Manchester City: suggestions of naughty behaviour just keep on popping up.

By Sir Hardly Anyone When a football story breaks there are often two factors that indicates whether there is likely to be any substance to it or not. First, does the story have any details or is it general.  The scandal surrounding the building of the stadia in Qatar for the World Cup for example …

Arsenal: the new positive emerges as finally the truth dawns.

by Tony Attwood Talk Sport (“The world’s biggest sports’ radio station”) ran an article last May, reporting the Arsenal victory with the headline Arsenal sprang a surprise by beating London rivals Chelsea 1-0 at Stamford Bridge this week. And I am sure it was a surprise to the Sprout – although only because they don’t …

Arsenal have been given more red cards in the last 10 years than any other PL club

By Tony Attwood Mikel Arteta tipped to “surprise a few people” with Arsenal in new Premier League season So says, The Daily Mirror,  in a radical change of heart and direction, although of course the Mirror is a little behind the times, given that the surprise came last season when he cut the tackles by …

How tackling is changing in the PL and how it is affecting clubs’ position in the league

By Tony Attwood Although you wouldn’t know it from the coverage in the media, the mundane, everyday tackle in Premier League football has become something of a focal point for clubs in recent years. A successful tackle of course means taking the ball off the opposition, and launching a counter attack.  A foul tackle means …

A complete lack of an exit strategy is causing Arsenal havoc

By Sir Hardly Anyone ‘EVERYTHING IS FORGIVEN IF YOU MAKE THIS HAPPEN’: SOME ARSENAL FANS BUZZ OVER TRANSFER RUMOUR That headline comes from HITC, and I mention it from the off because it makes the assumption that Arsenal has something to be forgiven for.   This, remember, is the club that won the FA for a …

A forthcoming pre-season fixture we missed: the real north London derby!

By Tony Attwood Photo copyright (c) #DBeechPhotography We are, as you will of course know, “Untold Arsenal” and not “Totally comprehensive Arsenal” and so we do miss things. And we’ve missed a pre-season friendly.  And not just any old friendly.   But a friendly billed as the “Real North London Derby”. It is to be played …

Arsenal keeper to be replaced by 8 year old who’s never played football

By Sir Hardly Anyone That headline is bonkers – at least I suspect it is, because I just made it up.  But recently we have had Leno being replaced at Arsenal by a) A keeper who is banned until November on drugs offences (a deal that was going to be sealed in June according to …

Arsenal: ESR stays in dream team for next season, avoiding an almighty disaster?

By Sir Hardly Anyone There is an article in the Express newspaper in which what they call Arsenal’s “dream team” for next season is described in detail. So far, as you’ll know, we have signed Nuno Tavares, a defender from Benfica, and Albert Sambi Lokonga, a midfielder from Anderlecht. Only one of those three new …

A once in a generation chance to sort out the FA: so this is what I’ve done

By Tony Attwood If you have (for reasons that need not become clear at this point) the habit of looking at the foot of an article before venturing in it, you will notice a series of links to other articles about the Football Association, each one on its own giving a reason why the FA …

How the media decided that Arsenal’s biggest story didn’t fit the agenda

by Tony Attwood All the news that fits Over the years of running Untold I don’t think I have previously seen a case where some of the media has accurately reported an intriguing Arsenal development, only then to back off en masse, and leave what became over time a major newspiece.   But that’s what happened …

Making up statistics about Arsenal is ok… until someone bothers to check.

By Tony Attwood With Arsenal holding the inglorious record of most errors leading to goals for quite a few years running… That was a new one on me, and if you are a regular reader you’ll know Untold likes statistics.  After all we’ve been banging on about them all summer.  This came from lastwordonsports.com We’ve …

How the football media face up to the Giant Spaghetti Monster in the sky

By Tony Attwood Imagine you believed that the universe was controlled by the giant spaghetti monster in the sky. If you did you wouldn’t be alone, because you’d be accompanied by tens of thousands of followers of the same belief.  They are known as the pastafarians and indeed you could, if you wished, become a …

