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 Tony Attwood What would you do if you were running an organisation that was wholly and utterly corrupt at every level, but which was very much in the public gaze? Of course you might have a few clever plans up your sleeve, but I suspect one of your main activities would be the replacement …
by Tony Attwood It was about nine months that the headlines rang out with the news “Premier League and PGMO split over referees’ final say in video rulings” The Telegraph told us “The Premier League and its referees’ organisation are still undecided over whether the introduction of video assistant referees (VARs) will involve the on-field …
Read More “Whatever happened to the idea of having a video referee system in the Premier League?”
By Tony Attwood 7,000 West Ham supporters filled up their allocated places along two thirds of the Clock End and the south east corner – an excellent show of away commitment to their club. Some Arsenal fans, however, seem to have had more than enough of late – or at least until Friday – for …
Read More “What matters most, the crowd or the result? And not being selected match after match”
By Walter Broeckx The Arsenal team at the start: Ospina, Debuchy, Chambers, Holding, Kolasinac, Coquelin, Elneny, Willok, Walcott, Giroud, Welbeck. On the beach: lots of youngsters. Arsenal with most of the ball in the opening minutes but no real goal chances created. Giroud running a bit too deep a few times and caught offside. Arsenal …
by Bulldog Drummond Almost time to set off in the car, but before I go, here’s the final instalment of news about the game tonight. In terms of injuries Physioroom shows us this Pos Club Total men down Last man down What happened 1 Watford 8 K Femenia Hamstring Injury 2 Liverpool 6 D Sturridge …
Read More “Arsenal v West Ham. The possible Arsenal line up”
By Bulldog Drummond Our reviews of the possibilities in this match have reached the conclusion that both teams will put out their second XI, although in West Ham’s case, because they don’t have the strength in depth that Arsenal have they will include a modest number of first team players. Looking at the results of …
Read More “It should be Arsenal II v West Ham II. And Arsenal should win, but…”
By Bulldog Drummond Let’s look at West Ham’s under 23 side and its results, as the members of this squad will, I suspect, make up some of the team against Arsenal, although of course there is always the chance that WHAM will simply put their first team out, knowing we will play the Arsenal II …
Read More “Arsenal and WHU could use some of their U23 teams tomorrow. So how have they been doing?”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have of course played just two League Cup games so far this season, beating Doncaster and Norwich. But our second team, the team we have been calling Arsenal II this season has played six other games – in the Europa League. So I thought it might be interesting to put all …
Read More “Arsenal II: how have they done so far – and how we compare with WHU II.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone According to interviews doing the rounds at the moment Arsene Wenger believes Mesut Özil is currently playing his best ever football for Arsenal. Which gives us something to look forward to on Friday night for the game against Liverpool, although I can’t imagine he will even be on the beach for the game tomorrow against West …
By Tony Attwood If it had not been for Satruday’s game against Newcastle, we’d have been expecting Maitland-Niles to play in the match against West Ham in the League Cup quarter final. But AMN did play, and Kolasinac was dropped. So what do we make of that? There are several possibilities. Kolasinac had a slight …
Read More “Arsenal v West Ham United. Do we continue to use the reserves for this game?”
by Tony Attwood I have often made the point that there are two fundamental flaws with the mass media’s coverage of football in England: the first is that they choose what is news and what isn’t, and the second is that they then choose how to interpret that news. Of course that is what newspapers …
Read More “Is the media catching up with the notion something is wrong in football?”
by Bulldog Drummond Continuing on from yesterday’s rummage around the news relating to today’s game, we might note that in the early part of the 20th century Newcastle twice had runs against us where they were not defeated in seven games against Arsenal, but nothing really prepared anyone for the two runs this century. Here’s …
Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle: an amazing run of results, and the teams”
By Bulldog Drummond Just before we go any further perhaps I could mention the best headline I saw as I looked around for any real news ahead of the match tomorrow It comes from a website called “Devonlive.com” and reads thus “Super 6 predictions: Arsenal and Chelsea to win, draws for Newcastle, West Ham and …
Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle, updates, wild speculation and the best headline of the day”
by Andrew Crawshaw For the second match in a row we have a referee doing his first Arsenal match of the season. Referee – Stuart Attwell age 34 from Warwickshire Assistant Referee 1 – Simon Long from Suffolk Assistant Referee 2 – Matthew Wilkes from the West Midlands Fourth Official – Mike Dean age 49 …
Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle 16 Dec 2017 – The Match Officials. Expect 2 wrong major decisions.”
