Ref Review: Arsenal – Liverpool

By Usama and Walter ARSENAL vs. LIVERPOOL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 3 DATE: 24th August 2015 VENUE: Emirates Stadium (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Michael Oliver 1st LINESMAN: Simon Bennett 2nd LINESMAN: John Brooks 4th OFFICIAL: Neil Swarbrick First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & Decision …

Back from never been there: the video ref

By Walter Broeckx People who have followed Untold over the years will know that I and most of the rest of the writers here are strongly in favour of what we call ‘the video referee’. The video referee that has been back on the main pages (well at least on arsenal.com) this time. Aaron Ramsey …

The mindless gibberish of a man with an idea but without logic or reason.

Why Aren’t All Clubs Run for Trophies?   By Sir Hardly Anyone. Well, bless my soul.  The Bleacher Report has sent me an item on Facebook which appears at its heart to turn the whole world of economics upside. Now I know as well as the next knight of the realm that economic predictions only exist …

Yesterday hasn’t happened yet, but when it does we’ll bend reality. Or ignore it.

By Tony Attwood A couple of years back I took up an opportunity to add a bit of variety to my working life by joining with a friend in setting up a small house restoration business.  Since my previous employment has involved the theatre, lecturing, and running an advertising agency, a training organisation, a publishing …

OFFICIALS & INTIMIDATION…

  OFFICIALS & INTIMIDATION…………………………Don McMahon As you may know I was an official in the NASL and we had our share of attempted intimidation and confrontation with some pretty nasty specimens (manager, players, owners etc.) whose unique approach to Football was to bitch at the referee or assistants in order to try and hair dry …

Liverpool set fair to win the league on phantom goals

By Tony Attwood It is a funny ol’ game.  Or maybe something a little more sinister than that. We’ve been doing referee reviews for five years now, including that one season where we had a whole group of referees who supported different teams, analysing matches across the league, and as a result we have been …

Arsenal – Liverpool, should have been 1-0. PGMO takes 2 points away from Arsenal.

By Walter Broeckx A big surprise when the team news came out. Per Mertesacker was ill and so Calum Chambers came in his place. And to make things worse Koscielny has a back injury and thus Gabriel took his place. So it was Santi Cazorla who captained the team. And Giroud made his 100th league …

Enter Brendan Rodgers, accompanied by some notably discordant music

By Bulldog Drummond For today’s game the Guardian had a lovely vision of this match… “Enter Brendan Rodgers, accompanied by some notably discordant music.” I love that as a starter.  But I wish they wouldn’t then drift into stuff like, “It had been only a few months previously that Arsène Wenger had been heckled by …

Arsenal v the team whose owner says football contracts are worth nothing

By Bulldog Drummond Here’s a thought to kick off the day.  Yesterday (Sunday) Untold Arsenal got over 100,000 page views in one day for the first time ever.   Quite a lot of reading really.  The average person read two pages – so just over 50,000 visitors in a day.  A lot of excitement this …

Manchester City and this summer’s FFP regulations.

By Tony Attwood It is always interesting to look at the project that is Manchester City, not just because they are seemingly creating a new brand of football development, but also because of the commentaries we always get back. When Untold covers Tottenham, for example, we get a mix of abuse and serious debate, the …

There ain’t penalties til it’s over. Arsenal v Liverpool 24 August 2015 – The Referee Preview

Arsenal v Liverpool Monday 24 August 2015 – The Match Officials by Andrew Crawshaw Firstly a reminder that Arsenal U21s will play their next game at the Emirates against West Ham on Friday 28 August evening Kick off 19:00  Tickets are on general sale at a cost of £4 (£2 concessions).  Here is a link …

DONE DEAL: Arsenal Striker Target Arrives North London, Officially Completes Move. Headline of the year

By Sir Hardly Anyone On the day after Mr Wenger said that no deal was imminent a quick look around by the spoof sites shows me that either a) Mr Wenger is deliberately being economical with the truth b) Mr Wenger doesn’t know what is going on in the club c) We are in the …

Don’t be fooled by the press: it is not all about buying a new player

By Tony Attwood “Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger says the club’s season will get better and the focus is on improving existing strengths, not buying new players.” That’s the story that has been out and about in the press of late, and it is pretty much what you might expect.  There has also been the Wenger: …

Lies more lies and lies again: the story of booing the Arsenal.

