Last Of The Summer Sun

Arsene Wenger came to Arsenal 15 years ago, with a point very much to prove. A decade and a half later and we have seen the rise, and subsequent fall of one of the games greatest pioneers.

I'm not going to sit here and slag off a man who has bought us Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg, Patrick Vieira, Sol Campbell, Robin van Persie and Cesc Fabregas, signings his peers can only dream of finding and creating.

Nor am I going to slag off a man who in his own right, when no one else believed he could do so, assembled a team so great, that they went unbeaten in the greatest league in the world for 49 games, including one full season. Even Sir Alex will never lay a claim to that.

But to echo Abraham Lincoln's famous words, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." And as much as I hate to admit it, these words will be ringing in the ears of many football fans alike.

What started so courageously back in 1996, with a pair of spectacles that only John Lennon could have loved, could not be a world a part from where we are now. The Old Evertonians that make up the boardroom, with their green fingers, have tied a knot in Wenger's neck so tight, that he will have to dismantle what he has built in order to spare it.

I'm not saying that I blame a lack of money for fifteen consecutive Champions League finishes, nor am I blaming project youth. For a club that built it's success steadily and revolutionally through Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger, had numerous success under George Graham, and stood alone as the only remaining British empire of a football club, until recently. To produce players of the ilk of Jack WILSHERE, Henri Lansbury, Kieran Gibbs and Kyle Bartley, is a massive incentive. It's what football is about, and Wenger along with Steve Rowley, Liam Brady and Steve Bould have transformed the club in to one of the finest youth academies in the world. My problem is that when you are backs to the wall, these kids are barely playing, Jack aside.

What must these kids think when they see Sebastien Squillaci and Andrey ARSHAVIN in the team? By far the 2 worst players on Sunday, and they were replaced by Alex Song, a naturalised midfielder and Nicklas Bendtner. Now, who did we have on the bench? Young Spanish centre half Ignasi Miguel and young Irish U-21 international Conor Henderson. Now for the life of me, I can't understand why these 2 lads weren't bought on. If they are not ready, then perhaps big names should have been signed six years ago. If they are ready, then this is what the club has sacrificed so much for and invested so much in.

We saw the same with Sylvain Wiltord, our then record signing playing on the right wing... Forcing two of our most talented youngsters in a generation out of the club in Jermaine Pennant and David Bentley. Both of whome have Premier League Hat-tricks to their names.

Still, the summer is fading and the curtains are slowly being drawn on our most famous moment. If Wenger is sacked it would represent a massive statement from the club, personally I neither think it would be the right decision, nor the best one.

You can talk about your Del Bosque's and your Guardiola's all you want but that doesn't guarantee success. All that means is a manager throwing away money on x and y players because he knows, that if he doesn't deliver straight away, he will be shown the door. If we go down that route we become Real Madrid or Chelsea... For all their success they will never be football clubs, but franchises.

You can also talk about your Parker's, your Jagielka's and your Benzema's, but Jose Antonio Reyes and our very own Andrey ARSHAVIN are both glaringly obvious monarchs of failure. A club has to be built from the core, much like Barcelona, much like Manchester United, until then and only then can we think about extravagance.

There is obvious square pegs in round holes, and they must be fixed. Alex Song is not a big game player and our defence needs a leader. Personally I would bring Vermaelen in to defensive midfield and drop RvP in to the Bergkamp role. This would allow us to sign the 2 big players we need, a commanding centre half such as Gary Cahill and a goalscorer such as Darren Bent or Karim Benzema, without ruining the philosophy of the club.

You also have to look at the price of players like Cahill and realise that Mamadou Sakho of PSG, is younger, better and cheaper... I know where I would go, unfortunately the xenophobia around the ideal British centre half has us thinking otherwise.

I'm not one to state which signings we need, this is not Championship Manager with a plastic budget to work with. But the truth remains that the shadowy clouds gathering over out managers head won't clear until the public are fooled with what they want... And the sun continues to set on the horizon!

Silent Stan's Red & White Army

Today represents a massive day in the timeline history of Arsenal Football Club, and indeed to Arsenal Holdings PLC, as much as the press will try and spin it, there may not necessarily be any immediate noticable changes to the every day running of the club, allow me to explain:

Kroenke Sports Enterprises
Kroenke is a well-known sports mogul. As the head and owner of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, he has owned 40% of the National Football League's St. Louis Rams since their relocation to Missouri in 1995. In 2000, he became full owner of both the National Basketball Association's Denver Nuggets and the National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche, purchasing the team from Charlie Lyons' Ascent Entertainment Group. In 2002, he partnered with American football legend John Elway and Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen to become co-owner of the Arena Football League's Colorado Crush. He continued to grow his sports empire in 2004, when he purchased the National Lacrosse League's Colorado Mammoth and Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids from Phil Anschutz.
In 2010, Kroenke exercised his right of first refusal to buy the remaining interest in the St. Louis Rams. ^[2] On August 25, 2010, he became full owner of the Rams by unanimous consent of the NFL. To gain approval from NFL owners, Kroenke agreed to turn over control of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche to his son, Josh, by the end of 2010, and he must give up his majority stake in both teams by December 2014. The NFL does not allow its owners to hold majority control of major league teams in other NFL cities.
Kroenke Sports Enterprise also owns Pepsi Center in Denver, home of the Nuggets and Avalanche, and co-owns Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, home of the Rapids. Both venues were built by his development company. In 2004, Kroenke launched his own competitor to FSN Rocky Mountain (now known as Root Sports Rocky Mountain), Altitude, a new regional sports network which became the official broadcaster for both of Kroenke's teams on launch. Kroenke also established TicketHorse, a ticket company that provides in-house sales for all of his teams.
Kroenke is a somewhat reclusive man who stays out of the limelight. He his popularly known as "Silent Stan" because he almost never gives interviews to the press.^[3] He rarely interferes in his teams' day-to-day operations. (source: Wikipedia).

