FA Cup reflections: how did the anti-Wengerian press cope with Wenger’s latest triumph

By Tony Attwood When Arsenal win, the aaa shut up.  The press however try to take cover finding underlying problems, long term difficulties, and historical precedents for an imminent collapse. They even did it after the Unbeaten Season, with snarling comments about how Arsenal were not really unbeaten because we hadn’t won the League Cup …

If I believed in a god, I’d thank him or her for letting me be there yesterday

By Tony Attwood Where to begin? I will quote from the Guardian this morning. Wenger, to put it into context, has now won this trophy more times than Everton and Manchester City, and on as many occasions as West Ham, Sunderland and Leeds combined. That’s quite a thought to kick us off. I mentioned before …

FA Cup final live blog: Arsenal vs Aston Villa

Welcome to Arsenal vs Aston Villa LIVE from Wembley Stadium – brought to you by Arsenal’s Official Car and Van Rental Partner Europcar.   Arsene Wenger only has Danny Welbeck as a removal from the list of players we might expect in the team, given recent form. Follow all the action, reaction and social media …

Cup Final preview: This is the memorial day of Ted Drake, who scored 7 against Villa in one game.

By Tony Attwood (our man who will, traffic willing, soon be on the spot). 30 May 1995: The passing of Ted Drake – the man who in one season scored 42 league goals in 41 games and who once scored seven goals in one league game. In 1934/35 Ted Drake scored 42 league goals in …

FA Cup final ref preview: don’t expect Villa cards or a penalty for Arsenal

FA Cup Final Aston Villa v Arsenal – the Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Well here it is – the final referee preview of the season. Referee – Jonathan Moss Assistants – Darren England and Simon Bennett Fourth Official – Craig Pawson Reserve Assistant Referee – Harry Lennard Referees only get one opportunity to take …

Understanding Özil: where the armchair supporters get it wrong

By Sam I do not usually ridicule the comments of “armchair supporters” since I barely attend any live games (simply because I have a young family and cannot afford to spend the time or money to do so). However, I was at Old Trafford for the Arsenal game (incidentally sitting with the “home” support in the …

The biggest failures in football of 2014/15

By Tony Attwood It was the Guardian who came up with the Biggest Flop contest.  They did carefully ignore their own magnificent failure to see how a change in Swiss law would cause Fifa a trifle of embarrassment, or indeed how the media would universally refuse to acknowledge its own compliance in Fifa’s dominance of …

Guest column of the day. A Mr “Darren”. A Man U fan.

Darren speaks… I came on here the other week and started reading what you cockneys had to say about us when you came up to Old Trafford. Me names Darren, I come from Oldham, and I support Man U,I don’t get much to the games, but see myself as a kind of armchair fan. Ive …

It should not just be Fifa on trial, but the FA and their media allies also.

By Tony Attwood We’ve often moaned about the media’s lack of coverage of corruption in football, and their endless desire to paint everything from PGMO to Fifa as whiter than white. But what about the sponsors of Fifa, who have known how corrupt and awful the whole operation has been all these years? Doesn’t anyone …

Does spending money on players bring success? Here’s the survey for 2014/15

By Tony Attwood As an interlude from the Fifa talk (and there really is rather a lot more of that to come with several interesting questions still unasked, let alone unanswered) let’s look at something quite different. Who spent what last season. But before we get moving, a word of warning – there are often …

I was minding me own business… Dial Square Dave takes us back to reality

Gawd ‘elp us. I was minding me own business berating one of the stewards on Saturday (he’d let some Japanese folk in…there’s no call for that) when Theo bleedin’ Wingnut decided to try and break the goal at the Clock End. What a strike! We should sell him now while we can because he’s only …

It ain’t over til the corrupt bastards are locked up, but this is progress.

By Tony Attwood In my original article on the change in the Swiss law which has allowed the Fifa arrests to happen today I made the point that this could result in arrests at the next Swiss conference of Fifa.  And so it proved to be.  Although some correspondents have pointed out quite rightly that …

If Fifa execs had read Untold in January they would have known they were going to be arrested

By Tony Attwood Ain’t it annoying when the Untold headline writer (which is me actually) starts to crow about how clever Untold is, outwitting all the UK’s media with a story five months before it happens. But give me my moment of pleasure, because it can take hours, days, weeks, months, to track down some …

The Untold Banner: we’re making progress!

The Untold Banner: we’re making progress By Blacksheep A short and positive update folks… I exchanged emails with Arsenal today and got a very helpful and positive response from the supporter liaison officer. So the next step is to mock up a couple of banners (using both the winning and runner-up designs) so the club …

In September some brave souls made predictions about Arsenal. Here’s how it went.

Clairvoyants Wanted THE RESULTS By Psychic Brian, Professor of Applied Frotteurism at the Tamakeri Institute On 12 September 2014 many brave souls decided to risk humiliation and embarrassment by predicting the outcome of Arsenal’s progress and achievement for this season. There were many who stepped forward but only few have been chosen. Of the 11 …

The Untold Banner at the Emirates: the results of the voting.

By Blacksheep Having checked the scores I can now reveal the outcome of the votes for the Untold Banner. I am amazed and impressed to say that just over 1300 votes were cast which shows a fantastic engagement with this site and with this idea. I also hope this gives us a mandate to go …

Ref Review: Arsenal – Liverpool

Ref in this match was Anthony Taylor A first 30 minutes that were rather un-Taylor. As he made no mistakes. The only mistake was from an assistant who judged a Liverpool player offside but Koscielny was still behind him. The first error from Taylor was then again a typical one. Sakho came in leading with …

Have you heard the one about Arsenal needing better players?

By Tony Attwood Let me put that headline another way.  Have you heard the one that says Arsenal are always awful in the first half of the season?  You might have done as it has been in the papers quite a lot. Have a look at this table from 7 December 2013. Team P W …

Media predictions for 2014/15. The Untold Bonkers Award and Gold Star for Predictive Accuracy.

By Tony Attwood Head of the Bonkers Award Committee. It is either a brave or foolish football writer who makes firm predictions about the season ahead, but the English media is never one to hold back in the summer from predictions, largely I suspect because they consider the average attention span of their readership to …

Arsenal – WBA, 4-1 a Theo hattrick and a great Jack strike

By Walter Broeckx We had 3 changes in the final leauge match of the season. Gabriel came in the place of Koscielny in the centre of the defence. Aaron Ramsey was given a rest and Coquelin came in his place in midfield. Up front Walcott came in the place and Giroud was on the bench. …

Arsenal v West Bromwich. Podolski returns!!!!

By Bulldog Drummond What will we do when the internet comes to an end in five years time (as New Scientist is predicting this week)? The end (caused by a lack of carrying capacity, not a lack of hard drive space) will of course be the end of civilisation as we know it, which will …

Arsenal under 18s: the end of season report

Arsenal U18s – Season End Report By Andrew Crawshaw Before I start, there are four levels of players in terms of age that I will refer to in this article. Starting with the youngest we have schoolboys up to the age of 15 or so. We then get to the First and second Year Scholars who have …

Is football just a “packaged” timeslot for TV and media? A utopian paradigm

by pararealist. Is it becoming like the packaged entertainment conceived to sit in a slot on TV and “entertain” the masses? I hope not. For these “packages” are, to me, nothing more than carriers of a certain thought, a certain ideal a certain projection that manifestes itself into the minds of the viewers. Day in, …