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
When a draw is a win, when a draw is a defeat By Tony Attwood You know the feeling: you score in the last minute to get a draw and it feels like a win. You concede after having taken the lead and it feels like a defeat. You miss a penalty and it feels …
Read More “Sunderland 1 Arsenal Reserves 1: a great victory”
By Walter Broeckx, the ref A visit to Sunderland and the home referee for Sunderland was Mr. Phil Dowd OTHER: From the start Sunderland can’t commit any fouls it seems. The moment we come near a player who falls down ref Dowd blows his whistle. 0/1 GOAL: A lucky goal but they all count. 1/1 …
From the marmalade of the tackle to the croissant of planning. Sunderland v. Arsenal By Phil Gregory* Coming off the back of a stunning 6-0 against Braga, confidence will undoubtedly be high amongst the Arsenal camp. While the goals have flowed freely at home, with big wins against Bolton, Braga and Blackpool, our away games …
By Billy the Dog McGraw This weekend Arsenal play away to Sunderland – the smallest village to have a team in the Premier League. Beer is 1/3 a pint. The Sunderland web site currently carries an article called “Behind Enemy Lines” which features an illustration of barbed wire in what appears to be a prisoner …
Read More “The Sunderland pitch is tilted and gives an unfair advantage”
By Tony Attwood Carlos Vela was 21 last March, according to my maths, and yet it seems like he has been here for centuries. In fact he came in in 2007/8 but didn’t start playing for us until the following season. Year on year his stats are 2008/9 – Starts 10 – Subs 19- Goals …
Read More “Is Carlos Vela not a little too old to be playing for Arsenal”
by Phil Gregory Coming straight from France, the Braga preview. On y va… The season is well and truly on now, with the return of Champions League football, missing apostrophe and all. Life is made much easier by not having to negotiate the play-off round, extra fixtures are rarely desired unless necessary, while Tottenham suffered …
Read More “Arsenal – Braga preview (and missing apostrophes)”
By Billy the Dog McGraw. Our man in the car park. Thus it was. I know the Guardian said it was 25 passes, but that’s tripe. They were quite clearly drunk at the time. I could see them in their little press boxy type thing, below us executive types in club level with me old …
Read More “Arsenal v the Arsenalistas of Arsenal do Minho (aka Braga) (and a car park)”
by Walter Broeckx Last season I tried to compare our season with the one before and as some readers rather liked the idea I thought I would try to do this again. Last year I used the method of comparing the games against the same opponents, no matter at which time in the season they …
By Tony Attwood Paul Robinson, Martin Taylor, Ryan Shawcross and now Dan Smith – the list of criminals walking the streets of England after committing violent and pre-meditated assault seems to grow by the day. In any just society they would all be in prison for their attacks on footballers, with their managers at least …
By Gordon Driver and Tony Attwood We thought today that we might do a sort of match day Untold programme, complete with special feature (the interview with Cesc), plus an updated preview of the game, and the like. (Phil is currently installing himself in his new university in France, and so can’t make it this …
Read More “The Untold Interview with Cesc Fabregas, today’s team, tactics, injuries, crowd trouble”
By Billy the Dog McGraw Oh yes indeed!!! It’s Arsenal vs Notlob Wanderers. (And by the way Tony has a spare ticket for the Wednesday European thing match. Call me on 07714 76 2250, or email Tony with your contact details (Tony.Attwood@aisa.org). Cost price obviously, but you have to sit next to Tony and I …
By Walter Broeckx A tactical and statistical view on the Blackburn game. As a Dutch speaking person I have had the pleasure many times to listen to Johan Cruijff when he was talking about football and tactics at half time or at the end of a game. It is not that one has to agree …
Read More “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Tactics and stats at Blackburn”
By Tony Attwood What a jolly day. And so many issues. I’ll combine them into one article, so we can move on to broader matters of substance for consideration and in-depth analysis tomorrow (or not if I get up late, or if you are bored and have had enough). Wenger’s “rant” (as one correspondent described …