By Tony Attwood . If I told you that as the final whistle for Arsenal 0 Fulham 0 a small element of the crowd booed, you might look at the score and think, well, not surprising. . It was a frustrating game in which the visitors parked the bus and waited for the break, and …

On visiting Real Madrid: thoughts on expanding the Emirates Stadium.

Tim Charlesworth I was recently on holiday in Madrid and took the opportunity to tour the Bernebau stadium (Real Madrid) with my son. It was interesting to look at a famous stadium and compare it to our own. My first impression was how small the stadium seemed (narrower, but also higher than the Emirates/Grove). This …

The great Pardew intervention: how Pardew ensured that Coquelin was NOT sent off.

By Tony Attwood Why did the ref not send Coquelin off in the match against Palace? Of course there can be many reasons offered, ranging from the fact that he didn’t deserve to be sent off, through to the notion that the ref didn’t see the fouls as yellow card offences, and on to something …

The most detailed Referee Reviews in the history of football: Crystal Palace – Arsenal

By Usama and Walter CRYSTAL PALACE vs. ARSENAL COMPETITION: English Premier League MATCH NO. 2 DATE: 16th August 2015 VENUE: Selhurst Park (London, England) MATCH OFFICIALS: REFEREE: Lee Mason 1st LINESMAN: Scott Ledger 2nd LINESMAN: Edward Smart 4th OFFICIAL: Robert Madley First Half Fouls, Advantages, Cards, and Penalties Time Foul by Foul For Description & …

The Telegraph pronounces: “Real Madrid accept £48m offer for Karim Benzema.”

By Tony Attwood Remember Gonzalo Higuaín?  In 2013 Arsenal were pronounced by the press to be about to sign him.  It was everywhere all the time, non stop. So non-stop that even Untold (or to be more precise, me,) said that “it looks like we are signing Higuaín,” which was rather embarrassing because I was the one who …

Goal post shifting: how some supporters know it all before it happens.

By Walter Broeckx I found it rather amusing that in the past week or so we saw the usual resurgence of aaa posters at Untold. People claiming to know it all before it would happen and who said they were right because they had told us so. All this based on one defeat of course. …

Can Arsenal Win the League this Season? Here are the factors it depends on.

Can Arsenal Win the League this Season? What is the Long Term Trend? By Pete I have noticed that, over recent history, Arsenal seem to be more successful in seasons leading up to major international championships than in seasons following them.  For example we can see that we won the League in 1998, 2002 and …

Refs not knowing the change about offside decisions? That makes the PL a pub league.

By Walter Broeckx The PL is a few days underway and we have seen again a few strange decisions. We have seen the usual anti-Arsenal decisions in our two matches. In a way they did cost us as the opening goal from West Ham was a gift from the ref by donating them a free …

Watch Zelalem’s wonder goal; Jack is back; Telegraph turns on PGMO, fans turn on TV pundits

By Tony Attwood Arsenal have agreed to loan Gedion Zelalem to Rangers until January or for the whole season.   With every position in the first team covered not just covered by a back up player but also by players who can play well in more than one position, promising youngsters are going through the academy …

How the media is destroying football day by day by day

By Tony Attwood Untold Arsenal, as the banner headline on the site suggests, presents football news from an Arsenal perspective.  But as publisher of the site, I’ve always had the vision that we could do more than that, by picking up issues that others ignore and seeing where they lead. Of course when I launched …

Why we must stand up and fight the FA’s attempts to restrict the number of foreign players in the Premier League

By Tony Attwood Once upon a time having foreign players in the Arsenal team meant having a couple of full backs whose name began “Mc”.  Then came the EU, then Bosman, and suddenly clubs woke up to the fact that one could sign players without thinking so much about where they came from. Which then …