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 As surely everyone knows, football is in financial meltdown, and is surviving only because incredibly wealthy individuals, and in some cases countries, are ploughing money into clubs to keep them alive. Matters were pretty bad before the pandemic, but now, with income dramatically reduced debts have got out of control. Interestingly no …
Read More “Just how huge are the debts of the big football clubs?”
By Tony Attwood When I say “so few” in the headline above, I have to admit I am not sure if there are any non-white referees or assistants working in the Premier League. Maybe that speaks to my lack of observational powers, or maybe I have just come to accept the fact that footballers come …
Read More “Why do PGMO employ so few (if any) non-white referees in the Premier League?”
By Tony Attwood If you have been with us for a while you’ll know that Untold Arsenal readers and members of Arsenal Independent Supporters Association combined to create the banner… For the match today against Manchester United (30 January) Sky decided to put a shot of the banner on the screen and hold it for …
Read More “Sky gives major coverage to the “Football should be an art” banner at Man U game”
By Bulldog Drummond . Interesting to look at the Daily Mirror’s quotes on anything, since they rubbished Arsenal’s form over recent years. Indeed I wonder if they actually saw our piece picking their argument to bits. Or indeed if they saw our making a mistake of our own! For now they are trying to go …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester United: the team. AMN on his way out.”
by Bulldog Drummond To find the last time Manchester United’s first team lost away from home we have to go back almost two months to 8 December 2020 when they lost 3-2 away to Red Bull Leipzig and got themselves knocked out of the Champions League – which was rather careless. Since then it has …
Read More “Arsenal v Manchester United: beware Man U away form; beware the referee!”
By Bulldog Drummond So as you may have noticed, yesterday we launched a tirade against the statistical error in a Daily Mirror report, a tirade which was clearly written in order to put down Arsenal and beef up Manchester United (the paper’s favourite club). To try and make their case more strongly they exaggerated Arsenal’s …
Read More “Arsenal v Man U, statistical errors, and a dramatic rise in Arsenal injuries”
By Tony Attwood Since 2013 Manchester United have won the FA Cup once, the Europa League once and the League Cup once. A total of three trophies. Since 2013 Arsenal have won the FA Cup three times – so again three trophies. Since 2013 Manchester United have finished in the top four of the Premier …
Read More “Arsenal v Man U: how the anti-Arsenal rhetoric builds up before the game”
By Tony Attwood It’s been obvious for some time that the key to Arsenal’s improvement is going to be the increase in scoring that is needed , for as the table below shows, we are below all the clubs above us when it comes to goal scoring. Team P W D L F A GD …
By Tony Attwood In a brief post-match discussion after the Southampton victory we were pondering how this season compares with recent seasons after the first 20 games have been played? It is not a comparison that most football journalists and bloggers ever like to do because it rather scuppers their “best ever” and “worst ever” …
Read More “After 20 games how does this season compare with the past and could we make 4th?”
