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 our man down the pub. So who is it going to be in January? a) no one b) Fernando Llorente c) Saido Berahino d) Karim Benzema “No one” is the preferred option of the AAA who are desperate for Giroud to be injured and then for Arsenal to slip down the league and (they imagine) …
Read More “Arsenal on (red) alert looking to outbid… blah blah blah”
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article. __________________________ After having dealt with the different teams and after having examined all the refs we now are bringing it all together. In the last article in …
Stamford AFC 4-2 Ashton United (attendance 301) With no Arsenal game this weekend Tony and I scoured the fixture lists and came up with what looked like an interesting tie in the FA cup. For most us the FA cup doesn’t start till January when the 3rd round proper sees the big boys enter the …
Read More “Untold Non-league: Robins run out of town in the cup”
By Tony Attwood For a while on the administrative front the story has been around that Liam Brady will leave Arsenal. At the time of the announcement of his departure, Ivan Gazidis said, “Liam has a deep understanding of what it takes to discover and develop a talented youngster into someone who can perform at …
Read More “Stillness and Speed. The old boys want to return to Arsenal.”
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article. __________________________ After having dealt with the different teams and after having examined all the refs we now bring together the scores from all the refs and we …
Read More “Ref Review 2012/13: The referee competency league table”
By Tony Attwood The chair of Southampton has joined with Chelsea in launching an attack on Uefa’s Financial Fair Play policy and the Premier League’s own version of the programme. I don’t want to do another FFP article, because the whole situation remains too unclear to make any firm predictions about. But fFor now I …
Read More “Southampton: a new contender knocking at the door?”
Just 180 minutes of football separate England from a place at the Brazil 2014 World Cup but if Roy Hodgson’s side are to stand a chance of qualifying they must beat Montenegro tonight, without any Arsenal stars in the starting XI. As it stands England are just one point ahead of Ukraine and Montenegro in …
By Tony Attwood Uefa is considering launching a nine division European league for nations, colonies and territories. It claims the games of the new league can be played in the periods set aside at the moment for friendly matches, but there looks like every chance of this being another thin edge of a very thick …
Read More “Yet another international tournament. It is time to stand up and say “f*** off Uefa””
By Tony Attwood During the days when every rag bag of anti-Wengerians could raise a banner and get a back page headline in the degenerate press, the notion was simple: anything is better than Wenger, anything is better than Kronke. I am not too sure that feeling is one that holds sway in the realms …
Read More “Concern about finances – how the top teams think”
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article. __________________________ For the next and last ref in our series we have ref Roger East. Roger East, born in 1965 and so he is around 48 years …
Read More “Ref Review 2012/13: Roger East. A short term solution”
By Walter Broeckx Slowly, very slowly the truth is coming out about the PGMOL. Very, very slowly. And much too slow for my liking. But still, there is progress. For a few years now we have been pointing at the things that are wrong in the referee world. I have written (apart from the reviews) …
Read More “Untold lightyears ahead of the real world as cracks appear in PGMOL”
By Tony Attwood English football is all a-flutter. Our very own Smoking Jack has declared that only real Englishmen should play for England. Mr Wenger has said that the rules indeed need sorting as otherwise the international matches become just another club type tournament. And just for a laugh, Greg Dyke, the Football Association chair, …
Read More “England leads the world in sporting self-delusion.”
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article. __________________________ For the next ref in our series we have ref Phil Dowd. 50 year old ref Dowd is one of the older refs in the PL. …
Read More “Referee Reviews: Phil Dowd. After a good year, a year in decline”
Untold Arsenal is a blog about football and Arsenal. But there are moments that we have to put this aside and take a instant to reflect on things that are far more important than football. Those friends of the site who have been Untold readers for many years will know the name “Dogface”. People who …
By Walter Broeckx I didn’t intend to talk about this any further. But as the comments are divided I thought it was time to try to bring some clarity to this incident. There are roughly speaking two versions. One is saying (in simple terms): Mulumbu played the ball first and then made contact with Wilshere …
Read More “The Mulumbu – Wilshere incident: penalty or not? How the English media stands alone”
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article…… __________________________ For the next ref in our series we have ref Neil Swarbrick. Neil Swarbrick is 47 years old and is one of the refs that started …
Read More “The Referee Reviews: Neil Swarbrick. Every goal was right, but oh, the bias!”
The Long View By Pete Further to my previous articles on how match assessments are unfairly influenced by the result of the game (links to the earlier articles below), the other related major issue I see is that of completely over the top responses to a single result. One defeat after a series of wins …
Read More “The Long View: how many trophies in the next eight years?”
By Walter Broeckx On a regular basis people play word games. As in our referee reports we often use the word bias they want us to say that we should use the word errors. Or mistakes. And I can imagine the reasoning behind this. Bias is something that clearly indicates that something is wrong. While …
By Walter Broeckx This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article. __________________________ For the next ref in our series we have ref Mike Dean.. Mike Dean is 45 years old and is in fact now one of …
Read More “Ref Reviews 2013: Mike Dean. An unacceptable bias.”
I have to say that meetings aren’t the most fun things one can do in life but when they take place in the posh bit of the Emirates (Club level) and free curry is included it all helps to improve the mood. I am a committee member of AISA although I’ve struggled to make any …
Read More “The AISA AGM (from one who was there); a fairer deal for all”
Match Analysis This is part two of a series in which we investigate the way we see football. Part one: “Its the defence stupid”, is here By Pete One thing that has always puzzled me is that pundits, bloggers and fans’ assessment of games is hugely coloured by the result. My previous article looked at …
By Walter Broeckx For those who don’t like me to say : ‘we told you so’, please stop now because in this article we will say: we told you so. So after this warning you can read further but don’t complain about it. When the game started we knew that a draw would keep us …
West Bromwich Albion v The Arsenal. Today’s guest writer: Reginald Spode, amateur dictator, 7th Earl of Sidcup, Saviour of England, honorary vice president of Ukip (flower arranging division) and editor of the Daily Mail. Being an amateur dictator is, I can tell you, a tough job, although one that fits naturally and easily with being …
Read More “Sunday Match Preview by the Right Hon Reginald Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup”
West Bromwich Albion v The Arsenal – Referee preview The Match officials are Referee – Lee Mason Assistants – S Ledger and M Perry Fourth Official – J Moss Mr Mason is another Lancashire referee and has been in the Premier League since 2006, he is chairman of the Bolton Referees Society and was born …
Read More “West Bromwich Albion v The Arsenal – Referee preview”
It’s the Defence, Stupid… By Pete This is the first of 3 slightly related articles examining (i) a reason for our recent improvement (ii) how the analysis of football matches in the media is fundamentally flawed and (iii) the importance of retaining focus on longer term goals. To start, I have been thinking about the …
Read More “What’s so different at Arsenal that has led to this improvement? Actually, its…”
