Warning: get to the life boats, woman and children first

By Walter Broeckx Yes it’s over. What is over? The season. Why do I know this? Ah because the experts told me so. Which experts? Ah the self declared experts on twitter and facebook and even on Untold they can be seen. This is where we stand today. And tomorrow. The season is over because …

Avoiding Those Big Embarrassing (Away) Losses

Avoiding Those Big Embarrassing (Away) Losses By Bootoomee   Arsenal’s losses in the premier league for 2013/14 season: Arsenal 1 – 3 Aston Villa Manchster City 6 – 3 Arsenal Liverpool 5 – 1 Arsenal Chelsea 6 – 0 Arsenal Everton 3 – 0 Arsenal Manchester United 1 – 0 Arsenal Stoke City 1 – …

Barce condemned for crimes against under 18s

By Tony Attwood There once was a time when Barcelona were seen as a club with some positive moral basis.  They represented the aspirations of a nation within a nation.  They refused to sell the front of their shirt to anyone.  The shirt, they said, was the symbol of their people.  The shirt was sacred. …

Besiktas – Arsenal an entertaining 0-0

By Walter Broeckx If we compare this match with the one on Saturday it is almost unbelievable that the final score was 0-0. From the first second and you can take this literally: it was an open match. Ba trying to shoot directly at goal from the kick off and if it wasn’t for an …

Beşiktaş JK preview: the media’s universal desire to moan and the issue of accents

By Bulldog Drummond Success and achievement are boring – at least if you are a journalist.  If you have to write about success then personalise it, and make the person you write about be eccentric, self-centred, opinionated and if possible abusive. But most of all follow failure – especially if it involves someone who is …

Why don’t the refs call “obvious” penalties?

WHY DON’T THE REFS CALL ¨OBVIOUS¨ PENALTIES?   By Don McMahon While watching the Arsenal struggle to dominate Crystal Palace on Saturday, there were at least 2-3 incidents against Arsenal players where many supporters claimed we should have had a penalty awarded.  Having officiated for many years and been the target of such complaints from both …

$h!t That Arsenal Fans Say: Chronicles of the Fickle

By Bootoomee And so it begins, the 2014/15 Premier league season. Thank goodness, the long wait is finally over. We now have some football to take our attention away from the mind-numbingly ridiculous pastime known as “transfer speculation”. Kudos to Mr Tony Attwood for his valiant effort to help us make a good sense of …

How the press treats other clubs: Manchester United

By Blacksheep Untold Premiership (part one in a series of 19): Manchester United Sitting here this morning in the rain waiting for an airshow (at Sywell) and listening to Radio Five reminds me that I told Tony I wanted to write an occasional series of articles about the way the press treats other clubs. We …

The Untold Referee review: Arsenal – Crystal Palace

By Walter Broeckx Match: Arsenal – Crystal Palace Ref: Jonathon Moss Date 16/08/2014   So the PL is underway again and so are our referee reviews. Only of Arsenal matches this season. Another interesting fact is that the predictions in our referee review were again rather spot on. After a promising start ref Moss is …

Amending reality: how Sky gives us its vision, but not what actually happened

By Tony Attwood Having written up my rant about time wasting, last night, I puzzled over how it was that Sky managed to hide all aspects of goal keeper impropriety in the Palace match yesterday. In the commentaries that followed my little piece last night the point was well made: TV does sometimes mention time …

Arsenal / Palace; time wasting reaches new highs, or was it just me?

By Tony Attwood, fresh home from the game. A 5.30pm kick off and Drew and I leave the ground as the match ends  – and I enter my home just after 10pm.   No stopping for a drink or chat on the way – its the walk from the ground to Archway for the underground, …

Arsenal v The Palace. The Queen gives her view

By Bulldog Drummond Well my young rascals, writing these pre-match notes I discover I also have to give the award for the Untold Turnip of the Week – the much sought after prize for Rabid Journalism during the last seven days.   And of course it goes to Ben Rumbsy for his piece “Arsenal announce …

Is Arsene desperate? Is this deal going to happen? Err…

Big new bigs news. Bendtner has signed with Wolfsburg. Meanwhile according to Caught Offside in an Exclusive! “Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is ready to make an offer of £27m for Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin having opted against pursuing Sporting Lisbon youngster William Carvalho and Real Madrid star Sami Khedira.” Simultaneously the Metro ran the rumour …

Arsenal v Crystal Palace 16 August 2014 – The Match Officials

Arsenal v Crystal Palace 16 August 2014 – The Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw   Referee – Jonathan Moss Assistants – L Betts & M Scholes Fourth Official – R Madley Welcome to the first Preview of the match officials for the 2014/15 season in which I look at past performance of the referee (and …

How to win the Premier League part 2: beating the top 6, winning by Xmas

This is part two of the review of how clubs have won the Premier League over the years.   Part one is here. How to win the Premier League Part 2 By Tjekem DO YOU HAVE TO BEAT THE TOP 6? NO! Let us look at the past Champions of the modern era vs. the top …

What should Arsenal do about season ticket holders who don’t turn up?

By a rather irate Tony Attwood. Some seven years ago I injured myself in the gym.  It was a back injury.  At first it seemed nothing.  Then it was unbelievably painful, but I expected it to go. But it didn’t.  I was unable to walk more than two or three steps, for a month.  Then …

HOW TO WIN THE PREMIER LEAGUE: a historic analysis of what winners do

HOW TO WIN THE PREMIER LEAGUE By Tjekem How does a team win the Premier League?  Do you need the top goalscorer? The best offence? The best defence? What about goal difference? The only thing that we know for sure; is that you need the most points! But how many? For the purpose of this piece, …

Is trading in teenagers the new solution to FFP problems?

By Tony Attwood There are three clubs out of the five most fancied to win the Premier League who have to watch their financial footing. Man City, as we all know, made utter asses of themselves by not only failing FFP first time around, but then refusing to accept it, refusing to do what PSG …

How quickly you get used to winning things

By Walter Broeckx Last year around this time the non-existing AAA were all over the place. Predicting their gloom and doom. The main point of their reasoning was: as long as Wenger is here we will never win another trophy. I remember that I even wrote a few articles about it. Saying that if you …

Arsenal to re-sign Bendtner, Tottenham foiled by a cement mixer.

By Sir Hardly Anyone and Professor Billy “The Dog” McGraw, university hospital of the North Circular Road. On the day when we have been told that Theo is no longer our fastest player (it is now apparently Hector Bellerin) we are once again awash with transfer rumours.  After all it is a while since we …

Mourinho – the champion of the fight against ref corruption, or a prat?

By Tony Attwood When we look back from the perspective of history, season 2013/14 could have gone down as the year in which for the first time the owner of a league club admitted he lied about the status of a player in order to put another team off the scent.  And that  the captain of …

Arsenal: can we have decent pay for cleaners, free water, crowd control, and dignity for the elderly?

Dear Arsenal, As we approach the new season I have left over in my notebook a few odds and ends from last season, which, I’d like to share. These are things I think you ought to do as a club.  These items are not presented in an order of importance, and they are by no …