Europa game 4. Early thoughts on the team and comparing with Man U’s approach

By Bulldog Drummond Arsene Wenger has suggested Mathieu Debuchy could stay at Arsenal and play at centre back, which is a position he will probably take up again this Thursday. Given how much playing time he had missed and the fact that he is a full back not a centre back the performance in the …

Olivier Giroud: dancer and academic

By Tony Attwood Olivier Giroud is known in France for all sorts of things.  For example, everyone in the country who follows football will agree it was his goals that were fundamental in getting totally unfancied Montpellier to become French champions for the first time in their history.  They were also the launch pad for …

How much does it cost to buy a trophy these days?

By Tony Attwood Each year I tell myself that I am not going to do another analysis of how much the top clubs in the PL spent on transfers and what they have got out of it – mostly because it seems to prove the same thing each year. And then something comes along and …

Football is facing an existential crisis created by its greed and its insistance on controlling debate

  By Sir Hardly Anyone We’re not going to publish it but some of the abuse received by Untold following our various commentaries on the match against Swansea was really a little extraordinary and over the top. I mean, we’re used to getting it from some quarters but this was a little out of the …

Arsenal v Swansea: the alternative review.

by Croxley Rebel A game that will certainly not live long in anyone’s memory. The Swans parked the bus and that was Ki to their strategy. After 15 minutes of solid Arsenal pressure, it didn’t Clucas though the Welsh side would pose any sort of threat to the Arsenal goal, but up popped their ginger …

What does Arsenal have to do to improve the club’s present position?

By Tony Attwood There is a bloggetta headline this morning that says, “Arsenal are now unlikely to finish in the top four and must prioritise Europa League – study”.  I’ve read the “study” thing through but really can’t quite see how it is much of a study – it is in fact a computer model …

Arsenal v Swansea retrospective. Awful crowd violence

By Tony Attwood The violence that occurred in the crowd during the Arsenal Swansea match was shocking.  It must have been particularly frightening for anyone close by who was not minded to be involved, and is always disturbing to see. But is it news?  Obviously not for the BBC coverage and various press reporters in …

Arsenal finally get tough and sack their manager

by Andrew Crawshaw This is a headline I didn’t think I would be able to use and mean it seriously but this week it came true for the Manager of the Women’s team who has left the club with immediate effect. Pedro Martinez Losa joined the club in September 2014 and was released from his …

Arsenal v Swansea: The injuries, the horrible negative approach, the form, the teams

By Bulldog Drummond   And so to the final part of the match preview… and in case you missed the story thus far here it is Arsenal v Swansea. Mr Wenger on saints, billionaires and celebrity. Arsenal v Swansea City Saturday October 28 – The Match officials – a ref who makes a fool of …

Arsenal v Swansea. Mr Wenger on saints, billionaires and celebrity.

By Bulldog Drummond To start with the serious stuff – you might recall that at the start of the season we did a review of the supporters and location of virtually every club in the PL and published it day by day on our Facebook page.  The whole list is still on this site, but …

Arsenal v Swansea City Saturday October 28 – The Match officials – a ref who makes a fool of himself

by Andrew Crawshaw Referee – Lee Mason  age 45 from Lancashire Assistant Referee 1 – Harry Lennard  from East Sussex Assistant Referee 2 – Derek Eaton  from Gloucestershire Fourth Official – Lee Probert  age 44 from Wiltshire and FIFA accredited This week marks the quarter way point in the League season and so far so …

Unlike in the Premier League, in Germany the media is not muzzled whhen talking about referees

by Tony Attwood In the Leipzig match against Bayern in the Cup, the referee was Felix Zwayer.  The sporting director of RB Leipzig is Ralf Rangnick. Coming up to half time Mats Hummels and Ralf Rangnick come together on the pitch.  The ref givs a penalty and then apparently on consulting with the linesmen in the far distance, …

Arsenal I v Swansea. Should Xhaka be dropped because of misdirected passes?

by Bulldog Drummond “There remains a sense of gloom around the Emirates but the Gunners have lost just once in their last 11 matches in all competitions and beat Norwich 2-1 in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night.” So says the Metro picking up on our bit of maths as it gives us the latest …

Arsenal play West Ham in the league cup and Ivan Gazidis draws the fire rather well.