The key quote here is the last one, if the board have decided that now is the time to move on, then this will be largely to do with 2 factors, number one being the health of Danny Fiszman the 3rd largest shareholder, and two being the fact that Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith has been looking to end her family's 70 year association with club, by selling her 15% share.

Mr. Fiszman needs no introduction to Arsenal fans, a true legend in every sense of the word. He engineered and pioneered Arsenal's move to the Emirates stadium and sponsorship deal and filled in David Dein's boots admirably before the appointment of Ivan Gazidis and Chief Executive. His recent health problems have been well documented and given the fact that niether of his children want to pursue ties with the club, now is the right time to sell.

Stan Kroenke has been a member of the board for a while now and his company, Kroenke Sports Enterprises has an impressive port folio, he will no doubt take a backseat approach to the club, as although he and his wife (member of the Wal-Mart family) own property in Hertfordshire, he will remain based at his Colorado home with KSE.

This means that the current board will remain running the club as non-shareholder board of directors, with only a representative of KSE as the share-holder. There has been significant talk of David Dein returning to the club, which will make a lot of Gooners salivate, his relationship with Wenger is pivotal, and given the ages of both Danny Fiszman and Ken Friar, his wisdom and nouse will be much appreciated.

If Kroenke is to buy all of the remaining shares then he will have to buy out the 27% owned by the second largest shareholder, none other than everyones favourite Uzbek, ex-convict, oligarch, Man United, fat billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

Usmanov himself is ranked 2 places higher than Roman Abramovic in the Russian Rich List and many mindless Gooners have called for him to take charge. This in many ways verifies Wengers comments that, "Why should we listen to someone who has not evern workes half a day in football."
Wise words, and maybe words that Peter Hill-Wood should have listened to, when your going to slag off the fans and especially the AMG's, you have to do it constructively.

Usmanov, although a billionaire, has no sporting background to match Stan Kroenke, the American represents a person who has set out to make money in the sporting world from day one, and bought his first sporting share back in 1995. Usmamov first took itnerest in Arsenal 7 years ago and has since ploughed money in to Russia's Dinamo Moscow, who he says, "Is a first love, for me."
When Russian billionaires with no sporting back ground take control of Football Clubs, it is inevitably for the same reason that Sheikh's take control of football clubs, to have a shiney new toy to play with.

We have all played Championship Manager and altered the budgets using cheats from the itnernet, well these guys and afford to do the same thing, if the Uzbek Billionaire were to get a hold of Arsenal, we could kiss our heritage and tradition goodbye.

The club have woked extremely hard over the last 6 nearly 7 years to create an ethos that will last Arsenal a life time, and take the club to Barcelona-esque stardom, our youth academy is now mentioned along side the likes of Ajax, Barcelona and Manchester United in terms of potential, a Uzbek billionaire is not going to spend £700 million on a club and then sit back and wait for Kieran Gibbs to break in to the first team.

Kroenke's interests are not only as a business acumen (he has a degree in Business development), but he also enjoys the tradition of a football club, Arsenal Holdngs PLC will continue to run the club with Stan Kroenke and KSE being the financial backers of the club, Arsene Wenger will still run the first team affairs. The one big change in this is that Arsenal could become a global brand world wide, as Kroenke's empire grows, so will his legacy.

Arsenal had already listened to the Arsenal Supporters Trust's voices for a lucrative pre-season tour, however that is likely to be cancelled as it was scheduled for Japan, which for obvious reasons is not in a good position at the moment, expect that tour to be transfered to the USA which will severely boost the clubs pre-season income.

One thing I would like to leave you with, is the Arsenal Supporters Trust's comments a few days ago. Although they have their right to voice concerns about the lack of silverware, they should be concentrating more on the collective of Arsenal Football Club rather than 6 seasons of trophylessness. Man City and Tottenham have spent fortunes in recent years and neither have had the success that Arsenal have had, if 'x' amount was spent on 'y' player then not only would we be destroying the future of the club, but also putting it in un-neccessary danger of becoming a sleeping giant.

Now we have an American billionaire at the helm, that may all be a thing of the past... Fasten your seatbelts gooners, the ride has only just begun.

"YooEssAy, YooEssAy, YooEssAy".

Two tramps in a garbage truck. Two bankers in a Mercedes

Being an Arsenal fan at the moment is a bit like that famous poem, I wouldn't go as far to say that being a gooner is the equivalent to being a tramp, bit you do wonder about the greener grass.

Ol' Fernando may be the most expensive flop since NASA's Apollo 12, but at one point you know he will fire in a winner in an important game. Now take Wayne Rooney for example, I hate that Scouse dole bender as much as anyone, and he may be a few million quid a part from appearing on Jeremy Kyle, but it has to be said, when the chance came he buried it, with beautiful aplomb.

The same however cannot be said for Nicky Bendtner a few weeks ago against those wretched Catalonians... Was I surprised? Not in the slightest. Would I have been surprised if Javier Hernandes missed that chance? The answer would be yes.

The point I am making is that this squad has a lot of deadwood in it and although I don't see signing £20 million squad players as the answer (yes, I am an AKB), leadership is without question the problem. If project youth is to take fruition then the much anticipated Lansbury, JET and co must be given a chance ahead of the deadwood next season... Then and only then can project youth be deemed a failure.