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 Arsenal drawing at Leicester is when you look at our recent history not that strange. As in the pre match article we pointed out even the invincibles had to settle for a 1-1 draw. And when you look at the fact that that season Arsenal won the league unbeaten and Leicester went …
By Bulldog Drummond It is my motto always to live an exciting life – to go to strange places (Leicester here I come), do unusual things, and wherever possible wear strange hats. I also try to be hearty and jolly in a sort of unremitting way, except when dealing with the sort of hearty …
Read More “Leicester away, all the details plus tomorrow’s newspaper headlines.”
Leicester v Arsenal 31 August 2014 – The Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Before I start on the officials for Sunday, here is a table illustrating the wrong important decisions to date – two games, six wrong game changing decisions, five against Arsenal and these two games were officiated by two referees who I considered …
By Tony Attwood 10 August 2013: In a somewhat unexpected result Arsenal beat Man City 3-1 in a friendly. Sebastian Perez Cardona appeared for Arsenal, and the AAA and their journalistic allies made much of the fact that the player did not have a work permit. He came on as a sub in the 67th minute wearing …
Read More “How Chelsea sneaked in Willan, but Man U failed with Rojo”
HE GOT THE BALL……by Don McMahon Recently, there has been a lot of debate about a statement that pundits, media types and commentators on TV and other media regularly use to justify a serious foul during play, often committed in a manner that is excessively dangerous and careless/reckless. As Tony mentioned to me in a …
Read More “But….. he got the ball (or “It’s the consequences squire, not the intent””
By Walter Broeckx As you may recall from an earlier post, a few months ago I was voted chairman of the Arsenal Belgium official supporters club. Since then our new board has done an amazing job. We have used all the resources we had on social media and our own website to spread the word …
Two games into the season and an unconvincing opening win was followed by a sobering defeat at the home of the reigning champions. Liverpool have lost Suarez to Barca (despite him not being able to play, or them not being able to sign anyone…) but have added lots of new blood, including ‘super Mario’. So …
By Walter Broeckx So Arsenal have done it again. For the 17th consecutive year we have managed to qualify for the CL group stages. And we all know how important that is for a club like ours. As long as we are paying for the stadium it will be an important part of the income …
Read More “Showing character is as important as playing nice football”
By Tony Attwood This was quite a night in the Emirates. Noisy, some serious long-term chanting, nervy. I thought the elderly gent (well, my sort of age) just along from me was going to have a heart attack but his wife helped him up at the end and he made it out. You could feel …
Read More “Unbeaten run gets to 11: but were the press actually there?”
By Walter Broeckx Well that was an interesting match I think. Just as in Turkey we didn’t get it handed over on a platter. It was hard work from the start to the finish. Not helped by a ref who just as the one in Turkey managed to go from brillant to blind within seconds. …
Read More “Alexis on the score sheet, Arsenal go in the group stage”
By Bulldog Drummond So, having brought you Arsenal against some toffees it is now time to face the turkeys. I don’t have to bring you the news about Giroud since it is all over the papers, displaced only by the heroics of the players from one of the Empires greatest ancient cities – Milton Keynes. …
By Tony Attwood Oh how the media love to ignore the big question. It doesn’t matter whether it is something unbelievably important such as the mass abuse of vulnerable children in Rotherham or something trivial (and yes I mean that by comparison) such as football, there is either an ineptitude or a conspiracy which leads …
“I can categorically tell you Mario Balotelli will not be at Liverpool,” Brendan Rodgers said earlier this month. There’s quite a difference between that sort of statement and the sort that Mr Wenger says, which is mostly of the “I can’t tell you, because nothing is agreed, but yes, we are looking,” variety. But what puzzles …
Read More “Liverpool’s story telling: a different way to approach football”
By Walter Broeckx After a few articles about our match against Everton a few interesting discussions could be read in the comment section. I thought it would be interesting to go in to this matter a bit deeper. As an assistant with over 100 matches done including teams of the Jupiler League in Belgium I …
Read More “Everton, the assistant, carrying the flag and an experiment”
by Don McMahon The above expression is a direct translation from a local French expression (I bet Walter knows it and maybe has a similar one in Flemish as well) and it basically means that a double-standard is being applied to some decision or judgement or use of tools that need to be encouraged. In …
Read More “One weight, two measures: double standards on the field.”
by Tony Attwood Last season Aaron Ramsey scored 16 goals in all competitions. Which is a fairly decent total – until you remember that he only played 35 games, when it suddenly becomes a very good total. It is almost one in two. In the league it was 10 goals in 23 – again approaching …
Read More “Arsenal’s tactical revolution slowly comes to fruition”
By Walter Broeckx Referee : Kevin Friend Date 23/08/2014 At the start of this match it seemed that the ref got an easy game. No real fouls. I think he fell asleep after some 10 minutes and then when he had to act he lost his touch somehow. There was hardly a foul being committed …
By Tony Attwood Sometimes I say naughty things, like calling a player sold by Liverpool to Barcelona a vampire. Its terrible. People write in and complain. Never mind this is the “greatest league in the world,” so it will survive, and quite probably so will Untold. And yes, Mr Mackay said awful things, but you know …
Read More “Oh football: from England’s emails to Russia’s occupation, it’s in a mess”
By Tony Attwood 55% of the play, the most shots (10-6) and the most on target (3-2). We suffered a ludicrously wrongly given goal – and when you hear Sky commentators saying it should not have been allowed on two separate counts, you know the officiating was bad and bent. Especially in a league …
Read More “The Unbeaten Run gets up to 10; the Independent is insulting”
By Bulldog Drummond. I was taking a stroll to my club yesterday when a fella-me-lad comes up and says hey ain’t you that Bulldog Drummond what writes review for the Times Literary Supplement and I said well young urchin yes that’s right. And he hit me. I picked myself up and asked him why and …
Read More “Everton in August; what a thought! Bulldog’s match preview”
By Tony Attwood Of course, whether we need more players or not is a matter for debate. I look at Giroud’s 40 goals for Arsenal and think that signing up a new player to replace him would be silly, given that it takes players a year or so to bed in – especially if they …
Read More “Why we don’t sign every player some think we need”
By Tony Attwood Ever since the opening match of the season in which I pointed out that, what to me seemed the biggest problem with the game, (the persistent time wasting) was not picked up either by TV or by the press, I have been wondering why. I can see why the TV directors don’t …
Read More “Why newspapers follow TV in not reporting time wasting”
Everton v Arsenal 23 August 2014 – The Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Referee – Kevin Friend Assistants – A Garratt & M McDonough Fourth Official – M Oliver Kevin Friend was born in 1971. His home county FA is Leicester and Rutland. He started refereeing as a 14 year old in local football …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal 23 August 2014 – The Match Officials”
By Tony Attwood Football matches are a matter of tactics, psychology and ability. In the novel by Robert Rankin, “Knees up mother earth” Brentford Utd beat Arsenal in the FA Cup by playing a bunch of circus performers instead of trained footballers in their team. That’s psychology – although not of this world. In effect …
Read More “Forget home advantage, the world of football is changing.”
By Bulldog Drummond There are, surrounding Arsenal today, quite a number of civilians who acknowledge only three concepts – one they are (by their own claims at least) Arsenal supporters, two that Arsenal are rubbish and three if only they were allowed to manage the club, by the appliance of common sense and quite possibly …
