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 The Sun has reported that the small number of valiant Arsenal away fans will each be given a fur hat at the stadium tonight with the words “Russian Warm Welcome” on them. Since the game kicks off ludicrously at 2305 local time I think they might be needed. And why have a game …
By Bulldog Drummond The frigid way in which the English newspapers and websites consider English referees and their controlling organisation PGMO, contrasts remarkably with the way in which the media elsewhere look at the issue of refereeing. We’ll have a look at this on Untold once today’s Arsenal game has been and gone, but for …
By Bulldog Drummond It has been announced that Arsenal are to take part again in the International Champions Cup again this coming summer. It is a somewhat curious competition, which last season took place in three countries with different teams playing different numbers of games. Arsenal’s one game – if I remember it aright – …
Read More “Arsenal this summer, and who is on the plane to Moscow”
By Tony Attwood Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was asked by Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican Utah) about the financial model behind Facebook. On all the reports I have seen and heard including on the financial news section of the BBC’s highly rated morning news programme on Radio 4, what was broadcast was the clip of the Senator …
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw As you will have heard I am sure Mohamed Elneny’s ludicrous and insane red card given at the end of the Southampton match has been rapidly overturned after the FA review, meaning Mo is free to continue playing league games. It would have been nice to suggest that the …
by Tony Attwood It appears from our old and often misleading friend “reports” that Reiss Nelson is close to signing an extended contract at Arsenal after making his Premier League debut in Sunday’s 3-2 win against Southampton. For any of us who have seen him develop in recent years anything less would have been unthinkable. Reiss …
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is wet and windy here in the Independent People’s Republic of Greater Rutland, and that wetness is not caused by most of our beloved county being a lake. Arsenal don’t want any forwards, so we are in bidding for lots of forwards. We don’t need any more youngsters, so we …
Read More “Arsenal transfers that may just be wild flights of fancy”
By Tony Attwood “After six Bayern Championships in a row, the competition is looking for an antidote. And some motivation.” So (roughly) translates the headline in SZ, Germany’s largest circulation daily, and the newspaper published in Bavaria – home of Bayern Munich. And it tells a story that we might be considering here in a few …
By Tony Attwood An article from the CIES Football Observatory raises an interesting point: “Barcelona and Real Madrid top the rankings for the longest average contract duration of first team squad members. Six out of the eight top ranked clubs are still competing in European Cups. This illustrates the relationships between long-term planning and success.” …
Read More “Does the length of player contract equal chances of success? Most certainly not.”
By Tony Attwood Keith Hackett has written an article in the Telegraph, in which he says “If you want proof of why no English referee will be represented at this summer’s World Cup finals in Russia, look no further than Martin Atkinson’s performance at the Etihad on Saturday.” It is a fairly bizarre and convoluted …
Read More “Manchester City miss equalling Arsenal, and the things money can’t buy.”
By Tony Attwood Sitting in the stands looking down on Mo Elneny being sent off all I could say to my chums sitting either side was, “Why has he sent Elneny off”? And no one knew – at least we guessed it was for pushing, but then, everyone seemed to be pushing. It used to …
Read More “Gross refereeing incompetence and vengeful corruption? Why Elneny was sent off.”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal XI: Cech, Bellerin, Chambers, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Elneny, Xhaka, Iwobi, Nelson, Welbeck, Aubameyang Bench: Macey, Holding, Monreal, Wilshere, Ozil, Lacazette, Nketiah A nasty first challenge on Nelson from a Southampton player. The ref could have done something with that as it was all about making sure to foul the young player. …
By Bulldog Drummond And so we come to the Sky sports which announces, “Lucien Favre on Arsenal shortlist to replace Arsene Wenger,” while Arsenal Fever runs with “Mislintat orders another raid on Dortmund, Arsenal to move for £40m midfielder.” This relates to trying to get defensive midfielder Julian Weigl to transfer to Arsenal. But of course …
by Andrew Crawshaw Not good news for us as regards the match officials I’m afraid. Referee – Andre Marriner Age 46 from the West Midlands Assistant Referee 1 – Scott Ledger from South Yorkshire Assistant Referee 2 – Simon Long from Suffolk Fourth Official – Mike Dean Age 49 from Mersyside None of them are …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton Sunday 8 April – The Match Officials: always a bad omen!”
