons why most football commentary is negative. First, it is easier to write negative than positive commentaries. I remember the classic moment 20 years back when we beat Liverpool Not-yet-insolvents in the last game of the year. The fanzine “1-0 down 2-1 Up” celebrated that with a series of articles at …
There was a moment in the Villa game yesterday where one of their players went down holding his head and the ref looked, and then played the game on. The commentator said “that’s not right” or something like that, and eventually several minutes later the game was stopped. I thought this a heart-warming moment. I’ve …
Read More “Football in turmoil, Villa rumbled, Liverpool as Emperors”
Sometimes you just have to hand it to the Evening Standard. This week David Mellor ran the story that “the Soviet Union is alive and well and living at Stamford Bridge.” There followed an article in which Mellor points out that when the club publishes transcripts of question and answer sessions with fans (all part …
I was sent an email by Jonathan Neale, a great friend to this site, with a copy of a letter which appeared on Football 365’s letter page. Basically it was in many ways reiterating the point about rotational fouling. It is very positive, I believe, that nearly four years after it was first mentioned, the …
Two events yesterday brought home to me the distances we have travelled this year. First, Arsenal put out not their first time, not the squad members who back up the first team, but their third team – a team made up mostly of players who we only see at Barnet in the reserves. And this …
The flavour of the week seems to be the consideration of fans’ behaviour. Following a second consecutive home game that ended 0-0 supporters of Liverpool Insolvents booed the team off the pitch. In the last couple of days there have been articles in the press about racist chanting at the Newcastle/Middlesboro game, a piece about …
Read More “Is the campaign against Tottenham’s chanting having an effect”
It seems utterly bizarre and crazy, but it looks as if of the top four in the EPL only one of the clubs could, if it so wished, rush out and spend £30 million on Johnny Foreigner (to use Mr Sugar’s memorable phrase about Dennis Bergkamp.) The Russians have announced that there will be no …
Read More “Only one big team can afford to buy without selling”
It has been a regular theme here that British football journalists make up stories morning, noon and night. I say that because in an earlier life I worked as a journalist. During this time I worked for a year in Algiers where the main source of news for me was the French papers. From day …
Read More “The French agree, the British journalists are after Arsenal”
