MEPs have written to the European Commission asking them to investigate whether Gareth Bale’s

By Tony Attwood The issue of state aid in football won’t go away.  The amount of effective aid given to West Ham United over the Olympic Stadium is still a matter of contention and a legal battle.  The question of how much aid the city of Madrid gave to Real Madrid in the land deal …

Arsenal v Hull The Match Officials. “His knowledge of the rules is excellent as is his imagination in applying them”

by Andrew Crawshaw Before I move on to the main event here are The Table of Shame and the Wall of Shame both updated to matchweek 25. Table of Shame Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 1 32 Red Cards 1 10 Penalties 3 22 Goals 0 8 Total 5 72 …

THE ARSENAL CREDO. The Beautiful Game with Beautiful Football.

THE ARSENAL CREDO……..Don McMahon Our heart-stopping win against Leicester/Atkinson made me reflect on why the Arsenal have turned a corner in their efforts to provide the Beautiful Game with Beautiful Football. In my humble opinion it is down to a sort of Arsenal creed that remains immutable, regardless of what fickle plastic aaa fanboys, corrupt …

Does a Referee’s performance at Arsenal affect the chances of him returning?

by Andrew Crawshaw So far this year these are the referees that we have had Week Date Opponents h/a Referee Score Weighted score Bias against h/a 1 9 Aug 2015 West Ham H Martin Atkinson 0 – 2 54 100/0 2 16 Aug 2015 C Palace A Lee Mason 1 – 2 66 10/90 3 …

For years the international press has called for the end of Fifa. Only now are the English media picking up the story.

By Tony Attwood There are around 6000 articles on Untold Arsenal, and I am not sure which one of them first contains the notion that Fifa ought to be abolished, wound up, excommunicated, abandoned or anything else along those lines.  I know it was way back in the early days that it was first said, …

The Dirty Dozen “Gentlemen”

By Josif In a dimly lit room, deep in the bowels of Wembley Stadium, a secret group meet.   A group known by a set of first names.  A group’s whose address is only ever simply given as Wembley Stadium.  No room number, no department section, no office block zone. They don’t have to say. …

“Journalists make it up? Why would we?”

By Tony Attwood A short while back the lottery thing that we have in the UK announced that two tickets had won a share of several billion pounds each [I think you might be exaggerating the amount there – Billy “the dog”]. One of the ticket owners came forwards straight away to claim the prize, …

My early days as an Arsenal first team player. By John Radford

Following on from our publication of “Arsenal: The Long Sleep” for which Bob Wilson wrote the introduction, we are genuinely honoured today to have an article today from John Radford on Untold Arsenal.  John joined Arsenal in 1962 and over the next 14 years made 475 starts for Arsenal, scored 149 goals, and won the …

The trip, the catering, the ripped trousers, the grin…. a great day at the Emirates

By Walter Broeckx An amazing trip to London once again for the Arsenal Belgium supporters club.  When we look at the fixture list at the start of the season we (the board) of our supporters club always take a look at where we could get as many tickets as possible. It is all nice to …

If these referees were doctors they would be killing two patients out of three. The Referee’s Wall of Shame

by Andrew Crawshaw I have had a request from one of our readers to add a ‘WALL OF SHAME’ to my referee previews showing exactly how bad it gets sometimes. The referee reviews analyse all of the decisions made (or not made) by the referee and his team of assistants during the course of the …

Arsenal – Leicester 2-1, the delayed match report

By Walter Broeckx We normally publish the match report within an hour of the conclusion of the game.  However last Sunday, Walter and a number of other utterly dedicated fans from Belgium left their homes at 2am local time to be at the match – the match you’ll recall, which courtesy of Sky was suddenly …

EPL Predictions for ARSENAL 2016, in the year of the monkey

From The Brickfields Gunners Blog –   Fantasdy Football Series . The Asian lunar year of 2016 began  on February 8 and will end on January 27, 2017. Known as The Year of the Fire Monkey, it is supposed to be filled with mischief, clashes and success in the workplace and at home. “The monkey always …

The media, the dinosaurs and the English antidote to skilful football. (Contains adult content that may be distressing to lovers of football)

By Proud Kev . So West Ham fan and Daily Mail sports journalist Martin Samuel has continued his love affair with Arsenal. His target this time is not Arsene Wenger but Matthieu Flamini. Apparently his two footed tackle against Bournemouth was one of the most heinous crimes in football. Martin Samuel seems oblivious to the …

Untold returns – here’s what you missed while we were under attack.

