Ref Review League Cup : Tottenham Hotspur – Arsenal

By Usama and Walter TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: League Cup THIRD ROUND DATE: 23th September 2015 VENUE: White Hart Lane (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Andre Marriner 1st LINESMAN: Lee Betts 2nd LINESMAN: David Bryan 4th OFFICIAL: Andy Woolmer   First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

As the entity behind shouted “You’re useless Walcott” a dark despair overwhelmed me

By Tony Attwood Theo Walcott has scored 12 goals in his last 13 Premier League starts.  It is the sort of scoring that takes the mind back to someone like the incredible Jack Lambert who in Arsenal’s first ever league winning season scored 38 league goals in 34 games. That was in 1930/31, and I …

Arsenal – Olympiacos, bouncing balls, own goals, switching off… The CL is haunted it seems

By Walter Broeckx A few changes compared to our match against Leicester. Some forced and some by choice. Ospina comes in goal and Coquelin is declared fit and will start. Gabriel also comes in the side and Gibbs was also starting. And Oxlade-Chamberlain also in the starting line up. Per Mertesacker was given a birthday …

Football Should Be An Art: Tonight’s match against the rather dubious Olympiakos

By Tony Attwood So for the second Champions League match running we are playing a club whose ownership is deeply involved in scandals and corruption allegations.   Oh well, so it goes.  Funny that the press in the UK don’t seem overly concerned.  Why is that I wonder. But at least we have our banner …

FOOTBALL should be an ART. The Untold Banner is unveiled tonight at the Emirates Stadium

By Tony Attwood On a day when yet more illegal activity swirls around Barcelona (even more than I managed to cover last night in what I thought would be a full review of their activity – as Gord pointed out in comments on yesterday’s article), and on a day when we play a club whose …

Barcelona to be excluded from Spanish League; Neymar assets frozen, Messi injured

By Tony Attwood Catalonia didn’t actually hold a referendum on independence recently; it held elections to the regional assembly.  As a result the main separatist alliance and a smaller nationalist party won 72 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament.   So they won most of the seats, although they didn’t get half the vote. Such …

Leicester – Arsenal: 2-5, this is what you get when two teams want to play the beautiful game

With most of us being out and about over the weekend we didn’t publish our normal post-match summary of the game.  But it was such a fine and exciting match it would be a great shame for it not to be recorded on Untold.  So here it is… just to remind you how breathless it …

If a game that involves men sticking their heads up each other’s bottoms can have open refereeing why can’t football?

What can football learn from rugby? * By Blacksheep I watched the second half of the England/Wales rugby match on Saturday and apart from wondering at the Welsh comeback and the high attrition rate in terms of injury, I was mainly struck by the marked difference in officiating. This weekend we have again seen some …

Ref Review : Chelsea – Arsenal. How Mike Dean & Co screwed an entire game

By Usama and Walter CHELSEA vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 6 DATE: 19th September 2015 VENUE: Stamford Bridge (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Mike Dean 1st LINESMAN: Simon Long 2nd LINESMAN: Stuart Burt 4th OFFICIAL: Michael Oliver First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

The exact reasons why Arsenal came good – so very good at Leicester

By Tony Attwood “A willingness to attack, a high velocity, and sophistication.” That is by and large what today’s Guardian report on on Arsenal says.  But I am going to highlight a handful of other things that can out of yesterday’s game. First the number of shots.  Arsenal have more shots than anyone else per game. …

The lovely Tinkerman against the Arsenal as Dean petition passes 100,000!

By Tony Attwood Yes we sure did our bit.  As of saturday morning over 102,000 people had signed the petition demanding that Dean never again can do an Arsenal game.  Now we shall see what PGMO does.  If you still haven’t signed the petition is still there.  Follow the link from the home page. The …

Slowly the finger points at England over Fifa corruption

By Tony Attwood As expected the Swiss authorities have started criminal proceedings against Sepp Blatter.  Just as expected Platini has been asked to provide information. Here’s the statement… “On the one hand, the OAG suspects that on 12 September 2005 Mr. Joseph Blatter has signed a contract with the Caribbean Football Union; this contract was …

Leicester v Arsenal 26 September – the Match Officials and the table of shame

Leicester v Arsenal 26 September – the Match Officials By Andrew Crawshaw Firstly here is the updated Table of Shame following the review of the Stoke game refereed by Jonathan Moss.  Two wrong Important decisions right at the end of the game with the not given penalty and sending off of Pieters for wrestling Giroud …

Fifa back in court, Barcelona begs to be allowed transfers, as the entire transfer system is challenged

By Tony Attwood It had to happen sometime: Barcelona currently banned from making transfers are begging Fifa to allow them to play Arda Turan, now.  Turan was signed in the last transfer window as Barcelona found a loophole in their banning order realising they could sign the player, but simply not play him.  Now they argue …

What does it mean to be a football supporter?

