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 . Tomorrow of course it is the last group stage match. Despite the trek up and down the M1 (or if desperation strikes the A1 – but since both get shut at the same time I don’t really know why I bother with the alternative route) I’ve made it to the two …
Read More “Arsenal v Qarbag: we’re lucky we only play them twice”
By Tony Attwood “Are Arsenal shedding the condescending tag of ‘neutrals’ favourite’ and becoming a team people love to hate again?” So asks an article in the Telegraph. It is a bit of an odd question because as far as I can see Arsenal are the team that journalists love to hate. Not people; journalists. …
By Tony Attwood Ah, Defenders. You know what they’re like. One falls over and the next thing you know we ain’t gone none at all. None. Well, ok we have Koscielny but he doesn’t count as he hasn’t played any proper games. So how is he going to play some proper games? Well, he has …
Read More “We ain’t got no defenders. It’s “make do and mend” time. Oh no it isn’t.”
by Andrew Crawshaw This weekend saw the start of the second half of the League Season for most clubs – as you all know by now one team sits out each round of matches as there are 11 teams in the league and this week it was our turn. This was something of a relief …
By Tony Attwood It is very simple. Not something that will cause the good gentlemen (for there are no ladies) of the board any inconvenience. At least no more inconvenience than is caused to those of us who pay a fair amount of dosh for our season tickets. I would like one of these good …
Read More “What I would like the directors of Arsenal to do in the New Year”
By Gordon Haverland, with additional commentary within the article by Tony Attwood The question has been raised: why do teams generally do better at home than when they play away? There are many possible answers, but one is that the referee treats away teams differently from home teams, perhaps being more lenient with home teams …
Read More “The treatment of injured players: is there a home/away bias?”
By Tony Attwood It is one of the themes I write about a lot – perhaps beyond Arsenal itself it is the theme I write about most of all: that the way the media reports issues affects the way we see the world. For it is hard to argue that a particular topic is of …
Read More “Racism? What racism? The media denies any responsibility.”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal were accused of three simulation attempts during the Huddersfield match, and each time a player was given a yellow card. Two of these events were shown in match of the day during the reprise of the game, and in discussion after the panel gave their view that they thought these were …
The Telegraph called Huddersfield’s display yesterday “impressively spirited and organised” perhaps forgetting that they had not one single shot on target. But this was to be expected because what we saw yesterday was the return of Bolton under Fat Sam (or as we had to call him when people objected to the word “Fat” – …
Read More “Fat Sam’s ghost returns with Huddersfield at Arsenal”
By Walter Broeckx The most important player in the line up is the return of Koscielny on the bench for this match. Also Monreal back on the bench after a (too) long lay off because of an injury. Alas no Holding anymore as he will be out for the rest of the season probably. Arsenal …
Read More “Final score and live match report Arsenal – Huddersfield : 1-0”
By Bulldog Drummond And so the general news. We have a new twisted headline which makes out that a Mr P. Guardiola has inside knowledge about Manchester City and their doings in terms of sponsorship. The result is headlines such as “Club won’t be banned says Guardiola.” What he actually said was, “We will not …
By Bulldog Drummond So now we know, Rob Holding will be out for the rest of the season with a ruptured cruciate ligament. What a tragedy for the young man, what a tragedy for the team. So now we have another English player out meaning that we will really have to be scouring the list …
Read More “The tragedy of Rob, but the game goes on. Arsenal v Hudders.”
By Bulldog Drummond It maybe something that the media does not like to admit but in effect it is the dominant issue in terms of reporting Arsenal: how to knock a team that has just gone 20 games unbeaten. Of course that run will come to an end sometime, and then we will be told …
Read More “Arsenal v Huddersfield: how the teams have been doing”
by Tony Attwood These are very tough times for the Arsenal knocking journalists. They have got the story that Rob Holding is clearly going to be injured for quite a long time, but that’s not really big enough for them. Ramsey’s injury was said to be minor so he might make the beach for saturday’s …
Read More “Arsenal are losers wracked by scandal, intrigue and a lack of discipline”
By Tony Attwood We all like to be talked about and of course being talked about is what spectator sports thrive on. If people are not talking about football then the level of interest declines, and the number of people attending matches declines. So people talk less and round and around we go. As a …
Read More “The centre half problem and the need for fan fury.”
