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 Tony Attwood As the season began I raised the suggestion that we might do a review of places to eat before the games. I’ve got a number of suggestions and some reviews, but I am keen to get more. Ideally I’d like a review, but if not, please suggest a place with the name …
Read More “Arsenal v Man C: catering preview: The Swimmer at the Grafton Arms”
By Tony Attwood First off, Aaron Ramsey. He was in Andorra doing an impersonation of Bale’s drag back and turn, with which the captain of Wales had wasted time in the first half, when he got kicked, slipped on the artificial turf and fell. He was replaced at once, and we now wait to see …
Read More “Ramsey injured? Man City pay Arsenal, and the corruption of the loan system”
By Tony Attwood In June this year I wrote a little piece Could Leicester and QPR be relegated to League one? which was my second foray into the morass that is FFP in the Championship. The point being that clubs which buy their way out of the Championship could be severely punished if they ever return …
Read More “And while we are on the question of FFP – think of QPR”
By Tony Attwood Last season Drew and I trotted down to our nearest league ground (Sixfields, home of Northampton Town) to take a peek at Coventry City, who at that time were playing their home games in Northampton, for reasons that won’t become clear at this point. Among the Coventry team was one Chuba Akpom. …
Jonny Cooper is the Deputy Editor of Telegraph Men. He also describes himself as an Arsenal supporter. And he recently wrote a piece in which he comments on Arsenal’s past and how it relates to this season. In doing this he cites the movie Groundhog Day in which exactly the same thing happens day after day. The writer …
Read More “How a newspaper re-writes the past, to prepare for Arsenal’s collapse”
By Tony Attwood It’s been a while since we looked at FFP, but I was reminded of the subject by a rather curious coincidence. When I dealt with FFP in depth last time we were in the period following 28 April 2014 when Uefa said that they were looking in depth at 20 clubs including Manchester …
Read More “Premier League club finances and the future of FFP”
The Ennui of an Arsedrought By Melancholic Brian I hate the ‘interlull’ (© ™ Arseblog patent pending), watching our warriors play in often meaningless games to repay the ill-advised and usurious debt of the national stadium. I had a conflict of emotion, pride at seeing so many of our players in the team, performing so …
By Tony Attwood Another week, another Fifa corruption story. Which isn’t really surprising given that Fifa itself is the absolute embodiment of corruption and that corruption is supported by every football association that allies itself with Fifa. The current story is that Canover Watson, a member of the Fifa’s financial watchdog has been arrested …
Read More “In international week, thoughts must always turn to corruption”
by Tony Attwood The one thing you can be certain of. The newspapers never did anything wrong. Despite getting 99% of all transfer stories totally upside down, despite, endlessly predicting that players who were never in a million years going to this or that club, despite falling for the ridiculous story that Welbeck was off …
Read More “After the sex toys: the media takes stock of their cock-ups.”
By Tony Attwood Last season our academy teams seemed to do exceptionally poorly, compared with the sorts of results we have been used to. The central cause was that the vast majority of the under 21 squad were let go during the summer of 2013. There were of course many different reasons, and Arsenal …
Why the AAA behaves as they do From the case notes of Dr Brian. MBChB, BSc, Dip.So.Mani@c Consider 2,008 years ago in the days just before football was a twinkle in Tony’s eye, Narcissus was a really, really, really good looking bloke who suffered from the unwelcome attentions of a nympho called Echo (so good …
By Tony Attwood I buy two magazines a week, neither of which have anything to do with football. One is Radio Times – the magazine that lists radio and TV programmes on the main channels available in the UK and the other is New Scientist, which as you might guess, relays the main science …
Read More “End of the Nation. Get used to it Roy, your job may go!”
By Andrew Crawshaw So after the transfer window who do we have registered and likely to play for us this season – at least until the next session of madness (the January Window). Name Squad No. Home Country Position List Home grown? Wojceich Szczesny 1 Poland GK S Y Mathieu Debuchy 2 France RB S …
If you think that Financial Fair Play has had no effect, take a look at the summer transfers. Not the total amount spent, but the net spend. The money spent on transfers less the money brought in from sales. Now “What might have happened” is always by definition a hypothetical argument, but even so …
Read More “The net spending of each club gives insights into their take on this year’s FFP”
By Tony Attwood It’s a funny old world. Wednesday afternoon found us with this news… In true Arsenal style, Danny Welbeck is reported as injured despite being with the club for less than 24 hours after picking up a knock in training on international duty.(Arsenal News) Arsenal’s new £16m signing Danny Welbeck has been ruled …
The silly season is over, time to get behind the team by Mahdain Well another silly season has passed and hopefully it takes along with it all the agendas, rubbish rumours, silly childishness, entitled demanding, drivel opinions and outright idiotic outbursts. Finally the summer transfer window is shut and thankfully so because it was just …
Read More “The silly season is over, time to get behind the team”
WHEN IT IS SERIOUS…….Don McMahon This article continues our series on the interpretations and meanings behind the laws of the game. FIFA’s concern about players returning to the field of play with serious head injuries is justified and proportional to the need. That said, the player also has his word in this decision and if …
By Kenneth Widmerpool; This article was written as a reply to Tony Attwood’s article ‘The psychology of support’ on 1 September. Although it was published there we thought it really deserved to gain a wider audience – hence the reprint here. I enjoyed reading your article Tony on the “psychology of support”, and I wrote …
By Walter Broeckx This article is the second of me walking around in the virtual world of Arsenal fans and supporters on transfer deadline day. Part 1, if you missed it, is here. All the moaning fans were for 100% sure we would sign “Fa Kin No Wan”. Again. Again! AGAIN!!!! Anyone daring to suggest …
By Walter Broeckx As I had stayed clear almost the whole transfer window of the madness that surrounds these things I thought it would be nice to have a look at how fans reacted to it on the last day before the window slamed shut or whatever the expression is that people like to use. …
Guest appearance By Mike T Its one of those things that you say “ok yes” and you think you will do something but after an hour or two when reality kicks in you think to yourself why on earth did I agree to do that? I thought I better point out that Tom Cruise I …
Read More “The unofficial referee review: Leicester – Arsenal or Mission Impossible”
So now we know the 2014 results: In: Calum Chambers Mathieu Debuchy David Ospina Alexis Sanchez Danny Welbeck Out: Benik Afobe on loan Nic Bendtner Johann Djourou Thomas Eisfeld Lukasz Fabianski Carl Jenkinson on loan Chu-Young Park Bacary Sagna Wellington on loan Jon Toral on loan Thomas Vermaelen Ryo to FC Twente on loan Ignasi Miquel to …
Read More “Welbeck and Henry on the same starting line at Arsenal.”
In 2013 we had Boris Johnson, Mayor of London as our guest previewer talking through who we ought to buy. Here’s what he predicted who we would buy. All the names were taken from prime tips of the day. 1: Diego Costa. 2: Stevan Jovetic 3: Kevin Strootman 4: The New Jack Wilshere “Arsenal are …
By Tony Attwood I’m endlessly fascinated by the way football fans respond to football. Obviously I meet different groups of fans in all sorts of places, restaurants, pubs, car parks, trains, and in the ground itself, and most are reasonable decent people who can instantly understand that we are each regular guys who, through fate …
By Tony Attwood We filled the away section, out-shouted the home support for most of the match, but then, oh dear. I don’t know how many times the “49” song was sung, but it was great, it was powerful and it drowned the home support, and left even their mascot (who loves to goad opposition …
Read More “12 Unbeaten; AAA lead the sheep; Leicester do the water treatment”