By Bulldog Drummond Now here’s a quaint idea: a match at Arsenal on a saturday at 3pm. How weird. But us supporters like to take advantage of the new so we’ve got a little get together of the London, Northants and Antwerp branches of Untold for the game which will be rather nice. But what …
Read More “Arsenal v Newcastle: the data predicts 2-1 or maybe 3-1 home win.”
By the Honourable Sir Hardly Anyone MP. Yes this really is the moment for the bloggettas to come out and show that they can foretell what will come to pass, so that we will believe all they tell us in terms of transfers that they absolutely know will happen, absolutely certainly, definitely, and for sure. …
Read More “Latest transfer news as bloggers reveal extraordinary ability to predict events”
By Tony Attwood So what do we make of all this? Last season was dubbed by the media, (always anxious to find some new depth to which Arsenal have slipped), as the worst in 21 years. So the keyboards of the pub based scribblers are prepared to make this the worst in 22 years, with …
By Walter Broeckx Starting XI for Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Koscielny, Monreal, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Xhaka, Wilshere, Özil, Alexis, Giroud On the beach: Ospina, Chambers, Kolasinac, Coquelin, Elneny, Welbeck, Lacazette. A good start from Arsenal, very concentrated and making sure no silly mistakes costing us some goals in the opening minutes. A very closed match with the …
By Bulldog Drummond Rather interesting that a quick flip around the more “serious” newspapers at noon, such as the Telegraph and Guardian, reveal no on line match preview for West Ham against Arsenal. We do have the usual interesting stuff such as The 20 fiercest rivalries in English football – where does Arsenal v Tottenham …
Read More “WHAM v Arsenal: the formation, the teams, the guesswork.”
by Andrew Crawshaw After yet another underwhelming performance from a FIFA accredited referee on Sunday afternoon who do we have in charge on Wednesday Night at the Taxpayers Stadium… Referee – Jonathan Moss from West Yorkshire Assistant Referee 1 – Eddie Smart From West Midlands Assistant Referee 2 – Harry Lennard from East Sussex Fourth …
By Bulldog Drummond Yes it is always rather nice to go along to the so-called “London Stadium” and think “I paid for this through the taxation I paid the state year after year.” It gives me that extra bit of ownership, although my experience there has been that the stewards never quite realise that I …
Read More “State Aid United v Arsenal at the Tax Payers Stadium. The sacrifice of many for the few.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. Just as I was about to take a couple of weeks in the south of France with the jolly old yacht being airlifted from Rutland Water to Monaco (which of course I know isn’t in France but I’m not one for details), so I am asked to write another column because …
Read More “Suddenly the transfer scene has woken up with an explosion of stories. We have names!”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal will play Ostersund in the next Europa Cup round on February in Sweden and at the Ems on February 22. It is, I suspect, a dream draw for the club, although let me say at once I don’t have a Swedish correspondent to check this with. If I have made mistakes in …
Read More “Ostersund v Arsenal. Welcome to the most wonderful fairy story in football.”
by Tony Attwood Bayern Munich have won the German league five times in a row. In fact they have won it 27 times, which is a record. And they are currently eight points above their nearest rival at the top of the league, so that might well be six times in a row, come next …
Read More “As the Premier League embraces the Euro model, competition is more or less deceased”
By Sir Hardly Anyone I am sure it has nothing to do with it, but the little series we’ve been running on the real transfer news (see the links at the end of this piece) – looking at the players Arsenal are actually likely to sell and therefore which replacements are needed – has coincided …
Read More “Arsenal transfer market revived with amazing transfer reports.”
