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
Why Arsenal does indeed need Fábio Vieira right now On the Guardian website at the moment there is a 1000 word article: Football’s boos problem: why are we so quick to turn on our own team? It is written by Paul MacInnes who is defined as a “reporter for the Guardian” and it goes through …
Media changing its tune over Arsenal? By Sir Hardly Anyone It appears that we have just bought a new Vieira (oh, oh). This one being Fábio Vieira from Porto. And lots of people are saying he is a jolly good player, which is rather nice. Although not a massively experienced player, which means he …
Read More “Why Arsenal does indeed need Fábio Vieira right now”
Arsenal have signed their third player No club ended the season in the place it occupied after three games. by Tony Attwood As we know, at the heart of football journalism is the media’s vision of fans as people with very little brain. So little brain that the media assumes that most fans are willing …
By Sir Hardly Anyone. “Reportedly expected to be a transfer target”. Great Arsenal excitement Who starts the transfer rumours and why are they inventing more and more? According to the Guardian Arsenal have signed the 19-year-old Brazilian forward Marquinhos – described by Edu as a “player for the future” – and the more backup goalkeeper Matt …
The Platini / Blatter / Fifa court case has just exploded by El Buldog Rodríguez La Liga reports Manchester City As has been anticipated for a little while, La Liga now has formally complained to Uefa regarding Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, claiming each of the clubs are in “continuous breach” of financial fair play …
Read More “La Liga complains to Uefa, alleging Manchester City and PSG breach FFP”
By Tony Attwood SWITZERLAND, FIFA AND THE CROOKS. HAVE THEY ALL BEEN INVOLVED IN ANYTHING ELSE? Yesterday, the Swiss trial about a two-million-franc payment between Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini which the pair say was made for work undertaken, but which prosecutors claim to be fraud, exploded. The story is not in the English media …
Read More “The Platini / Blatter / Fifa court case has just exploded”
Can football stop hooliganism? By Tony Attwood This is more dangerous than Super League Once upon a time most Football League games ended with a ptich invasion. It was largely a case in the 1960s of children and teenagers running on the pitch at the final whistle, some to get autographs, some just because they …
Read More “Why has nothing been done about pitch invasions?”
By Tony Attwood Marquinhos joins from Sao Paulo: words and videos According to an article in Le Matin the Spanish Football League has filed a complaint in relation to Erling Haaland’s transfer to Manchester City during the past week, and is about to file another such complaint against Kylian Mbappé’s extension of his contract with Paris …
By Sir Hardly Anyone Marquinhos joins from Sao Paulo: words and videos These two headlines published by the same mass circulation newspaper on its website within a couple of hours of each other, tell you pretty much how the media works… Arsenal transfer round-up Bukayo Saka talks ‘stall’ amid fresh Gabriel Jesus blow (Daily Mirror 9 …
by Tony Attwood Supporting Arsenal: it’s a two-way affair Arsenal confirm the signing of 19-year-old Brazilian forward Marquinhos from São Paulo ⚡ (via @Sudamericana)pic.twitter.com/EjgLkb3Der — B/R Football (@brfootball) June 13, 2022 Marquinhos (not to be confused with the captain of PSG and Brazil who plays as a defender) has joined Arsenal from the Brazilian club …
Read More “Marquinhos joins from Sao Paulo: words and videos”
By Tony Attwood If you have been with Untold Arsenal for more than a day you’ll have noticed the radical change to the website that happened today, 13 June 2022. We’ve been working on this for a while, primarily from the point of view of taking us into the 21st century and making the …
By Tony Attwood Fouls, penalties and free kicks: there’s something odd going on somewhere Multiple tackles, fewer fouls The initial reason that Untold started looking into the issue of tackles, fouls and yellow cards was because the figures Leicester City got were so very different from Arsenal’s. So here’s another look at our …
Read More “Tackles, fouls and yellow cards: Arsenal and Leicester compared”
By Tony Attwood How referees punish Arsenal Why cutting tackles is the policy of the top clubs We have for several years postulated that some Premier League clubs worked hard to keep the number of tackles down because tackles so regularly result in a foul, which of course gives the advantage to the opposition. Arsenal …
Read More “Only Watford are penalised more than Arsenal for tackles”
Why are WHU players fouled so rarely and Villa players fouled so often? By Tony Attwood In December 2020 Untold ran the story, Leicester heading for all-time record number of penalties, which pointed out that they had already got nine penalties awarded in their favour. As we said at that point, because of the late …
Read More “Fouls, penalties and free kicks: there’s something odd going on somewhere”
by Tony Attwood Amazingly, in 2020/1 the more clubs tackled, the more goals they let in! Aston Villa were the most fouled club in the Premier League last season with players from the opposition committing 512 fouls against them in the Leaguem. Meanwhile West Ham were the least fouled club with just 292 fouls …
Read More “Why are WHU players fouled so rarely and Villa players fouled so often?”
