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 So Manuel Pellegrini is the new West Ham manager and Arsenal have done their usual trick of keeping everyone guessing. In fact Arsenal do it so well that even those people trying to write stories about how Arsenal often do the unexpected find themselves stumbling around the club’s history grasping at straws. In …
Read More “How Emery fits into the tradition of appointing Arsenal managers”
Untold Media: how the different “outlets” reported the decision to appoint Emery Seeing what the media did in response to the news that they had been quite wrong in suggesting Arteta’s move to Arsenal was done and dusted is quite illuminating, as the media has immediately divided into camps. But interestingly, none of the drainpipes, …
Read More “Emery dismissed as useless, Santi Caz a traitor, Pochettino’s managerial triumphs”
By the Untold Arsenal Managerial Executive Committee & Bif the dog. . And if you don’t get the headline don’t worry. It’s a very English joke that Blacksheep came up with. . Anyway. the man from PSG is apparently coming to Arsenal after Arteta blew his chances by demanding total control of transfers in the …
By The Arsenal Speculator You will of course have heard about Mr Abramovich and his trouble with getting a visa which would allow him to live in England. The general consensus seems to be for the moment that this could be part of a broader process of checking by UK banks to see if they …
Read More “Mr Abramovich, the new stadium, Wembley, and stuff.”
by The Arsenal Philosopher. When Arsenal invited Arsene Wenger to manage the club, they knew what they were getting – a man who exercised total control over everything in the club, from the menus to the transfers, from the design of the academy to who to give young player contracts to. And now there is …
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Forget Arsenal for a moment. Just think about winning the League. According to lots of supporters and a lot of people who make their money out of talking about football, argue that how one goes about …
Read More “The Football Reality: Seeing alternative possibilities always makes more sense.”
by Tony Attwood It was a slightly interesting cup final for those who like to mix a few facts in with the opinion. Chelsea have now won the FA Cup eight times since they were formed and immediately gained a place in the Football League in 1905 – so that is eight in 113 years. …
Read More “FA Cup final leaves Arsenal top of the list, but raises an intriguing question”
By Tony Attwood I see that Arsenal Fan TV won an award at the Football Blogging Awards, which I suppose might just tell us something about where we are. I suppose for me it is a bit like giving an advertising award to a company that make daily, “hello I believe you were involved in …
By Tony Attwood The one time Uefa president Michel Platini who is now formerly known as the “disgraced former president” as if most administrators of major football organisations are not still a disgrace, has recently admitted the draw for the World Cup in 1998 was fixed. He called it what translates roughly as “a bit of …
Read More “The curious cases of match fixing in the world cup, Champs League, and, well, generally”
By Tony Attwood In a move that has taken the football world by surprise Mikel Arteta has resigned as Arsenal manager only days before he (or possibly Thierry Henry) was due to be announced as the new manager. In a statement the man who played 110 games for Arsenal said, “A certain expert football analyst …
By Tony Attwood An interesting piece in the Telegraph today includes a review of Granit Xhaka which instead of just joining in the general “he’s rubbish get him out” actually looks, as we tried to do earlier this season, at his figures. Their commentary reads, “Divides opinion, doesn’t always track his runner and is liable to …
Read More “Five great players, six great reserves and Arsenal win the league”
By Tony Attwood You can’t read a transfer rumour about Arsenal without the issue of defenders coming up. One is retiring, one is out injured for the rest of the year and one (or is that two?) are useless. So we desperately need defenders by the shed load. I’m not sure what the general opinion …
Read More “Arsenal are said to be trying to find new defenders. Why age could be an issue.”
