How to judge Arsenal: a touch of context, analysis and knowledge can help

By Tony Attwood How fast can you know that a player or manager is no good? Today the Telegraph has the headline “Has Guardiola finally been found out?”  That implies that he has been tricking everyone all this time in some ill-defined way.  He’s got three Spanish titles and two Champions League trophies, and he’s …

Enfield punished for FA total cock up; press happy to cover up the mess

By Tony Attwood Enfield have lost their appeal against a points deducation which keeps them out of the play offs from their division.  The appeal against an FA decision was organised by the FA, run by FA people, for the FA by the FA. The guilty party in the affair was at all stages and …

FFP: Uefa seems to have given up, but maybe the League will be more resolute.

Chelsea and QPR have used different routes to get around FFP regulations.  But are they going to succeed? By Tony Attwood Remember FFP? You might, but it seems the Premier League doesn’t.  We should have known about the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play regulations a year ago, and still not a word. Indeed the only …

No new central defender; Wenger is rubbish, everything is rubbish.

By Tony Attwood In the closing minutes last night a fellow Arsenal supporter sitting just behind me shouted out “You’re fucking useless Sanchez”.  I felt the point he made lost something by a lack of detail and logical argument.  But there it was.  His opinion. But it was perhaps this comment that led to my opening a …

Arsenal – Swansea, sometimes football can be cruel

By Walter Broeckx For the second time in a row Arsenal  made no changes to the side that played against Hull last week. Ramsey recovered from the kicking he got and started. Jack Wilshere remained on the bench. So the same team that started, something that doesn’t change that much at Arsenal because of all the …

Arsenal v Swansea: the teams, the score, the detail. In fact everything.

By Bulldog Drummond. Shock horror disaster!!! Danny Welbeck has scored three goals in four Barclays Premier League games against Swansea City, and he is out injured!!! Oh no!!! (I think I am getting the hang of this jouno hysteria). But of course Arsène Wenger knows exactly what’s what.  “I’m ready to change but we had …

Ref Preview: Arsenal – Swansea, Friend or enemy?

By Walter Broeckx For once your reviewer becomes previewer. As our regular previewer Andrew is waltzing his way over the Danube I take over for this occasion. And as because of personal circumstances I didn’t have any time the last weeks to do reviews the table of shame is unchanged. The reviews will be done …

Wecome, welcome to Tottery Downs

by Tony Attwood Tottery Downs is a wild and wonderful place somewhere in the vicinity of north London.  It is a place wherein teams of a certain ilk find themselves talking about taking a step up, joining the Champions League, and other such wild, wild, dreams, while in reality the dear old team is as …

The manager who dares speak of gaining the 4th place trophy

By Walter Broeckx I don’t know if he actually said it but if I can believe the media this is what a not yet named manager said yesterday against the media: “The Champions League is a prize in itself. A club like “X” must play at the highest podium”. Now we know that if Wenger …

The Untold Banner: a brief(ing) update

The Untold Banner: a brief(ing) update by Blacksheep Having suggested the idea of putting a banner up in the Emirates to mark our appreciation of M. Wenger I must admit to being overwhelmed by the number of positive responses and offers of hard cash from Untold readers. This is going to take some organizing but …

The grossest FA cock up of them all. I promise you won’t believe this.

By Tony Attwood It has been clear since the earliest days of its existence that the FA is run by a bunch of dodos. But now that assessment looks to be challenged, for it is clearly an insult to dodos.  Dodos must have been the cream of the intelligentsia compared to the FA. What has …

ANGER MANAGEMENT ARSENAL

ANGER MANAGEMENT ARSENAL             –         Don McMahon One of the most ubquitous characteristics of the aaa and their media masters is a level of anger that does not correspond with any reality or actual circumstances at AFC. The black scarf movement, the Wenger out brigade, the vitrolic aaa and the media taking umbrage at the slightest …

Spain’s league to shut down! Oh no it isn’t.

By Tony Attwood This morning on my way to work I voted in the UK’s general election for an MP to sit in Parliament for the town in which I live, and I also voted in the election for local councillors to serve in my part of town. Unfortunately I couldn’t vote for Blacksheep, for …

The German model, better but not completely perfect

By Walter Broeckx In England any football club can be owned by one person. Fit or not a person can buy a club and do with it what he likes. There once was a fit and proper person test but that was just a kind of joke as we have seen a few people with …

Match fixing in Greece, Olympiacos and next season’s Champs League

By Tony Attwood We have often referred back to the match fixing scandals in Italy; I thought that maybe to add to the picture we ought to cover match fixing in some other countries too.  And I thought I’d start with Greece, where the affair in 2011 was originally called The Koriopolis. But in case …

Why we need the young non-international playing players

By Tony Attwood This year St Totters Day was the biggest I can ever remember, with even the national media jumping on the bandwagon.  Indeed if you want a flavour of what other Arsenal fans got up to on the great day this year take a look at St Tots Day from the Independent. This means of …

We’ve got the 100, had St Tot and got into Europe. So now what?

By Tony Attwood I can’t recall a new season starting so early, but that is how it seems.  We’ve still got to establish the order of the top four, play Man U, Sunderland and WBA in the league, and sort out the FA Cup.  And yet all the talk is of next season. No real …

Is there such a thing as the Arsenal way?

By Tony Attwood All clubs have style.  It is reflected in the way the players are encouraged to present themselves, the way the club reveres its past, the way the club considers its fans, even the way the club considers the people who live in houses round about. In such an analysis there are some …

Hull – Arsenal 1-3, yes it happened again!

By Walter Broeckx No changes in the team that started the match against Hull. According to Arsenal.com Koscielny made his 200th appearance so lets hope he can celebrate a good win at the end of the match. On the bench we had a few changes. Gabriel and Rosicky have a place on the bench in …

Is it time to sing, “It’s happened again…?” Hull v Arsenal. The preview.

By Tony Attwood The last time Hull beat Arsenal at home was 2nd April 1915.  It was match 33 out of a 38 match second division season, in a game played at Hull.  The score was 0-1 to Hull, and the crowd was 8,000.  Of the remaining games we drew one, lost one and won …

6 matches to go till the end of the season

By Walter Broeckx One could say that some of the results went our way last weekend. Of course the best result we have seen looking at the league table was Manchester United losing at home to WBA. We will play WBA at the final day of the season so  let us not underestimate them. The …

Referee Preview : Hull – Arsenal. “He is an awful referee”

Hull v Arsenal 04 May 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly lets start off with the ‘Table of Shame’ updated following Walter’s report on Mike Jones performance in the Newcastle game – Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal: an overwhelming bias. A very poor overall performance gaining 58% overall, bias against arsenal …