Arsenal have third highest expenditure of the top PL clubs this summer

By Sir Hardly Anyone In the table that follows I’ve taken the teams that are our traditional rivals plus one or two other interesting clubs.   Loans are not included and in order to get some sort of coherence  I have taken all figures from one source: The Guardian’s transfer tracker. As you will almost certainly …

Super League isn’t quite as dead as some try to make out

By Tony Attwood As you will know if you have been paying attention, the media are telling us Arsenal are in real big trouble, what with last season being so awful. But really that trouble is not that big, first because the owners offered to put quarter of a billion pounds into the club (although …

Media suddenly realises it wasn’t Arsenal who were awful last season it was…

By Sir Hardly Anyone So here is the story.  Arsenal were crap last season, appalling in every department, missed Europe for the first time since the Bronze Age and were lucky to crawl into 8th.  could have been relegated. So now, Mikel Arteta and Edu want to improve the spine of Arsenal’s fragile team as …

114 players said to be joining Arsenal: Lampety to Zielinski

By Sir Hardly Anyone There is a fabulous example of the insanity that journalists expect you to believe. Localetti who is a midfielder.   The Express told us that the player would decide where to go after the Euros, and the asking price was £34m asked.  Now according to Football 365 Arsenal have offered £69m. Of …

114 players said to be about to join Arsenal, van Aanholt to Kurzawa

By Sir Hardly Anyone There is a fabulous example of the insanity that journalists expect you to believe. Localetti who is a midfielder.   The Express told us that the player would decide where to go after the Euros, and the asking price was £34m asked.  Now according to Football 365 Arsenal have offered £69m. Of …

Arsenal’s 2020/21 season upgraded from “worst” and “woeful” to “disappointing”

By Tony Attwood Through the summer Untold has found a couple of big reasons to be cheerful.  Neither have been reported in the media, and instead we have had an endless stream of negatives.  This group of examples were published within an hour of each other this morning…. Arsenal player likes post linking him with …

Does it matter that the media spread lies about Arsenal every day?

By Tony Attwood Put another way… “Does it matter what the media says about Arsenal?” One could argue that it clearly matters to some supporters because their comments make it clear that they believe some of what is written.  But does it actually affect the club? For example, does it make it easier or harder …

Is Arsenal really paying £50m for White, or is it just that he is English?

By Sir Hardly Anyone So it looks like we are finally buying the Brighton full back Ben White in the coming weeks.  The price is widely quoted to be around £50m. So what impact might Ben White have on the two clubs? Of the two clubs Arsenal had a better defence through last season as …

The biggest media disasters in the history of English football

By Tony Attwood The portrayal of Arsenal this year has been one of the biggest disinformation campaigns of all time in football.  And it is a disaster because the media, having launched the campaign (to save them bothering to research any other story) are now struggling to find any way out of it. But this …

Rangers v Arsenal the team – and amazing new names for the transfer list.

By Bulldog Drummond Sports Mole have tipped nine players to be coming to Arsenal in our on-going summer transfer chart but from those already with us they give a line up today of Hein; Bellerin, Rekik, Mari, Tavares; Partey, Henry-Francis; Pepe, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang; Balogun Karl Jacob Hein is a 19 year old Estonian who …

If Arteta fails that just might be for the best

By Tony Attwood The Online Gooner came up with an interesting phrase just recently which rather intrigued me.  “From the outside, our manager seems like a dictator without the wins or pedigree to match it.” It must be me getting even more stupid than I’ve always been, but I’ve never quite seen dictators as people …

Rangers v Arsenal, the man who worked on the stadia of both clubs

By Bulldog Drummond Rangers v Arsenal: the history between the clubs So far this season Rangers have (according to the information I’ve got, and please don’t shout at me if I’ve missed something) had three new players arrive, all on a free. Fashion Sakala, a 24 year old centre forward from KV Oostended on a …

Rangers v Arsenal: the history between the clubs

by Bulldog Drummond There is a long history connecting Arsenal and Rangers – something established not least because during Woolwich Arsenal’s darkest days of financial troubles, Rangers bought a few shares in Arsenal as a symbol of solidarity between the clubs.  They were finally sold by Craig Whyte during the period of Rangers financial difficulties. …