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 Arsenal cannot afford another timid transfer window – they need to get ruthless That’s from today’s Telegraph and refers to an article by Jeremy Wilson in the paper. And before we go into the detail it is worth asking, was the purchase of Ozil and the purchase of Alexis “timid”? And that …
Read More “Who will Arsenal buy and how will they do it? Two different views.”
By Walter Broeckx Sometimes the strangest things can lead to a new article for Untold. I was sitting in my chair the other day listening to the radio when the old song “Where have all the flowers gone” originally from Peter Seeger came on. For some inexplicable reason it suddenly sounded in my head the …
By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you’ll know that I sometimes have a little snigger about the way the daily press in England pick up on our stories occasionally and then do a re-write of them – either covering the same ground, or being persuaded to set out an alternative vision by …
Read More “So exactly who has been Arsenal’s best keeper of late?”
By Tony Attwood How fast can you know that a player or manager is no good? Today the Telegraph has the headline “Has Guardiola finally been found out?” That implies that he has been tricking everyone all this time in some ill-defined way. He’s got three Spanish titles and two Champions League trophies, and he’s …
Read More “How to judge Arsenal: a touch of context, analysis and knowledge can help”
By Tony Attwood Enfield have lost their appeal against a points deducation which keeps them out of the play offs from their division. The appeal against an FA decision was organised by the FA, run by FA people, for the FA by the FA. The guilty party in the affair was at all stages and …
Read More “Enfield punished for FA total cock up; press happy to cover up the mess”
Chelsea and QPR have used different routes to get around FFP regulations. But are they going to succeed? By Tony Attwood Remember FFP? You might, but it seems the Premier League doesn’t. We should have known about the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play regulations a year ago, and still not a word. Indeed the only …
Read More “FFP: Uefa seems to have given up, but maybe the League will be more resolute.”
By Tony Attwood In the closing minutes last night a fellow Arsenal supporter sitting just behind me shouted out “You’re fucking useless Sanchez”. I felt the point he made lost something by a lack of detail and logical argument. But there it was. His opinion. But it was perhaps this comment that led to my opening a …
Read More “No new central defender; Wenger is rubbish, everything is rubbish.”
By Walter Broeckx For the second time in a row Arsenal made no changes to the side that played against Hull last week. Ramsey recovered from the kicking he got and started. Jack Wilshere remained on the bench. So the same team that started, something that doesn’t change that much at Arsenal because of all the …
Read More “Arsenal – Swansea, sometimes football can be cruel”
By Bulldog Drummond. Shock horror disaster!!! Danny Welbeck has scored three goals in four Barclays Premier League games against Swansea City, and he is out injured!!! Oh no!!! (I think I am getting the hang of this jouno hysteria). But of course Arsène Wenger knows exactly what’s what. “I’m ready to change but we had …
Read More “Arsenal v Swansea: the teams, the score, the detail. In fact everything.”
By Walter Broeckx For once your reviewer becomes previewer. As our regular previewer Andrew is waltzing his way over the Danube I take over for this occasion. And as because of personal circumstances I didn’t have any time the last weeks to do reviews the table of shame is unchanged. The reviews will be done …
Read More “Ref Preview: Arsenal – Swansea, Friend or enemy?”
by Tony Attwood Tottery Downs is a wild and wonderful place somewhere in the vicinity of north London. It is a place wherein teams of a certain ilk find themselves talking about taking a step up, joining the Champions League, and other such wild, wild, dreams, while in reality the dear old team is as …
By Pararealist Man oh man. I am sure that there are many Untoldians out there wondering what’s next for Arsenal. Well we know what is next, the FA Cup. Are we going to make sure we retain it, will we succeed or will the forces that plan against us be out to stop us from …
By Walter Broeckx I don’t know if he actually said it but if I can believe the media this is what a not yet named manager said yesterday against the media: “The Champions League is a prize in itself. A club like “X” must play at the highest podium”. Now we know that if Wenger …
Read More “The manager who dares speak of gaining the 4th place trophy”
The Untold Banner: a brief(ing) update by Blacksheep Having suggested the idea of putting a banner up in the Emirates to mark our appreciation of M. Wenger I must admit to being overwhelmed by the number of positive responses and offers of hard cash from Untold readers. This is going to take some organizing but …
By Tony Attwood It has been clear since the earliest days of its existence that the FA is run by a bunch of dodos. But now that assessment looks to be challenged, for it is clearly an insult to dodos. Dodos must have been the cream of the intelligentsia compared to the FA. What has …
Read More “The grossest FA cock up of them all. I promise you won’t believe this.”
ANGER MANAGEMENT ARSENAL – Don McMahon One of the most ubquitous characteristics of the aaa and their media masters is a level of anger that does not correspond with any reality or actual circumstances at AFC. The black scarf movement, the Wenger out brigade, the vitrolic aaa and the media taking umbrage at the slightest …
By Tony Attwood That headline is, I confess at once, misleading. And one should not use misleading headlines. I know that because I wrote it in an article last week about selling via the post and email.* But it is a headline that we used to see all the time. I’m not sure Untold has …
By Tony Attwood This morning on my way to work I voted in the UK’s general election for an MP to sit in Parliament for the town in which I live, and I also voted in the election for local councillors to serve in my part of town. Unfortunately I couldn’t vote for Blacksheep, for …
By Walter Broeckx In England any football club can be owned by one person. Fit or not a person can buy a club and do with it what he likes. There once was a fit and proper person test but that was just a kind of joke as we have seen a few people with …
Read More “The German model, better but not completely perfect”
By Tony Attwood We have often referred back to the match fixing scandals in Italy; I thought that maybe to add to the picture we ought to cover match fixing in some other countries too. And I thought I’d start with Greece, where the affair in 2011 was originally called The Koriopolis. But in case …
Read More “Match fixing in Greece, Olympiacos and next season’s Champs League”
By Walter Broeckx On more than one occasion Tony has shown that journalists and pundits are lazy people. And I think it is fair to say that we have seen it again in the last couple of days. It all started (although not really started as such, as it has been the media/pundits theme for …
By Tony Attwood This year St Totters Day was the biggest I can ever remember, with even the national media jumping on the bandwagon. Indeed if you want a flavour of what other Arsenal fans got up to on the great day this year take a look at St Tots Day from the Independent. This means of …
Read More “Why we need the young non-international playing players”
By Tony Attwood I can’t recall a new season starting so early, but that is how it seems. We’ve still got to establish the order of the top four, play Man U, Sunderland and WBA in the league, and sort out the FA Cup. And yet all the talk is of next season. No real …
Read More “We’ve got the 100, had St Tot and got into Europe. So now what?”
By Tony Attwood All clubs have style. It is reflected in the way the players are encouraged to present themselves, the way the club reveres its past, the way the club considers its fans, even the way the club considers the people who live in houses round about. In such an analysis there are some …
By Walter Broeckx No changes in the team that started the match against Hull. According to Arsenal.com Koscielny made his 200th appearance so lets hope he can celebrate a good win at the end of the match. On the bench we had a few changes. Gabriel and Rosicky have a place on the bench in …