By Tony Attwood First, the draw very much delayed through sheer, absolute, and total incompetence… Chelsea v Bournemouth Arsenal v West Ham United Leicester City v Manchester City Bristol City v Manchester United And so on to the AGM. I have had a couple of meetings with Ivan Gazidis and exchanged emails with him very occasionally, …

How fake news came to dominate the reporting of football in all English media

By Tony Attwood Why this story? The argument on Untold, based on our published research, is that well over half of the football news that appears on the newspapers, their bloggettas, radio and TV, are fake. Add this to the deliberately misleading emphasis that the media give even when reporting facts (the Guardian’s notorious “Arsenal …

The return of FFP with a vengeance. Two PL clubs now face serious financial battles if relegated

  By Tony Attwood If you have been reading Untold for a long old time you’ll know that the issues of football finances is one that we like to dig into off and on – and not just regarding Arsenal.  And there’s a good reason for that, because when we started, nearly 10 years ago, …

Xhaka and uselessness. It turns out it wasn’t him at all, but can you guess who was useless?

By Tony Attwood As we know, football journalists hunt in packs.  The one thing they don’t like doing is stepping outside the norm, and coming up with an idea that is different from anything their rivals are saying.  If that ever does happen they immediately slap the word EXCLUSIVE on their report, which is a …

The Rebirth of Arsenal Football Club. 27 August 2017 and the launchpad for Alexis and Ozil to stay.

  By Chayasai   27th August , 2017, Anfield , Liverpool v Arsenal.   Liverpool 4  Arsenal  0. That day and date will be remembered for a very, very long time as one of the most important  of days in the history of Arsenal F C. That was the day when they played at their worst; …

9 wins in 11 for Arsenal and never forget, we are not as ill-informed as journalists.

By Tony Attwood Of course not the greatest win of all time, but anyone with even the gnarled up remains of what used to be a heart, or a micro litre of emotion would surely celebrate what Eddie did last night. Wouldn’t they?  Here are a few headlines in the aftermath of the match… Saved …

League cup Arsenal II -Norwich 2-1

By Walter Broeckx Arsenal starting with: Macey, Debuchy, Elneny, Holding, Nelson, Coquelin, Wilshere, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Walcott, Giroud On the beach: Iliev, Osei-Tutu, Dasilva, Sheaf, Willock, Nketiah, Akpom A match that just was not really getting on fire at first. Arsenal dominating and Norwich leaning back in front of their own penalty area. Too many bodies in the …

Arsenal II v Norwich – the team, the beach and the logic (although maybe not the latter)

By Bulldog Drummond So we’ve got the name for this team – not Arsenal Reserves, but “Arsenal II.”  Let’s hope we get to use it lots of times.  We’ve got three more Europa games for sure and hopefully a few more beyond that, plus maybe some more League Cup games all being well tonight, and …

Giroud wins the Puskas Award for greatest goal of the season. Of course.

by Tony Attwood Olivier Giroud’s scorpion against Crystal Palace on New Year’s Day won the Puskas Award for the best goal. Below, if I’ve put the right link up (!) you can see not just that goal, but if you stay with the video the ten greatest Giroudian goals.  With a bit of luck there …

Arsenal v Knor Which Sit Ee. A load of numbers and a bit of a preview

By Bulldog Drummond Norwich are currently sixth in the Championship, in the bottom play-off place five points off the second spot that brings automatic promotion. Pos Club P W D L F A GD Pts 1 Wolverhampton Wanderers 13 9 2 2 24 13 +11 29 2 Cardiff City 13 8 3 2 18 10 …

There really is something a little odd about Everton especially when they play Arsenal.

by Tony Attwood The Everton supporter who, while holding his three year old son, ran or was pushed forward and assaulted the Lyon player has said that he is “ashamed” of his actions.  That’s obviously quite right, so he should be. However he also has blamed Everton for not taking the right security measures to prevent …

We won 5-2 so what did they say about it? How football commentary is being manipulated

By Tony Attwood The figures from yesterday’s game were something else.  Arsenal had 65% of possession, 30 shots to Everton’s eight, 14 on target to their three on target, and seven corners, to their none. Of course the mainstream media had hyped up Rooney’s goal against us 200 years ago, and that was indeed a …