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 Of course not everyone has got the message that this is a moment to play down the regular negativity about Arsenal, as Gunners Town leads with, “The Man who promised a plan has no plan – Emery must GO without actually thinking very much about the fact that after a campaign of …
by Bulldog Drummond It has been a tough six years for Manchester United since Sir F left the arena. A club that seemed to think and indeed acted as if it had an absolute right to win everything has stopped winning the league and has slipped behind Arsenal in terms of the number of times …
Read More “Manchester Disjointed v Arsenal Rejuvinated. Maybe.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Anyone who knows their Liverpool history, will know that not only was it a city, like Bristol, centrally involved in the slave trade, but that it has a couple of football clubs close to each other. And it seems one of those clubs of that ilk has a thing about its …
Read More “Liverpool™ or Liverpool® – a spot of kerfuffle over who owns the name”
By Tony Attwood I wrote the other day about the way in which the BBC frantically tried to prove that the referee was wrong in not giving Aston Villa a penalty for a ball that hit a raised arm in the penalty area. Now the point of that piece was that the pundits were confusing …
Read More ““8 yards is not close” Time to test out what is and what is not a penalty”
by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly a fond adieu to Lee Probert who has announced that he is retiring as a football referee after some 20 years and with 181 PL matches to his name. He has been struggling with a long term back injury and has decided that this is the right time to do something …
by Tony Attwood As you may know we are, throughout this season keeping track on how Arsenal has done in its campaigns across the 100 years the club has spent in the top division. And in case you missed it, and are thinking “wasn’t there something dodgy about the way Arsenal got into the first …
Read More “100 years in the top division; what six games tells us about where we’ll end up.”
by Andrew Crawshaw This is a quick preview before I set off for Borehamwood to watch the game For those of you who don’t keep up with our Women’s team, we won the away leg on 12 September by four goals to nil. Here is a link to the match report on the official arsenal …
Read More “Arsenal v Fiorentina Women’s Champions League second leg – The Untold Preview”
by Tony Attwood If you are reading Untold regularly, or even from time to time, you’ll know that I think that the extreme criticism of the manager and team that has been going on in the media and some blogs, is not only factually wrong, but also is hurting the clubs. Any player that might …
Read More “How does this season compare with recent years? Are we making progress?”
By Tony Attwood Having been at the Arsenal v Villa game I didn’t get around to watching the reporting of it on Match of the Day until a bit of spare time later during the week. But when I did I came across something that was very curious involving Danny Murphy and Alan Sheerer as …
Read More “Match of the Day goes highly misleading over Arsenal penalty”
By Dr Billy “the dog” McGraw, head of psychology at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. Thus far this has been a season of demands for the manager to leave, and for ceaseless criticism of the players throughout the Arsenal squad. Meanwhile the media has been continuing its Tottenham love-in and the …
Read More “Why early season booing of Arsenal was so dumb as Tots get AFC disease.”
By Bulldog Drummond If you want to see the sort of optimism that so many Arsenal fans now lack, it can be seen from the fact that 48% of Forest fans voting in a Nottingham Post on line survey agreed that of course Forest could spring a surprise and beat Arsenal. 42% said it would …
Read More “Arsenal v Nottingham Forest: teams, red cards and history”
by Andrew Crawshaw The Continental Tyres Cup is to Ladies Football what the Carabao Cup is to the Men. It is the League Cup competition and is open to the 23 teams in the top two divisions of Women’s football. The teams are split, approximately geographically into three groups of six and one of five …
Read More “London City Lionesses v Arsenal Continental Cup Group stage – The Untold Match Report”
By Tony Attwood I wouldn’t normally focus enormously on one particular blog and its commentary, but the headline today of “This is why we want you gone: these Arsenal fans can’t quite believe Unai Emery’s latest comments ” really made me wonder if there is any end to the madness, or whether it just goes …
Read More “Man U and Tottenham fans follow Gooners on the path of self-destruction”
By Tony Attwood In the classic approach, football is an event that is controlled by the club manager who influences the players. The players play, we have a result. It is all down to the manager and the players on each side. But it is self-evident that the crowd at the matches has an effect. …
Read More “How the League ensured that the media can only talk about football in a certain way”
By Bulldog Drummond Here are the injuries as always based on the report from physioroom.com Player What’s up? Notes Return date Playing v Villa Alexandre Lacazette Ankle/Foot Injury “Alex will need to rest and strengthen his ankle to regain full fitness. He is likely to be back in action in October.” 27 October None Ruled …
Read More “Arsenal injury news, teams and the notorious 2013 game between the two.”
