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 There is a bit of a furore going on at the moment because the Leeds United twitter account has attacked a female football journalist, and seemingly used sexist language. The Guardian in a long piece has come to her defence, via an article, “How did Leeds United not realise what would happen …
Read More “At last some clubs and fans are taking on football’s “thought police””
By Tony Attwood Even the rabid buy-buy-buy reporters recognise that Arsenal have some great young players. What they don’t recognise is that Arsenal have nevertheless been spending record sums on transfers of late, and yet have ended up in their lowest position in the league since the middle ages (I made have got era wrong, …
Read More “Arsenal must not let the journalists push them into buying more and more players”
by Sir Hardly Anyone The next transfer window will open in four days and will remain open for 30 days or “around four weeks” as Google puts it. And there are signs that many journalists and bloggers see this as a real chance to undermine Arsenal and put paid to the early signs of recovery …
Read More “Why buying any new players now would be a disaster for Arsenal”
by Bulldog Drummond. And so the predictions sally forth… Sports Mole offer us Leno; Bellerin, Holding, Mari, Tierney; Xhaka, Ceballos; Pepe, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang; Lacazette I can see that one working with Martinelli replacing Auba on the hour, as Auba tires or continues to look out of sorts. The Evening Standard tell us that …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal: Martinelli, Auba and Saka all to start!”
By Bulldog Drummond Physioroom.com reports that we have four players unavailable for tonight’s game… Player Reason Further Detail Potential Return Condition Gabriel Self-isolating as a precaution (Covid-19) 09/01/2021 None Thomas Partey Thigh Injury Dec 24: “Progressing well. Working outside on close ball work, together with the continued focus on his overall fitness rehab.” 09/01/2021 None …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal: injuries, comparative records, and the media doom and gloom”
By Bulldog Drummond Following a brightening of the skies with a victory over Chelsea, we now play away to Brighton, a team who have a home record even worse than Arsenal’s this season… Home pos Club P W D L F A GD Pts 12 Arsenal 8 3 1 4 9 11 -2 10 13 …
Read More “Brighton v Arsenal: this is where we start building a new winning run”
by Tony Attwood Sportslens had an article up yesterday which tells us that “Inter Milan and Arsenal have been in talks for several days over a deal that would see Christian Eriksen head to the Emirates but Paris Saint-Germain could enter the race for the Denmark international, according to Italian media outlet Calciomercato.” The piece …
Read More “What exactly is a transfer hi-jack, and why is Arsenal so prone to them?”
by Tony Attwood Before the pandemic it was simple To win the league – or indeed to get into the top four – clubs needed a very solid positive away form. In the simplest of terms, clubs which had a positive away goal difference were in with a fighting chance of a top four place. …
Read More “If Arsenal want to rise up 2021, it’s the away form that’s the key”
By Iver Kalculator I have been told that Arsenal are doing far worse this season than we did last season. I think this is quite untrue. In fact I believe we are doing better than we were a season ago. As I show in the tables below. Date Game This season result This season score …
Read More “How Arsenal’s results have improved this season compared to last season.”
By Tony Attwood England is one of those parts of the world where the social sciences are decried, denied and thought to be the final source of excuses for the namby-pamby middle-class so-called intellectuals. The ludicrous words of Margaret Thatcher – “there is no such thing as society” – still resonate, and it seems that …
Read More “Arsenal spot the way to break free of the shackles”
By Bulldog Drummond We have three players out according to Physioroom… Player Reason Further Detail Potential Return Condition Status Thomas Partey Thigh Injury Dec 24: “Progressing well. Working outside on close ball work, together with the continued focus on his overall fitness rehab.” 09/01/2021 None Ruled Out Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Calf/Shin/Heel Injury Dec 24: “Has now …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea: the teams, the injuries, the media…”
By Tony Attwood Luckily for me, living a fair distance from London, I am able to spend a bit of time with my family this Christmas, although I do appreciate many people cannot, and I really do feel for them. I’d find it a huge strain if that happened to me. But because I shall …
Read More “It’s a difficult time for Arsenal, but we can come through.”