By Tony Attwood The killer stat that held Arsenal back in 2021/22 As things stand it seems that Arsenal are focussing their transfer efforts on getting the Manchester City forward Gabriel Jesus, the Leicester City midfielder Youri Tielemans and the Manchester City defensive midfielder / defender, Oleksandr Zinchenko again from Manchester City. In terms of …
Read More “How did player injuries affect clubs last season?”
“Mikel Arteta” (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by Kieran Clarke In all honesty, this isn’t going to come as a shock. Goals win games and there are some obvious statistics that underline why Arsenal fell just short of their ultimate aim. Gunners fans may have taken fifth place at the start of the season but the results in the run-in …
Read More “The killer stat that held Arsenal back in 2021/22”
By Tony Attwood When football authorities order the media to delete the video, we really have problems When something goes wrong in relation to football who is to blame? Normally the answer is “the fans” – and that particularly so at a time of increased disorder. Indeed I see that the media has been having …
Read More “Why are Fifa, Uefa, the FA and other bodies that run football not held to account?”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Arsenal engaged in seven of the top 11 transfers this summer! The notion is beginning to circulate that Arsenal’s willingness to freeze out Aubameyang and Ozil before giving them away to other clubs is coming back to haunt the club. Certainly, the way in which Ozil and Auba were treated was …
Read More “Are Arsenal’s actions over Ozil and Aubameyang making transfers harder?”
Fifa in crisis Why and how Infantino is still happy to promote the Super League. Today, 8 June, Michel Platini and ex-Fifa president Sepp Blatter appeared in court in Switzerland in the start of the suspicious payment case. It is a story that occupies a lot of people in Europe for one very simple reason. …
Read More “Platini and Blatter in court, but hush! Don’t tell the English media”
By Sir Hardly Anyone Manchester City are not currently focused on making a swoop for Arsenal and England star Bukayo Saka, instead prioritising a new central midfielder according to the Mirror. So maybe everything is ok and we don’t have to worry about all those reports that we have noted in the last article: Arsenal …
Read More “Manchester City in amazing about turn and are now NOT bidding for Saka!”
How football has failed to develop, and how Arsenal are countering the trend By Sir Hardly Anyone It really is the most extraordinary of proposals: Arsenal are seriously engaged in seven out of the top 11 big summer transfers, at least according to the Telegraph website today. If the club fails to sign any of …
Read More “Arsenal engaged in seven of the top 11 transfers this summer!”
By Sir Hardly Anyone There is one transfer story that is dominating all others it seems and that is Saka going to Manchester City. (Or in the last couple of hours, Liverpool). Indeed so certain do some of the “journalists” (I use the word in its broadest sense to include writers of fiction) seem that …
Read More “So Liverpool and Manchester City each want to buy Saka. Which one will it be?”
Tractor digs up ptich, Blatter/Platini in court, Plymouth revolt, Mail removes video By Tony Attwood Given the amount of time the media spends reporting transfers, one might think that spending money on players guarantees success. But it turns out this might not be so. Football Observatory has once again created a directory of the 100 …
Read More “Does spending more and more on transfers actually work in the Premier League?.”
by Tony Attwood In many regards the debate about football carries on as before. The English media utterly refuse to mention the chaos at Wembley for the Euro final last year while resolutely blaming the French for the trouble in Paris. It’s a story following traditional lines. Meanwhile the news that Sepp Blatter and Michel …
Read More “Tractor digs up ptich, Blatter/Platini in court, Plymouth revolt, Mail removes video”
