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 Bulldog Drummond 足球 (That’s football in Chinese) Chelsea’s pre-season has been rather different from that of Arsenal, in that aside from a match against Fulham held in secret (Chelsea reportedly won 8-2) they have not had a pre-season on the pitch. As we will see below they have had a pre-season in the office …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea – not really a friendly. The teams, and the transfers”
By Bulldog Drummond The media will always present games against Chelsea as a foregone conclusion: a Chelsea win – even though Arsenal have won the tie more often than Chelsea. “Ah,” they say (for they like saying “ah”) “that’s because of the 1930s. If you take recent results you will see Chelsea are way ahead.” …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: the preliminaries, the food poisoning, the stories”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal didn’t do too badly when it came to the Africa Cup of Nations last time around – Elneny was called up to play for Egypt, but as he wasn’t seen as central to the team at the time, it wasn’t a departure that was keenly missed. But it hasn’t always been …
Read More “Cup of Nations to be moved; Man City in further tapping up allegations”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal used graduates from their academy more than any other Premier League side last season, a study by the Press Association has found – with the graduates taking part in a tiny fraction under one fifth of the Premier League minutes played. 6,628 of Arsenal’s total Premier League minutes – which to …
Read More “Arsenal’s use of academy players; club transfer comparisons; use of teenagers.”
by Tony Attwood A couple of days back, police in Spain say arrested Ángel María Villar Llona, the president of Spain’s football association, Real Federación Española de Fútbol, on suspicion of embezzling funds. It is an interesting move because Villar Llona is also a senior vice-president at Fifa and Uefa those two gloriously clean and untarnished organisations …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Certainly things have slowed down of late, and one can only assume that the volume of journalist alcohol consumption has risen past the level where even semi-coherent thought might burst through and find itself on the blog page or even in print. But there are six new names on the …
By Walter Broeckx Bye bye Wojciech Szczesny. So it seems. I’ve seen a video of you entering what appears to be the place where you would do your medical to join Juventus. I must be honest and say you that I will miss you. Even though you have been in Italy for 2 years I …
By Tony Attwood I must say I think Arsenal.com and via them the club as a whole did us all rather poorly over the match against Bayern. Licensed to an obscure channel through which one had to pay for a month’s football to watch one’s match, and know that they will put the credit card …
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal : Cech, Bielik, Mertesacker, Monreal, Maitland-Niles, Coquelin, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Ozil, Welbeck, Lacazette Arsenal substitutes: Giroud, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Iwobi, Martinez, Elneny, Malen, Nketiah, Walcott, Bramall, Nelson, Ramsey. A last minute change in the starting formation as Per was sick prior to the game and so we had Elneny in his place in the team. That …
By Bulldog Drummond Bayern have played one friendly so far this summer – against Erlangen Bruck, a team that plays in the Landesliga Bayern-Nordost, the sixth tier of German football. Erlangen Bruck has a ground capacity of 1000, and they lost 9-1 to Bayern. As far as I can see other than that, this is …
Read More “Arsenal v Bayern Munich in Shanghai. The teams, the mind games, the TV options.”
By Tony Attwood Our correspondent in Switzerland has just come up with the calculation that the English players in the top level of the academy at Arsenal outnumber the non-English by two to one. The suggestion is that there is some serious forward thinking going on, judging by the way the transfer market …
Read More “Are we now in a two tier price structure when it comes to buying players?”
By Walter Broeckx After a long period in which I had been unable to write for several reasons I hope to be back in action for Untold Arsenal. And no better subject to start with as….the VAR. During the confederations cup the Video Assistant Referee or VAR has been used in each match. And I …
Read More “The Video Assistant Referees are on their way, well in other countries is, but not all….”
By Rowley Birkin MBE Before we begin, allow me if I may to introduce a new element in the annals of Untold. The “Bonkers notion of the Week”. This appears on the ESPN website and reads thus Perhaps Wenger sees Lacazette playing behind Giroud — especially if Alexis Sanchez does end up leaving the club — …
By Tony Attwood There is a problem with the way football is reported in England and it is this. There is always an assumption that how things are now will be how things are next year. Only bigger. It is curious because serious journalists working in other areas of reporting rarely fall into such a …
Read More “The Premier League finances are utterly unsustainable. But will Arsenal survive?”
by Tony Attwood Four things are going to be apparent in the team next season: First, a continuation of the five at the back that was so extraordinarily effective last season, although with the option of suddenly changing, if that seems a good idea. Second, three creative forwards at the front. Third the Xhaka – …
Read More “How Arsenal will line up next season: the 4 key tactics that we now know.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone There have been three big events for Arsenal over the last three days: one good, one amusing, one bad. 1: Elneny On the good side Elneny has turned out to be a more than decent centre back. Since the media has been screaming about how we leaked goals last season conceding …
By Tony Attwood The league table of players bought and the money paid has changed quite a lot in the past week as the top five for numbers of players and money spent shows: Pos Club Money Spent Number of players 1 Manchester City £172m 4 2 Manchester Utd £106m 2 3 Everton £86 10 …
Read More “All the purchases so far: who has done the most business?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Desperation. You can smell it. The old certainty in which a child in the bedroom can create a blog calling Wenger an idiot, and get people to read, is being challenged. Not because people won’t read any more but because the bedroom bloggettas have gone professional buoyed by the ready made …
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw Now this is getting seriously weird. I mean, for years the summers have been first odd, then strange, then very strange, then weird, but now this. This is, well, probably seriously weird is not enough. Which ever way you look at it. The BIG story for weeks and weeks …
Read More “Is this the weirdest Arsenal summer ever? Even so the Europa plan sounds fun.”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal: Ospina, Koscielny, Elneny, Monreal, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Xhaka, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Lacazette, Giroud Subs: Martinez, Mertesacker, Kolasinac, Bielik, Bramall, Coquelin, Willock, Nelson, Ozil, Nketiah, Walcott A first start for Koscielny and Ramsey in this match. Maitland-Niles playing in the left wingback position and The Ox at the right hand side. Elneny playing in the centre …
by Tony Attwood Western Sydney Wanderers were formed in April 2011 with the idea of having a club with a strong community focus. In their first season they won the A League, which by and large is not a bad start. They currently play at Stadium Australia and Sydney Showground Stadium while their permanent home ground of Parramatta Stadium is in …
Read More “Arsenal v Western Sydney Wanderers. The teams, the opposition, the food, the transport”
By Tony Attwood This summer I have been trying to look at how Arsenal compare with other clubs in terms of the way various matters are handled. The first example has been the transfers in – looking to see if it is true that Arsenal always dither and never manage to get the deals done, …
Read More “Just how do Arsenal compare when it comes to loaning players out?”
By Tony Attwood “What are they smoking at Liverpool?” is a question that could be said by an Arsenal director, if any wanted to remind the principal owner of Liverpool of what turned out to be a rather foolish jibe at Arsenal’s expense. A foolish jibe because he later let slip in a sports conference …
. By Sir Hardly Anyone now in a new colour. . Part 1: Genius found . 1.1: ‘Natural’ Reiss Nelson among Arsenal kiddies ‘very, very close’ to playing for the first team. In the good old days (before robots took over newspapers) when a player came back from a long injury he would be …
By Tai Emeka Obasi Arsene Wenger is a name that draws all manner of emotions. While some love him because of his as-a-rule dedication to the beautiful game, others hate him for virtually same reason. But love or hate him this astute French football manager is a unique character for Oscar flicks, a bestselling …