By Tony Attwood The knives are out and the daily attacks are rising. And really who can blame the Anti-Arsenal journalists and bloggers for turning on Arteta? They had great success in removing both Wenger and Emery through their endless negative publicity, so why not have a go at Arteta? If it works, do it …
Read More “Wenger / Emery / Arteta. Who has done best, who has done worst?”
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular or even an occasional reader of Untold you might have noticed that we tend to cover football corruption stories. Indeed I think we were the only website in the UK to cover the news that the Swiss were changing their rules allowing foreign governments to arrest wanted …
Read More “Why did the media go for this Fifa corruption story and not others”
By Tony Attwood Here’s the updated table of how matters are working out on the pitch. The top ranked teams in each category are shown in bold. Please note that Aston Villa have played two games fewer than most other teams – although that does not affect the “tackles per foul” or “fouls per yellow” …
Read More “Tackles fouls and yellow cards: what Arsenal must do now to survive in the PL”
Yep all the so-called experts got it wrong, but our little hope that Martinelli would start was fulfilled. He is the line up. As you may have noted, we do a round up before each match to see if these pundits actually know anything at all, and this time we found a much higher number …
Read More “Everyone got the Arsenal line up wrong!!! Martinelli starts!!!”
By Bulldog Drummond We know for sure that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang won’t be brought back for today’s League Cup quarter-final against Manchester City. He’s still got the calf injury, apparently and the club won’t know how long he’ll be out until after the next scan. “He will have another scan in the next few days and …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City: the team and some of those past results…”
By Bulldog Drummond Way back in Arsenal’s first season in the top division, in this current 101 year run, the Christmas fixture list read Date Game Res Score Competition 20 Dec 1919 Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday W 3-1 League Division One 25 Dec 1919 Derby County v Arsenal L 2-1 League Division One 26 Dec …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester City; Saka and Martinelli together?”
by Tony Attwood In its report on Leicester’s win at Tottenham, the Guardian mentions Leicester penalty five times. On the BBC Radio 4 report this morning the penalty was mentioned four times. But neither news source mentioned the real oddity of the Leicester penalty. That is that this was Leicester’s ninth penalty of the season. …
Read More “Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties, and the away win figures”
*excluding Pat Rice who only managed four games. By Tony Attwood When a manager leaves a club, normally all his team leave at the same time. This certainly happened with Mr Wenger and Mr Emery. Which meant that Mr Arteta needed to recruit his own staff, rather than have a team ready to move with …
Read More “Arteta is Arsenal’s fourth most successful manager of all time*”
By Sir Hardly Anyone, head of psychology at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road. There is an article in the Athletic which contains this paragraph concerning Arsenal… “Newer staff talk of the need for a fundamental change in the culture and mentality at London Colney — that if Arsenal continue to exist …
Read More “The rise of Arsenal’s authoritarianism, the decline of Arsenal on the pitch”
By Tony Attwood When the Kroenkes took over Arsenal there was a universal outcry of dismay because it was widely thought that the said Kroenkes were people who never spent money on the clubs they bought. These stories were replicated in the English media without any evidence, so we’ve no idea if they were true …
Read More “Arsenal always do worse when they spend more on transfers: the facts”
By Bulldog Drummond As if this game were not tough enough… There’s a very interesting note from the BBC’s website concerning Everton that says they did not face a single shot on target in the second half of their wins against Chelsea and Leicester City. That is interesting given the tackle figures that we saw …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal: the team and the tactical analysis”
By Bulldog Drummond Arsenal injuries are declining as we are down to four now – and Martinelli might actually be fit enough to come in for a brief spell at the end. There was talk of him playing in the under 23 game last night but he didn’t, although Physioroom have him down as just …
Read More “Everton v Arsenal – injuries, suspensions, tackles, yellows”
by Bulldog Drummond Everton and Arsenal changed managers on the most recent occasion within days of each other. Thus far Carlo Ancelloti has overseen these results across all competitions… Ancelloti’s first 16 games this season: Won 10 Drawn 2 Lost 4 Win rate 62.5% As for Arteta’s first 22 games this season (the Trophy games …
