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 The statistics comparing Norwich City and Arsenal for the game on Saturday are frightening. Fortunately it seems quite clear that Mr Arteta aware of them and has a plan in place to overcome them. Now we are about to see if the squad has taken his response to the situation on board, …
Read More “Arsenal v Norwich: the danger Arsenal must be aware of in this game.”
by Bulldog Drummond Arsenal have been handed a situation worse than having the whole first team injured for this weekend’s game with bottom of the league Norwich. For the referee they have been given is the man who handed out more fouls per game against Arsenal players than any other referee last season. And on …
Read More “Expect a foul to be given against Arsenal before Norwich kick off this weekend”
by Tony Attwood In the end there is one set of organisations that could take on Fifa. Not the countries that are members of course, because they are afraid of being suspended from a competition which could carry on without them. But the clubs which are allied to the regional bodies such as Uefa. Of …
Read More “Could clubs finally take on the appalling Fifa over the legality of travel?”
by Andrew Crawshaw Match report of the first leg Borehamwood Tuesday 31 August It was nice going to watch a game live again (I was poorly on the day of the Men’s season opener and so this was my first live game). The journey was rather reassuring, Park the car at Penge East, £1 for …
Read More “Arsenal v Slavia Prague – Womens Champions League Second Round”
By Tony Attwood How does an expert become an expert? And how long does he stay an expert for? Doctors have about six years training. Solicitors also have six years. Teachers have four years. And all have a set retirement age. And football journalists… well none. Football is full of self-appointed experts so that …
Read More “Why certain key football statistics are never ever published in the media.”
By Bulldog Drummond “All the news that fits” is a phrase thrown at newspapers who endlessly promote their own agenda through their choice of stories. And choice is important. Of course there are some stories that all the newspapers will cover, but actually the number of these is quite small. England matches, the resignation or …
Read More “How long is it since Arsenal last won a trophy, and how does that compare to others.”
By Bulldog Drummond Much has been made in terms of three league defeats at the start of the season, and as we’ve noted off and on in recent weeks this is indeed unusual for Arsenal. Not unique, but unusual. But a defeat in August or September counts exactly the same as a defeat in November, …
Read More “How often does Arsenal get three defeats in a row? More than you think!”
By Tony Attwood One of the great things about Arsène Wenger is his ability to run rings round journalists so many times that they not only get giddy, they have no idea what he is actually saying to them. But I must admit that since he accepted a job at Fifa as chief of global …
Read More “What is Arsène Wenger up to with his proposals relating to the world cup?”
By Tony Attwood There is something of an oddity with Arsenal. During the Wengerian days there was a cry from parts of the ground saying “spend some fucking money”. Mr Wenger would smile and carry on as before. Indeed he would often say that if he was given unlimited funds he give it back, preferring …
Read More “Which squad has cost the most, and which players did Arsenal miss out on?”
by Andrew Crawshaw First the Context: Chelsea have been the WSL champions most years recently. They have the deepest squad and, in Emma Hayes, one of the most determined managers in any branch of the game. To say she dislikes losing is an understatement. Manchester City are the only other team, apart from ourselves to …
By David Lovelock Rumours suggesting that Mikel Arteta would land one of his big targets this summer in Norwegian starlet, Martin Odegaard, started even before the player went back to Real Madrid. The 22-year-old was keen on a move away from Real Madrid, it was said, and Los Blancos were ready to sell. What could …
Read More “Martin Odegaard: signalling a serious re-build under Arteta”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Well! I say again, “Well!!!” Can you imagine what the reaction in the UK media would have been if the ex-Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez had still played for Arsenal. The world (and possibly half the solar system) would have come crashing down on Arsenal’s head. Or what if Tottenham’s Cristian Romero …
By Tony Attwood Chelsea are the reigning women’s premier league champions. But more than that they have won the title five times in the last seven years. But at Arsenal Stadium today Arsenal Women saw off Chelsea with a 3-2 win under the guidance of the new Arsenal manager. Of course the media are using …
Read More “Arsenal women beat the Champions in a really exciting match”
By Sir Hardly Anyone We’ve talked about the way in which the Daily Mirror has pretended that Martinez had a better season in 2020/1 than Leno and that Arsenal made a mistake in selling Martinez. They ignore the fact that Martinez was not happy to stay on as backup keeper, and had he been forced …
Read More “Was there another reason why Arsenal ditched Martinez and kept Leno?”
