2021 Women’s Champions league round of 16 – Arsenal v Barcelona Preview

By Andrew Crawshaw Our match against Barcelona is being played tomorrow evening at the Emirates with a 19:00 kickoff.  It will also be shown live on the DAZN streaming website and probably also by arsenal.com so you should be able to watch it wherever you are in the world. Barcelona are, without doubt, the best …

Sanitisation of English football means the excitement is often elsewhere.

By Tony Attwood Football, as presented on TV, on the radio, on the internet and in print, feeds on one thing, and one thing only: controversy.   But that controversy has to be contained.  Only certain controversies are allowable. Through the game, at half time and after the game pundits ooze pleasantries about how good the …

Why Arsenal need more goals, but why it might not be that urgent.

By Tony Attwood According to the Daily Mirror today, last night’s game was “the same old story for Arsenal as they struggled to create goal-scoring opportunities.” The clear statement is that without more goals Arsenal will be in serious trouble.  And yet that is not always the case. For example, we are currently on track …

The big football story in Europe that the English media will not seriously consider

By Tony Attwood We regularly cover issues of racism and violence within football.  See for example “Racist abuse, physical violence”  in August this year.   Back in 2018 we were asking “Should clubs be responsible for the behaviour of their fans inside and outside the ground?” We also know that there was a lot of bother …

Arteta’s latest tactical surprise – and is there one more to come?

By Tony Attwood The problem with tactical rethinks is that they can take a while to get right.  And we have perfect evidence of that with the first third of last season when the whole approach to defending was changed and we slipped to 15th in the league. I must admit I had hoped that …

Everton v Arsenal – the Arsenal team

By Bulldog Drummond Everton v Arsenal – the referee and past matches Everton v Arsenal: comparisons of the current state of the clubs Everton v Arsenal, the turmoil in the build up, the walk out by the fans. Everton v Arsenal: the tackles, fouls and yellow cards. What will the ref do? And now here’s …

Everton v Arsenal: the tackles, fouls and yellow cards. What will the ref do?

by Bulldog Drummond If you have been reading Untold for a while you will know that uniquely, we’ve developed the process of comparing tackles, fouls and yellow cards for clubs, and have found it a great source of information in terms of how clubs set themselves up.  And of course what the referees get up …

2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 4- An unusual FA Cup fina

by Jon Preston A word of introduction – These are the thoughts of my Son, Jon who accompanied me (Andrew Crawshaw) to the game. As FA Cup finals go, today’s was unusual.  Carried over from last season, I found myself at Wembley in December to watch Arsenal against Chelsea, a traditionalist’s tie if ever there …

2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 3- Match Report

By Andrew Crawshaw The 50th playing of the final of the Women’s FA Cup was held at Wembley this Afternoon in front if a crowd of marginally over 50,000. I was there along with Jon, my son and his daughter Josette. It was Jon’s first Arsenal Women’s game although we sit together at the Emirates …

Everton v Arsenal – the referee and past matches

By Bulldog Drummond The referee is either Andre Marriner or Mike Dean, depending on which website one reads.  Marriner we have not had at all.  However last season we had him in charge of our games three times.  Mike Dean we have had once for the game in October against Palace. Last season, six referees …

Everton v Arsenal: comparisons of the current state of the clubs

By Bulldog Drummond I don’t think we’ve been in the position of writing previews of two major Arsenal matches in two days, but if you are looking for our coverage of the Women’s Cup Final today that is here 2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 1 History …

Everton v Arsenal, the turmoil in the build up, the walk out by the fans.

By Bulldog Drummond 2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 1 History 2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 2 – Match Preview With Andrew having covered today’s big match in detail (see above) all there is left for me to …

2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 2 – Match Preview

by Andrew Crawshaw 2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 1 History The match is at Wembley and kicks off at 14:00 UK Time.  If you can’t be there in person it is also being broadcast live in the UK on BBC1 and BTSport 1 and local carriers …

2021 FA Women’s Cup Final – Arsenal v Chelsea Sunday 5 December – Part 1 History

by Andrew Crawshaw This will be the 50th Women’s FA Cup Final, but why only the 50th?  It will also mark the centenary of a disgraceful act by the FA which by itself should preclude that body having any authority over the game we all support. On 5 December 1921 the English Football Association (FA) …

Football in England is broken beyond repair. We need a new controlling agency

By Tony Attwood On Radio 4 in the UK today there was a discussion of the events at Wembley for the Euro 2020 final.  And yet despite a fulsome piece on the subject, the interviewer completely failed to ask a representative of the FA, “Why did you not realise this could happen?” The reason that …

Of course football needs oversight because no one is protecting the youngsters

by Tony Attwood Untold recently ran the series: The biggest scandal in football – the first part of the three part review is here  with links to the other two parts at the end. The scandal is that there is no one single body looking after the well-being of children who are taken on by …

At least with Arsenal we can see we certainly are improving

By Tony Attwood In its ratings of Arsenal players last night the Daily Telegraph generally gave Arsenal players ratings of six out of ten apart from Ramsdale, Gabriel and Martinelli who all got seven.  Which is another way of saying that we didn’t have a standout player who could turn the match and remotivate the …

Manchester United v Arsenal: why does no one want to report this stat?

By Bulldog Drummond I have to admit, getting news about this game has been tough since the media seem only to want to talk about Manchester United. And I know that normally on Untold we end our run of match previews with a prediction of the team – (which as you may have seen in …

Manchester United v Arsenal: ludicrous alarms and the likely line up

By Bulldog Drummond Perfidious is the only polite word I can think of for these journalist chappies.  Consider this headline: Arsenal suffer injury blow ahead of Man Utd clash as three players could miss out It suggested that there has been a new injury in training, when it appeared this morning, but no – it is …

The overwhelming arrogance of journalists is destroying football

By Bulldog Drummond By and large football journalists know little about football tactics, and less about football supporters.  But still they go on pretending that they know exactly what clubs should do, in the vague hope that this will then stir supporters into criticising their clubs, which will then give the journalists another story without …

Manchester United v Arsenal – a variable history, but will a real ray of hope

Dating back from 1976 to the present day we have a collection of Arsenal v Manchester United videos on the Arsenal History Society Website.  It’s completely free, and hopefully will act as a nice warm up to Thursday night’s dramas. You can find the Arsenal v Man United videos index here But to consider the …

Man U v Arsenal: who is running the show these days for Arsenal?

By Bulldog Drummond While there is a huge amount of focus on the ever rising talents of Saka and Smith Rowe, even to the extent that some are even saying they are “running the show,” there is a case to be made for two other players to be noted as the revelations of this season: …

Injuries ahead of the Man U v Arsenal game

By Bulldog Drummond One of the benefits of the move away from tackling which was introduced by Mr Arteta at the start of last season is that it tends to reduce the number of injuries gained while making ungainly tackles.  What’s more when one team is clattering away at the opponents and the other isn’t, …

Man U v Arsenal: how Man U failed to tackle and sank to 18th in the form table

By Bulldog Drummond Both Arsenal and Manchester are at the low end of the tackling chart- in fact, Manchester United have been delivering fewer tackles than anyone this season.  And yet despite being the lowest tackling team in the league, they are the ninth highest team for fouls and the fifth-highest team for yellow cards!!! …

It is true that sheer incompetence will mean Arsenal lose 2 strikers for nothing?

by Tony Attwood It is not surprising that the story behind this article comes from the Daily Mirror.  It tells us that Arsenal could lose Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah on a free if each doesn’t sign a new deal. Now administrative incompetence is, according to the Mirror, the Arsenal curse, and as a result …