by Bulldog Drummond When it comes to away form Aston Villa are one of two teams that have played two and lost two – the other is the other promoted team, Norwich. Arsenal at home have won one and drawn one. The two highlights of Villa’s season thus far have been a home win over …
Read More “Arsenal v Aston Villa: the form and prognostications”
by Tony Attwood As you will know, if you are a regular student of all things Untold, in the run up to the start of this season we ran a series celebrating 100 years of Arsenal in the top division, recording in detail how Arsenal were promoted in 1919, and dealing with the rumours that …
Read More “Aston Villa, the problem of staying up and of entering the top six.”
By Tony Attwood There was a factor highlighted through last night’s match that none of the media seems to have picked up on. Arsenal displayed the latest range of incredibly talented young players who have been escalated from the under 18s to the under 23s and now into the first team. And yet at the …
Read More “How Arsenal really are doing something right after all.”
By Bulldog Drummond With the attempts to undermine the very fabric of Arsenal continuing minute by minute across the blogs and newspaper websites there must be a little relief for the players who have been selected in the squad for the opening Europa game against Eintracht Frankfurt. Of course players become immune to some degree …
Read More “Europa starts again: can Arsenal overcome the continuing media assault?”
By Tony Attwood Virtually every Arsenal headline is currently ultra-negative, so it is hard to pick out one that is wilder, whackier and sillier than the rest at the moment, but I particularly liked “Arsenal’s Current Defending Reminds Me Of The Early 1960s” from The Online Gooner for taking us into different territory. Being of …
Read More “The wildest and funniest headline, and why fans don’t focus on those really to blame”
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw Right let’s start with what you should not do – if you want Arsenal to do better on the pitch and rise up the table. You should not attack the players, because it never works in terms of making them better. If you feel this does work please do …
Read More “Arsenal are one point away from third. So what can we do?”
By Tony Attwood The hysteria is now off the scale and common sense debate, logical debate and reasoned argument has ended. (Although come to think of it actually it ended in the summer with the stuff about Arsenal only having a budget of £40m because some “accountant” analysed the books and said so). So, I …
Read More “So just how badly are Arsenal really doing, and what should we do now?”
by Tony Attwood To discover how much information the current league table gives us as to how the season will work out ultimately, I’ve taken a look at how the table has looked after five games in the last few seasons, in each case going down as far as need be to incorporate all of …
Read More “Why winning the first five games of the season is usually bad news”
By Tony Attwood I didn’t have to look up the top stories in the aftermath of the draw with Watford to know what they would be, but I did anyway. And I was pretty much right. ‘Sack Emery’ and ‘sell these’ – These Arsenal fans react to ‘disgraceful’ performance vs Watford (CaughtOffside) ‘Garbage’, ‘Unreal’: Some …
Read More “And so the anger starts again, but will negative comments ever do any good?”
By Walter Broeckx As Lacazette was out with an ankle injury we might have expected a few changes. A first start for Özil in this campaign and Ceballos getting a starting place. Arsenal team at the start: Leno, Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, David Luiz, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Ceballos, Ozil, Pepe, Aubameyang On the beach: Martinez, Chambers, Torreira, …
Read More “Watford – Arsenal : 2-2. Why are we playing out from the back”