If you are a regular reader of Untold you’ll know that over the weekend there was nothing published after the ref preview.   Things went wrong, and it being the weekend I didn’t have the technical resources to sort matters out. Obviously we try hard not to have this happen, but if you value Untold …

Arsenal v Leicester – Sunday 14 February – The Match Officials: this could be a problem.

By Andrew As I write this the referee review of the Southampton game hasn’t been published, it is written but not yet posted on the site so I’ll not include it in the Table of Shame.  This is unchanged from last week. Wrong Important Decisions Favouring Arsenal Favouring Opponents 2nd Yellow Cards 1 30 Red …

Ref Review: Arsenal – Bournemouth

By Usama & Walter AFC BOURNEMOUTH vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 25 DATE: 7th February 2016 VENUE: Vitality Stadium (Bournemouth, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Kevin Friend 1st LINESMAN: David Bryan 2nd LINESMAN: Peter Kirkup 4th OFFICIAL: Neil Swarbrick First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

Will Arsenal win the league this season?

By Tony Attwood On 28 December 2015, Crystal Palace were talked up on the radio and TV as being serious challengers for a Champions League place.  Not Europa mark you, Champions League. On that evening they were fifth, above Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. Today I have just read an article about them being dragged …

How the removal of a price increase at Liverpool actually means nothing at all.

By Tony Attwood Yes, yer actual football revolution has started.  I know this because the press are shouting it out. “Liverpool fans’ successful walkout protest over ticket prices is a “game-changer”, according to the Football Supporters’ Federation.”  The Daily Mail. Wow. “Power to the people: Liverpool fans’ ticket price victory may be just the start”, …

Ref Review: Arsenal – Southampton; Mason doing the PGMO job and doing worse than if he had given decisions at random

By Usama & Walter ARSENAL vs. SOUTHAMPTON COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 24 DATE: 2nd February 2016 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Lee Mason 1st LINESMAN: Andy Halliday 2nd LINESMAN: Matthew Wilkes 4th OFFICIAL: Craig Pawson First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

Anderlecht – The Travel and Catering Report; and all you need to know about Brussels

By Andrew Crawshaw Travel was by Eurostar which was trouble free.  I had booked about three weeks in advance via the Eurostar website and got my tickets for £29.00 each way. Walter was impressed as he said he could never get them for anything like that.  The only delay I had was on my local …

European Super League now a real possibility thanks to declining TV numbers and the rise of China

by Tony Attwood There is not too much talk of it on TV, for the simple reason that when TV discusses football it is never neutral.   TV buys in football, and anything that threatens its position as the dominant distributor of football is an absolute no-go area. Thus discussion of something being wrong with …

Linekar: the perfect font of media drivel, but he shouldn’t expect us to believe any of it.

By Tony Attwood There’s an article by Ed Aarons, Guardian Sport’s deputy news editor, in which he says that “Even Lineker, who describes himself as “a proper boyhood fan” who went home and away to watch his hometown team from the age of seven, could not have dreamed what has happened to Leicester over the last few …

Uefa Youth League : Anderlecht – Arsenal 2-0, the match report

By Walter Broeckx For the first time in more than 35 years I went to Brussels and to the Anderlecht stadium. An American politician called Brussels a place in hell a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t call it hell but it sure has some very depressing neighbourhoods and I seemed to pass through them the …

Arsenal in shock as mass exodus of disgruntled players now predicted

By Sir Hardly Anyone During the last transfer window approximately 450 different players were touted to be coming to Arsenal in January.  Since only 25 could be registered in the team – and that only if the current 23 were all shunted out – it seemed a little unlikely.   And interestingly, until the move …

Uefa Youth League : Anderlecht – Arsenal, the preview from Belgium

By Walter Broeckx As you will know if you read Andrew’s post a little while ago, Arsenal are coming to town. Well not the real Arsenal of course but the youth version of Arsenal will come to Brussels to play Anderlecht in the knock out phase of the Uefa Youth League. Arsenal and Anderlecht played …