By Tony Attwood Last season Arsenal scored 20 goals away from home – fractionally over one per game. It was the prime cause of our inability to get into the top four. As a result we suggested in Untold that if only we could improve our away form this season we would stand a chance …
By Walter Broeckx Arsenal starting line up: Leno, Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Holding, Kolasinac, Torreira, Guendouzi, Ramsey, Iwobi, Aubameyang On the beach: Cech, Lichtsteiner, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Mkhitaryan, Nketiah, Lacazette. United with the better start in the opening 15 minutes but only one shot from them that was stopped by Leno. Arsenal not really calm on the …
Read More “Live match report Manchester United – Arsenal: 2-2”
By Bulldog Drummond I think the aposite phrase has something to do with knickers and twisting judging by the headlines. “What we need,” screams the sports editor, “are articles that explain Arsenal being on a 19 match unbeaten run, which doesn’t remind readers that we predicted that without a complete transformation of the entire side …
Read More “Teams, Man U’s recent run, mad dogs, fighting men and Merson tells Emery what to do!”
By Bulldog Drummond Here’s a novel twist: Perhaps Wenger left Arsenal in better shape than some may have wanted to see. It is a widespread mistake to assume Emery’s early success with this team reflects poorly on his predecessor, just as the agonies of David Moyes should reflect well on Ferguson. OK notice the opening …
Read More “Arsenal injuries, and maybe Mr Wenger wasn’t so awful after all…”
By Bulldog Drummond Imagine the problem: you work for the media and are given the clear direction that knocking Arsenal is the order of the day. But you find that in reality they are doing rather well. Unbeaten in League, League Cup and Europa since the second league match of the season. What on earth …
Read More “Man U v Arsenal: difficult days for the gentlemen of the press”
By Tony Attwood We don’t actually have an under 21 team as such, but the under 21s play in the Football League Trophy. So we invent one just for the occasion. You may recall the excited reportage from Untold of the first game in the series: Coventry v Arsenal in which Ian and I met …
Read More “Tonight: Portsmouth v Arsenal in the Checkatrade Trophy. All you need to know.”
By Bulldog Drummond Of late we have been looking at forthcoming matches by comparing the home form of the home team (and equally logically) the away form of the away team. It is by no means a perfect predictor of the result, and actually it isn’t really that scientific), and indeed the review for Sunday’s …
Read More “Man U v Arsenal: the scientific (ish) prediction of the result”
by Andrew Crawshaw No time to rest on our Laurels this week – Matchweek 14 finished on Sunday, Matchweek15 starts on Tuesday. Courtesy of premierleague.com here are the fixtures:- Kick-offs are 19:45 GMT unless stated otherwise. Tuesday 4 December AFC Bournemouth v Huddersfield Town Referee: Roger East Assistants: Adrian Holmes, Mark Scholes Fourth official: Lee Probert Brighton v Crystal …
Read More “Matchweek 15 – All the games and Officials for the midweek matches”
by Tony Attwood You will probably have seen that several newspapers have opened up on the behaviour of Pulis and his team in matches in which he played against Mr Wenger’s Arsenal teams. The articles express how hurting and indeed maiming Arsenal players was at the centre of the Stoke campaign, and how a few …
by Don McMahon Let me state at the outset that I am convinced Arsenal would have won the game handily one way or the other, as the Totts were outmanouvered, outplayed and out-thought for most of the game. I also want to mention that Mike Dean seemed on the verge of losing control a few …
Read More “A tactical and technical analysis of Arsenal and the Spuds”