by Tony Attwood It was only a few weeks ago that Arsène Wenger suggested that a European Super League was on the way. In saying that he made the point that one way for the Premier League to respond might be to cut itself to 16 teams. That would leave Manchester City as champions for …
Read More “Fifa aims for greater control of football with new summer club competition”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The news that is being splashed around is that Arteta will get the Arsenal manager job and will invite Santi Cazorla to be his assistant. Meanwhile the ever knowledgeable Arsenal Youth website gives us a list of the youngsters likely to be let go. These includes Aaron Eyoma Chiori Johnson, Jay …
Read More “The 64 players who have been tipped to be coming to Arsenal in this summer’s window”
By Tony Attwood It was way back in 1966 that the defining research into being an “expert” was conducted. Not in football but generally. What does it take to make someone an expert in a particular field? Since the media love phrases like “our panel of experts” and “our chief football correspondent” (which implies expertise), …
Read More “How you can be a football “expert” just like everyone else.”
Lacazette Can Use Arsenal Form to Fire France to World Cup Glory “Alexander Lacazette” by Chelsea Debs (CC BY-SA 2.0) The World Cup this summer will feature many Arsenal players and the one that looks to have the best chance of winning the World Cup appears to be Alexander Lacazette. He has been in …
Read More “Lacazette Can Use Arsenal Form to Fire France to World Cup Glory”
By Tony Attwood Transfer rumours concerning Arsenal have been continuing apace since Arsene Wenger announced he was leaving at the end of the season, without any question being raised about who the new manager is and what he wants. If that is actually happening it is a major change of policy for the club, and …
By Tony Attwood It is fashionable these days to pick on a player, describe him as useless and then say the manager is an idiot for playing him. When TV, blogs, radio and newspaper columnists all join in, the opinion becomes the truth, and it can take quite a bit of individual analysis and determination …
By Tony Attwood In his final interviews at the Huddersfield game Mr Wenger said he was convinced that the squad merely needed two or three new signings to be able to challenge again for the major trophies. At the same time we have had the figure of £50m being available which in terms of top …
Read More “Why Arsenal might have to mortgage the ground to get in the players that we want.”
By Tony Attwood With this season’s end also being the end of the Wenger Era I found my mind wandering, and, being of a certain age, found it was quite hard to remember exactly who had won what both during recent years and indeed the who Wenger Era. My thought was that no one remembers …
Read More “Who did what and what problems come up next…. Using the past to predict the future.”
By Tony Attwood Here we go: ten things that went right or wrong this season. 1: The Telegraph started to recognise that there is a problem with refereeing in the Premier League. The fact that they lead this morning with “My choices for the best and worst Premier League referees this season” shows …
Read More “The Premier League 2017/18 – what went wrong and some bits that went right”
by Tony Attwood Of course not everyone buys into the remourceless rampant low-level abuse this club suffers on a daily basis. David Wagnar of Huddersfield Town, for example, said of Mr Wenger, “I can’t imagine that this can happen again, so this only shows he has done something extraordinary. Words don’t describe enough how big …
Read More “Mr Wenger’s final farewell. Our last match preview with Mr Wenger in charge.”
By Tony Attwood Thus we approach the end of days: the very last Wengerian game. Let’s see where he left the injury list # TEAM No. down Last man fallen What he done 1 Watford 9 A Gray Knock 2 Leicester City 9 D Simpson Groin Injury 3 Everton 7 W Rooney Knee Injury 4 …
by Tony Attwood We’ve played Huddersfield Town 75 times so far, and beaten them 34 times, drawn 25 and lost 16. Of course the most interesting historic period is what happened when Herbert Chapman left Huddersfield and came to Arsenal as manager in 1925. Chapman managed Huddersfield from 1 February 1921 until the summer of …
Read More “Huddersfield v Arsenal. How the Huddersfield manager transformed Arsenal.”
By Bulldog Drummond So here we go, the very last game for the man who revolutionised the club from being a place where finishing sixth was “not a bad season really” became “an absolute disaster”. From “something to build on” to “get him out at once”. And so he has changed the club he found …
Read More “Huddersfield v Arsenal. A team with a home record almost as bad as Arsenal away.”
