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 Sir Hardly Anyone The completed transfers are thought to be those of Nuno Tavares (pictured left) and Albert Sambi Lokonga. More on those below, but first the question of slowness for slowness is the accusation every transfer window, we go slow, dither about, argue over terms, don’t buy when we could, and then lose …
Read More “Arsenal’s first two transfers appear to be complete. But are we being slow?”
by Sir Hardly Anyone You’ll have perhaps seen our last list of 91 transfers already “announced” by the media and in just a few days we’ve found more so here we are at 99 players – or at least we thought we did but an eagle eyed reader corrected us so we have had to …
Read More “The 99 players the media has said Arsenal are considering signing this summer”
By Tony Attwood To almost all the other bloggers and the journalists who cover football, the answer to the question about what Arsenal have to do to get into the top four is blindingly obvious: get rid of at least half the team and buy better. Indeed with this in mind The Athletic have “revealed” …
Read More “New facts reveal how Arsenal will become a top four club again”
by Sir Hardly Anyone So the craziness goes on – with 99 players now tipped to be in negotiation to come to Arsenal, and the first signing tipped for today, 29 June. “Mikel Arteta’s side needs some fresh faces after a poor season that saw them miss out on a European spot. The Spaniard is now …
Read More “First Arsenal signing tipped for today – but who will it be?”
by Andrew Crawshaw Who? I hear you ask in the traditional supporters greeting to an unknown substitute for the opposition. Jonas is the new Arsenal Women Head Coach and joins us from Swedish team FC Rosengård. A Swede, his English is excellent (judging from the interviews released this morning on arsenal.com). He is 38 years …
by Jabin Thearm As entry to and from various countries around the world becomes more and more problematic, and the numbers of infections in the UK rise once more (daily case up 5592 from last week) it is good to know that Uefa are doing their bit by demanding that all their free-loaders and hangers …
Read More “Here comes the Uefa Variant (and it’s not a player)”
By Sir Hardly Anyone It is the story every summer. Arsenal are in for around 120 players but only manage to buy five or six. And of those only half turn out to be any good. Below you will find the actual numbers of purchases (including free transfers but excluding loan arrangements and players moving …
By Tony Attwood If you ever see a film of Mr Arteta while at Manchester City you’ll see him sitting still, rarely reacting to the play but instead making notes. Of course I have never had access to those notes, but I think that by looking at the past four seasons we can work …
Read More “Exactly how did Arteta turn Arsenal around after Christmas last year?”
By Iver Pound-Note Caughtoffside recently wrote, “Arsenal have had so many problems over the years when it comes to contracts and extensions: The main issue has been handing out huge long-term deals to those who aren’t worth it while the contracts of their stars have been allowed to run into the final year, so there …
Read More “Kroenkes don’t spend enough on Arsenal: the evidence”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Of course it is not surprising that the media are inventing Arsenal transfer stories right, left and centre. They cost nothing and with over 115,000 professional players in the world to choose from there’s still plenty more to name. And the back is, as Caughtoffside said, “Arsenal have had so many …
Read More “With 20% of the transfer window gone, 91 players tipped to join Arsenal”
By Sir Hardly Anyone “Ben White to Arsenal transfer claims dashed as well-placed source reveals cold, hard truth” That uncomfortable headline came from Team Talk. And it was uncomfortable because a lot of “sources” have been telling us the opposite. As with the report from Team Talk (yep the very same) that White was already …
By Tony Attwood As we know, last season, with no crowds present for most games, the traditional balance between home and away wins was upset. Only 38% of games ended as home wins while 40% were away wins and 22% were draws. The average across the Premier League years before this past season was 46% …
Read More “Will home advantage (and referee bias) return with the crowds next season?”