Read More “Totts booed and issue DVD, Wenger supremely clever”
By Phil Gregory Here we are again, Blackburn away. Fresh off the blower asking the box office why my tickets haven’t arrived yet (they were very helpful to be fair) we’re straight into the match preview. Arsène’s started up with the pre-match mind games, though he’s directed them at the referee. In speaking about the …
by Billy “The Dog” McGraw. As Arsenal prepare to play Bolton, or as they are called locally, Blacheborne (a name which, as I mentioned ahead of the fixture last year, is taken from the Old English name for bleach) Untold Arsenal have had the privilege of an interview with Magnus Samo a notorious northern gangster …
By Tony Attwood, Block 99 You remember that old thing: Arsenal are useless because they have no plan B. Well you can forget all that – because we now have not only a plan B but also a Plan C. Given the way our Lord Wenger is working we probably have a Plan D E …
Read More “Welcome to plan C; thank you Mr Cappuccino; hello Henry/Pirès II”
By Phil Gregory Blackpool are welcomed to the Emirates for our first home game of the season. The newly-promoted got an excellent result away at Wigan, though it’s quite easy to over-hype the result. Any 4-0 win, especially away from home is highly commendable, but Wigan seemingly did their utmost to help. A horrendous defensive …
France 2 Spain 1. Last night. Final of the UEFA Under 19 Championship. In the team were two Arsenal players – Coquelin and Sunu. Both played brilliantly, both were significant part of France’s victory, and both were part of the magnificent double winning team of Arsenal, that won the Youth Cup and Youth League. They …
This is overseas week on Untold Arsenal. Walter Broeckx is in Spain covering “Cesc Week” and here is Billy’s piece on tonight’s game in Austria. . Unfortunately transmission lines across the ocean are not what they might be and Walter’s article wasn’t listed yesterday on Goonernews, so if you rely on that august publication, you …
Read More “Rising lake levels and vampires put Arsenal’s friendly in doubt”
By Tony Attwood, at the computer, Great Oakley. So there it was, there you have it, makes you think, this is it. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Stewart Robson, co-commentator extraordinary had said any of that. He is a man who although he was a fine footballer, has never quite mastered the finer points …
Read More “Zarg 6 Arsenal 13; Stewart Robson speaks odd, JET, Nordtveit, Nasri star”
Jack Wilshere joined Arsenal aged 9, JET joined Arsenal aged 9, Jay Simpson joined Arsenal aged 9 Henri Lansbury joined Arsenal aged 9, Emmanuel Frimpong, joined Arsenal aged 11 (we were a bit late there, but to be fair he had just come from Ghana) Craig Eastmond joined Arsenal aged 11 (ditto – must be …
Read More “The day the Youth Project was crowned in all its magnificent glory.”
Same format as last year – all change at half time, but this time the reserves and the first team were more mixed. No Almunia though, which maybe says something – we saw the second, third and fourth choice keepers but not Big Al. No Denilson – he’s injured. No world cup players – they …
Read More “It’s the Frimpong-Wilshere show: Barnet 4 Arsenal 21”
By Walter Broeckx When I saw Mourinho win against Barcelona and Bayern Munich with his very defensive tactics I feared the worst for football. I feared that we were in for a lot of teams trying to stick to his tactics. Park the bus in front of goal and hope for a counter attack and …
Read More “The Mourinho revolution and the death of football”
By Tony Attwood The last post (the one from Walter on what you can and can’t say to a ref) was about football with attitude. So this is about football with altitude. Clever eh? Oh well… Anyway, as you would expect, the issue of playing 10 miles up in the air is one that FIFA …
Read More “Untold world cup: football with altitude. What the mainstream media never tell you.”
by Walter Broeckx The final games have been played. The league table is final. As you know I have done a few reviews of our season and compared it with the games we had last season. So now we can try to draw a few final conclusions. Until the game against Birmingham we were doing …