by Tony Attwood Imagine that there were a set of statistics that indicated that for years and years referees had been unduly under the influence of alcohol when refereeing Premier League matches. After years of hiding the figures the situation would now be incredibly difficult – because if those figures did come out then questions …
Read More “The scandalous figures the football authorities are desperate to hide”
By Tony Attwood As you can read from the comments made by readers following yesterday’s final article, that most readers who commented were not impressed by the referee. And of course nor was I. But I would still like to stick to my theme that Mr Arteta and co must learn that this is how …
Read More “Awful refereeing and a fine win. It was almost like the old days”
By bulldog Drummond Of course we can always make something positive out of a big of a negative feel that is in the air, and so in the spirit of uplift it can be said that Arsenal have won four of their last five Premier League games, conceding just one goal in the process. Indeed …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal in the league: the team news”
By Bulldog Drummond The issue of referee bias is one that has concerned Untold Arsenal from the moment we started, and we have been lucky to have a large number of friends of the site who have contributed to the debate. Everyone of course can have their own view on this, but after the publication …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: Arsenal’s major problem approaching the league game”
By Bulldog Drummond The points that were made in this column before the FA Cup match concerning refereeing still stand for the league match… The commentary written was “Southampton are a curious team: one might even think they have an “understanding” with the referees. They tackle more than any other club in the league, and …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: learning the lessons not learned last weekend”
By Tony Attwood The Guardian has now said that “Arsenal have won the race to sign the Real Madrid midfielder Martin Ødegaard on loan, beating off competition from Real Sociedad and Ajax to secure the services of the 22-year-old attacking midfielder.” It is said that Arsenal will pay the salary of the player but not …
Read More “Martin Ødegaard signed, Pepe, Willian, Sokratis, Torreira going?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Some reports on the internet over the weekend have the Martin Ødegaard transfer from Real Madrid as signed and sealed. Others don’t even mention him. Sadly that is the way it is going this winter window, and you can be sure that if he doesn’t come the matter will either be …
Read More “Martin Ødegaard to Arsenal? Some are acting as if it is already done”
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you’ll know that since Brexit happened we’ve been making two points: a) That the rules for Premier League clubs over transfers have now changed totally. b) That the English media either seems totally ignorant of the fact, or the journalists are seeking to hide the changes …
Read More “Are Arsenal’s transfer dealing really that much worse than most clubs?”
By Bulldog Drummond There were two problems with the movement that forced Mr Wenger out of Arsenal. One was that, so certain were those who wanted him out that all Arsenal’s problems were due to Mr Wenger, and that any manager other than Mr Wenger would be an improvement, no one bothered to think of …
Read More “What is wrong with Arsenal and what we do about it now”
By Bulldog Drummond And so, Southampton. How do we normally do when we face them? Normally we win: 51 wins, 28 draws, 21 defeats, although there have been occasional moments when things have not gone totally according to plans… For example between 2014 and 2016 we played Southampton eight times, six in the League and …
By Bulldog Drummond This week Arsenal have broken totally new ground in terms of injuries as listed by PremierInjuries.com For while Pablo Mari Villar is “Ruled out” and Dani Veballos is due a “late fitness test”, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is listed but has no condition and an unnamed source has said, “”As far as I know, …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal. Arsenal hit new territory with injury problem”
By Bulldog Drummond Southampton: how to tackle more, but give away fewer fouls And so we approach another match, and thus the statistical data that we have been evolving through this season is once more brought into play. Here we take the activities within a game which are not revealed by the ordinary league table, …
Read More “Southampton v Arsenal: the stats that no one else will publish”
By Tony Attwood QAnon and football? Surely not! Certainly bloggers and journalists would hope you don’t see a connection, and yet… QAnon uses multiple sites to tell us how to see the political world – in their case to see it as a world run by conspirators. It suggests that by following its view we …
Read More “How QAnon has taken over football reporting in England”
By Sir Hardly Anyone According to the Daily Mail Arsenal have opened talks with Real Madrid over loan deal for Martin Ødegaard – although that is not how the Mail spells it. But then they never have been very good in terms of foreign. And unfortunately although it is an article of a little over …
Read More “The clamour for another creative midfielder at Arsenal – but why ditch Smith Rowe?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone According to Football London Arsenal are “in the market” for a new goalkeeper this month with “Alex Runarsson available for a loan move away from the club.” That appears to be something of what we professional analysts call a “cock up” of the first order, with our second and third choice …
Read More “Who are Arsenal buying, and how will they fit into the “25”?”
by Tony Attwood In the table below which does not include last night’s games, the top two teams in each column are shown in bold. Looking at the table we can see that Arsenal are committing comparatively few tackles because they are being penalised so regularly with fouls. Almost 80% of Arsenal tackles are rewarded …
Read More “Premier League full stats table: Arsenal move towards abandoning tackling”