by Chips Dinero There’s a very curious thing in the papers at the moment. Journalists (and their coat-tail bloggers) are calling for Arsenal to buy more and more players. But at the same time they are telling us that so many of the players Arsenal have bought in the past have lost value because the …
Read More “How much is Arsenal’s first team worth? The full data.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone “Bukayo Saka could be set for a shock Arsenal exit this summer as the Gunners frantically look to raise transfer funds. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta will be forced to consider selling the academy graduate if the club fail to qualify for next season’s edition of the Champions League.” Now that story …
By Tony Attwood We’ve been getting bits and pieces of the pre-season fixture list although no one really seems that minded to put the whole thing together – largely because it emphasises just how little break quite a few players will get. Nor indeed do the football authorities want to spell out just how much …
Read More “Arsenal’s full six match pre-season fixture list revealed”
by Tony Attwood You’ll perhaps know that the central theme on this blog this summer is that Arsenal underwent a revolution last season, dramatically changing the style of play of the team, and that as a result the last two thirds of the season saw a dramatic improvement in form. The argument has been …
Read More “Bellerin reveals how the revolution at Arsenal came about”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. 87 players tipped to sign, Including seven names that have appeared for the first time this week. But here’s a thought. Supposing all clubs deliberately put out false stories about who they are going to buy, to protect discussions with the real purchases that are actually going on. This would fit …
Read More “87 players already tipped to be joining Arsenal. 427 to go.”
By Tony Attwood We are receiving more and more messages saying that the notion that the latter part of our season was not good, because we had an easy run-in at the end of the season. I’ve answered this several times but I thought it might be easier to stop the discussion by publishing the …
Read More “Arsenal only did well after Xmas because the fixtures were much easier”
By Tony Attwood By and large it is agreed that the European Super League was a terrible mistake, but it’s all resolved now, the clubs have paid their fines to Uefa for breach of rules and some fans are demanding seats on the boards. Except… in football nothing is ever quite what it might seem. …
Read More “The European Super League II; how it is being built, and by whom”
By Tony Attwood All summers are weird, in that journalists and bloggers have the job of writing their columns, but without any actual football to write about and so mostly resort to making stuff up. But this one is turning out to be particularly odd, because this summer there are so many big stories …
Read More “The 10 things they don’t want us to think about, concerning Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood It was indeed just two months ago, in April 2021, that the story appeared that “Arsenal will look to sell at least four players this summer in a bid to raise funds for new signings, football.london understands.” So not https://www.connectpcsupport.co.uk/even that we had a budget at all, but instead “a bid” to …
Read More “How did Arsenal move from no budget to quarter of billion in 2 months?”
by Tony Attwood Untold has published over 10,000 articles, and one of my favourites remains Switzerland take a greater interest in Fifa – at last It was the story that reported that Switzerland had changed its law to remove the legal protection previously offered to people who were visiting Switzerland to attend meetings of international …
Read More “Uefa make it quite clear to UK government: “We are above your laws””
By Sir Hardly Anyone The key message in the media is invariably that when it comes to transfers Arsenal are invariably too slow, and make ludicrously low bids because Arsenal want everything on the cheap. So it is a bit of a surprise to find an exclusive in 90min to the effect that “Arsenal are prepared …
Read More “Arsenal to spend quarter of a billion; all going to happen (according to reports)”
By Sir Hardly Anyone. “Stan Kroenke ‘approves £250m Arsenal transfer spree’ as Mikel Arteta eyes five signings” so says the Express who add that Barcelona are having a “fire sale” to solve their financial crisis. They give us three players – Philippe Coutinho (“a decent alternative to Odegaard”) and two new names: Sergi Roberto Roberto “the …
Read More “82 players tipped to join Arsenal this summer in £250m spending spree”
by Tony Attwood The notion of a home grown rule came into force after the Bosman ruling in 1995 and was introduced by Uefa as a way of coping with the implications of that ruling. However because of the free movement of people regulations within the EU the rule does not focus on nationality but …
Read More “Last season a quarter of PL clubs failed to list 25 players. Why?”