By Tony Attwood In a recent article Blacksheep asked, What is wrong with football.   I was re-reading this and found myself asking “what is wrong with football supporters?” I found myself asking why commentators on this site sometimes find it necessary to write, “if you think x you are an idiot,” where x is fairly obviously, …

Ref Review: Dinamo Zagreb vs Arsenal

By Usama and Walter DINAMO ZAGREB vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: UEFA Champions League MATCH NO. 1 DATE: 16th September 2015 VENUE: Stadion Maksimir (Zagreb, Croatia) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Ovidiu Haţegan (Romania) 1st LINESMAN: Octavian Șovre  (Romania) 2nd LINESMAN: Sebastian Gheorghe (Romania) 4th OFFICIAL: Radu Ghinguleac (Romania)   First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For …

Ten things we learned at the ground of the tiny totts

By Tony Attwood   1: Kane isn’t scoring Apparently on Tottenham’s tour of Australia, so many fans buzzed around Kane while he was shopping he had to be rescued by minibus.  And so highly esteemed is he in tot-land this season in plays in Adebayor’s old shirt which he told the Telegraph he had adopted in …

Tottenham – Arsenal, 1-2 and an unlikely hero!

By Walter Broeckx A lot of changes compared to the last match. In fact only one player stayed in the starting line up and that was Ramsey. Team that started : Ospina, Debuchy, Chambers, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Arteta, Flamini, Ramsey, Campbell, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud. On the bench: Macey, Iwobi, Ozil, Alexis, Walcott, Monreal, Bellerin. A very tight start …

Arsenal 5 Tiny Totts 3. And now its the teeny weeny cup

By Bulldog Drummond. First the afternoon result: Arsenal under 18s 5 Tiny Tottenhams 3.  Our goals from Fortune, Nelson, Robinson (2), Nketiah. And so here we are again, at the soon to be closed for repairs White Hart Lane. And here we are with a team in the League Cup which is probably not going …

The long list: how Mike Dean’s activity has cost Arsenal points and players

—————– The Dean petition is now over 90,000 strong.  If you have not yet signed please do so at the end of the article. —————–   By Walter Broeckx Mike Dean, the list is long. Too long. Toooooooooo long. The day it all went wrong for me is : 23/02/2008: Birmingham – Arsenal 2-2: Taylor …

Let’s see the funny side of Mourinho

Let’s see the funny side Tim Charlesworth I’m really going to stick my neck out here, and post a defence of public enemy number one, Jose Mourinho. Everything I have ever read about this highly successful manager suggests that he is a perfectly reasonable chap, who spends time with his family, and has a sense …

Gabriel is charged with not leaving the pitch after he was not sent off

By Billy “the Dog” McGraw, resident psycho analyst at the Football Association Gabriel Paulista was not sent off at Chelsea, or if he was sent off he should not have been and thus has not got to serve a ban of three matches for a twitch of the leg against the alien beast Costa. Arsenal’s …

After the vampire we now have the psycho serial scratcher

By Walter Broeckx Lots of fuss has been made and rightfully so of the behaviour of Suarez who had an appetite for human flesh in his career. Biting is unacceptable behaviour and it is something that usually is removed from the behaviour of little kids. You still have a few biters before the age of …

Chelsea violence – Dean claims he didn’t see it. The enemies of football, as petition approaches 90,000.

— The petition “Prevent Mike Dean from refereeing another Arsenal game” now has almost 90,000 signatures.  Please sign up if you agree. —- Watching newspapers jump left and right as they try to work out which way the bandwagon is rolling is never an edifying site, but it can on occasion be amusing – in …

FA Charge Arsenal with failing to control its players; petition to stop Dean stands at over 69,000

. The petition “Prevent Mike Dean from refereeing another Arsenal game” now has nearly 70,000 signatures.  Please sign up if you agree. . By Walter Broeckx; additional material by Tony Attwood Chelsea striker Diego Costa has been charged with violent conduct by the Football Association following his side’s win over Arsenal on Saturday. The FA …