By Bulldog Drummond So continuing from the first part of our preview of Sunday’s game, (Arsenal have won 5 in a row, BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE) as we are playing Southampton, let’s see how they are getting on, and of course as we normally do the last ten, that’s what we will compare. Date …
Read More “Arsenal v Southampton, what the formbook tells us – and the injuries”
by Bulldog Drummond Recently Arsenal lost four games in a row. Arsenal have just won five games in row but while you must have known the first (if you follow any media at all) you might be excused not knowing – and not for the first time. The four losses in a row was a …
Read More “Arsenal have won 5 in a row, BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE”
by Sir Hardly Anyone Here is the list of all the Incoming Players for the summer of 2018. Yes we are almost halfway to our target of 110 transfers and the transfer window hasn’t even creaked open yet. Amazing! Here’s the list No. Player From Source Information 1 Yacine Adli PSG Sport Review. Talk Sport …
Read More “51 players tipped to be joining Arsenal this summer. We’re almost half way there.”
By Chayasai . Mesut Ozil , Lacazette , Aubemeyang and Mkhitaryan . Without these four world class players , Arsenal would have been competing with West Brom as to which one of them, in the 2017-18 EPL, would be the first to fall into the Championship. This was the first thought that came to …
By Tony Attwood So the downside is that Mkhitaryan is out for Sunday and the upside is that Ramsey scores goals of quality in important games – although I think we knew that from the FA Cup Final. But as I was driving home last night I thought of something different; of how complex running …
Read More “Reducing football to simplicity says more about those who do it than about football”
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal starting with : Cech, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Wilshere, Ramsey, Ozil, Mkhitaryan, Lacazette On the beach: Macey, Holding. Chambers, Kolasinac, Elneny, Iwobi, Welbeck A good start from Arsenal with Özil almost finding Lacazette. And hardly a minute later Özil picks out Mkhitaryan but he shoots wide. Özil with a one …
By Bulldog Drummond Speaking of the position of Lacazette Mr Wenger confirmed that he felt the club was ready to see the best of him, “because I realise now that he was not himself for a while. That explains why his goals dried out. He was always adamant – ‘I’m OK, I’m OK’ – but …
Read More “Arsenal vs CSKA Moscow: the final roundup and the teams.”
by Tony Attwood The issue of a club being responsible for the behaviour of its fans is one that has been debated by Arsenal and its supporters since the early days of Arsenal as a league club, for as you will know if you follow the reports and anniversary series published by the AISA Arsenal …
By Bulldog Drummond We have risen dramatically up the injury table since I last reported on it… # TEAM How many down Last man to fall What he done 1 Crystal Palace 9 C Wickham Groin Strain 2 West Ham United 8 J Hernandez Illness 3 Watford 7 M Britos Illness 4 Everton 6 I …
Read More “The Russians are coming: and thoughts on the intellectually challenged gym teacher.”
By Bulldog Drummond It seems that a home game cannot come along without there being an in-depth enquiry into the number of people who actually attend, with bloggettas constantly putting up complaints about the “laughable” number of tickets sold – even though there is not the slightest bit of evidence that this number of false. …
Read More “What will the Moscow fans be like, where are the fans, and what counts as success”
By Bulldog Drummond Undoubtedly the best place to start any preview of this game is with the wonderful Calvert Journal which opens its review of Russian football thus: Despite breakneck “Europeanisation”, Russian football hasn’t lost its trademark authenticity: managers still struggle to string words together at press conferences; no one knows any foreign languages, even …
Read More “How have CSKA Moscow been doing of late? And “Give us a P””