by Andrew Crawshaw In an eerily familiar fashion Arsenal have been drawn against both Chelsea and Manchester City in their opening three matches of the Women’s Super League (WSL). Unlike our men though the Women will be fighting those two clubs for the title so both games are real six-pointers. The WSL started on …
Read More “Arsenal v Chelsea Women – opening weekend of the WSL”
by Tony Attwood There was a time when, during the interlull – that period when league games are forcibly stopped so that our players can go and get injured playing for countries of whom we know little, even with a globe in front of us – that Blacksheep and I would go and watch non-league …
Read More “Just an interlull? No, there are FA Cup games being played”
By Bulldog Drummond Things really are looking bleak. Given the inevitable furious outpouring to the fact that Arsenal actually took the chance of the interlull to play a friendly without inviting the journos along (goodness how the media hated that) and won it (something now considered utterly unacceptable) and revealed yet another young player on …
By Sir Hardly Anyone As you’ll know Arsenal played an extra friendly this week against Brentford, using a new formation and of course only those players who were not playing international kickabouts. The team we put out was… Ramsdale; White (Hutchinson 76), Mari, Gabriel (Holding 69) Chambers, …
Read More “Arsenal v Brentford: Charlie Patino shines – watch the video of yet another new star”
By Tony Attwood I have regularly argued that football journalists and bloggers base all their ideas on the notion that the only way forward for clubs is to buy new players. As I have shown, the media likes making this a big story because it costs nothing in terms of research, and when over 95% …
Read More “Why the collapse of the transfer market prefaces the collapse of football.”
By Tony Attwood Such is the state of the media, it is getting hard to find many Arsenal players who have been with the club for a while who are considered worthy of driving the lawnmower to cut the grass on the pitch, let alone turn out for the team. Leno is considered an absolute …
Read More “Xhaka has covid and has refused vaccination. So should we blame him?”
By Tony Attwood In the end it was 134 players who we noted as being predicted by the media as coming to Arsenal this summer. Exactly the same number as last summer. Of these the journalists got six right, which is a success rate of 4.5%. If a footballer or a club ever failed …
Read More “Predicting Arsenal’s transfers: journalists score 4.5% accuracy rate”
By Tony Attwood “…the Arsenal hierarchy seem to have opted for a different, almost riskier approach, investing in six young talented players who will no doubt take time to bed in and flourish in red and white. “The risk stems from the fact that Arteta, along with technical director Edu, have opted for a long-term …
Read More “How half of last seasons top 8 are tackling more but fouling less!”
By Tony Attwood The great fear that I personally had for this window was that Mr Arteta would repeat his unwelcome trick of dropping players from the squad, without arranging a loan or a transfer for them. But rough and ready calculations by Untold (always notoriously unreliable when it comes to sorting out the 25 …
Read More “Edu has done a brilliant job in handling the “25”, and apologies to him are needed”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Since 1 January, all players transferred from EU countries to English clubs have required an endorsement from the Football Association to be granted a work permit, and English clubs have been banned from signing under 18 year olds from foreign lands. This, it was feared, could have had a major impact …
Read More “How PL clubs spent less this summer and yet still bought more players”
By Sir Hardly Anyone In the end we bought six out of the 134 players tipped by journalists and bloggers to be joining us, a success rate for the journalists and bloggers of about 4.5%. That was their highest ever success rate in tipping transfers since we started counting – mostly brought about by a) …
Read More “Takehiro Tomiyasu makes us the top spenders, and most went on the defence”
