Red and White bullies increase their stake to 21%

There’s talk of football and talk of not football today. Let’s start with the not football so we can leave the good stuff till last.

There was movement of Arsenal shares yesterday which saw Alisher Usmanov’s Red & White investment group increase their stake in the club to 21% after purchasing a number of shares, including those held by the Lansdowne Partners hedge fund. Usmanov is believed to have paid over £10,000 per share to Lansdowne. Current market price is around £8,500.

However, with regards to Stan Kroenke’s shareholding there is no truth the Sunday newspaper stories. Perhaps there might have been another reason for those stories, who knows? What is known at this moment in time though is that no deal has been done between Kroenke and Red & White. It has been suggested to me that contact between Kroenke and Dein would be very unlikely at this moment in time.

The next few days are going to be interesting. We’ll get some kind of announcement today from Red & White saying that they were merely ‘increasing their stake’ as outlined in their intitial press release when Usmanov paid David Dein £75m for his shares. What happens to Stan Kroenke’s shares is the key to this battle. Can the board bring Kroenke on board as someone friendly to them, or convince him to sell to them if they can find the money? If they go to Red & White then it gives them a massive chunk of the club and they’re the sort of people who will just make life more and more difficult for the rest of the shareholders. I suppose the big worry is that with Usmanov prepared to way over the odds for the shares then Kroenke the Businessman will find it very hard to turn down sucha  big return on his investment.

I have to say this feels very wrong to me. It’s like we’re being invaded and once again the focus is being taken away from the football. Let’s be clear, Red & White have no intentions of working alongside the current board and I’m sure the current board have no intention of working alongside Dein and Usmanov. This is a serious battle now and the future of our club is what they’re fighting over. To those who still feel we need outside investment – do you not think there’s a good reason why Dein and Usmanov want control so badly? It’s because they know how well run Arsenal is, how much potential there is to make money. It’s not because they’re some kind of knights in shining armour to come and make all our problems go away.

Let’s not also forget that the Red & White group, via Usmanov’s lawyers, have, within a week of buying Arsenal shares, shown their contempt for fans by threatening legal action against sites like Arseblog and a number of other popular Arsenal sites (I won’t mention their names because it’s not my place to do so). Nice PR and a nice way to treat people who support the club and who have legitimate concerns about the people getting involved in our football club, don’t you think?

I’m hoping the board has the will and the resources to fight this off but I expect this is going to get dirty and it’s going to drag on for some considerable time. Hopefully the off-field business won’t affect what happens on the pitch. And let’s move there.

More reaction from the Sp*rs game. Arsene Wenger reckons Emanuel Adebayor gives us ‘real presence‘ while the Togonator himself says it’s too early to start talking about the title. The boss also reckons his side are ahead of schedule because of the number of games they’ve played at such a young age.

With the Champions League game against Sevilla up next Jens Lehmann has, according to the Times, declared himself fit. With Almunia looking in equal parts shaky and inspired against Sp*rs could this be a way back in for the German? The manager has more or less backed Almunia and I expect him to start tomorrow night.

Armand Traore was arrested outside White Hart Lane on Saturday for carrying a ‘knuckle duster’. He has since apologised, claiming he didn’t know it was illegal to carry one.

There’ll be the usual UEFA mandated press conference today so we should have plenty to talk about, with regards football, in the morning. For now though the tanks are parked on our lawn and they’re firing £50 notes at shareholders. It’s all rather unsavoury.

Cesc makes commentators speechless

A jolly good Monday. No doubt you’re all still basking in the warm glow from Saturday. I have to say I’ve watched the highlights more than once and I love the Sky commentator being reduced to an excited ‘Ooooh’ when Cesc’s goal goes in. It’s like he was lost for words and had to resort to caveman noises. That’s what Cesc can do. He can make people lose the power of speech.

The young man is now really showing just how he is. There’s no question with his talent that he’s capable of at least 10 goals a season and while he struggled a bit last season you never felt there was any real worry. He’s still so young and the likes of Gerrard, Lampard and Scholes didn’t start scoring regularly at that age. He’s not letting things go to his head though, saying:

We’re in a good run but have to keep going as this was just one game. It’s just the beginning.

And that’s the attitude that will make him, if he’s not already, a truly great player. Job done, enjoy it, but time to focus on the next game. And the next game is going to be considerably tougher than a trip to White Hart Lane. Sevilla warmed up for the Champions League clash with a 4-1 win over Recreativo, who aren’t really much good. It was their first home game since the death of Antonio Puerta so they were never going to lose. Kanoute and Kerzhakov got two each.

Both Arsenal and Sevilla play open, expanisve football. I can’t see them coming to defend because they are a touch capable of conceding at any time. There’ll be plenty of room for us as the likes of Alves get forward from the back and I’d fancy our forward line to cause problems for our old pal Boulahrouz. Anyway, more of that later in the week.

Arsene Wenger has described his team as ‘playerish’, meaning they love to play football. I would describe myself as playerish too, I also love to play football, but a more accurate description might be ‘watchingfootballwithabeerish’.

Yesterday a couple of the Sunday papers claimed that Stan Kroenke had agreed to sell his stake in the club to Alisher Usmanov’s Red & White group. I did a little digging to see what I could find out but there was no further info forthcoming. I shall keep trying and will let you know if I uncover anything. However, it’s fair to say that it would be a tremendous worry if it were true. That would give them something like 27% of the shares and makes him a far more considerable problem than he is at the moment.

But let us not dwell on things ugly this Monday morning. The sun in shining, Sp*rs are still licking their wounds and we, my good old Arsechums, are top of the league.

Not a bad way to start the week.

Top of the league after a North London classic

Sometimes football is just the best fun ever. Yesterday was one of those days. The sun was shining, the pub (despite being chock-a-block with Aussie and New Zealand rugby fans) was jammed with Arsenal fans of all shapes and sizes, and the game of football itself was just an end to end extravaganza of brilliance, hilarity and excitement.

With no Eduardo or Bendtner in the 16 and Rosicky only on the bench we started with Diaby on the left and the rest pretty much as expected. Not for the first time at their ground we went behind when Gareth Bale’s free kick went around the wall and beat Almunia down low. Perhaps the keeper could have done better but he’s got a left foot far too decent for that team so we won’t dwell on it. We really should have been level when great work from Hleb put Diaby through but he could only hit the bar with his shot. Hleb had a shot saved after a nice flick from Adebayor and when van Persie drilled the ball back across goal there was nobody there. Adebayor made space from a quick throw in and had a decent effort saved by Paul the Pieman. It was the second half that really made this game so entertaining though.

We could have been two nil behind when Berbatov was played through by some twat. Almunia came racing out of his goal, missed the ball completely and Berbatov was left one on one with Kolo Toure. Berbatov showed he’s really not that good against top class sides (note how many of his goals come against teams in the lower half of the table) and he was brilliantly dispossessed on the edge of the box by Kolo Toure. Then Adebayor decided anything Berbatov could do, he could do better, and after Sagna laid it off to him after a fine run the Togonator blasted it over the bar when he should have scored. When even Stumpy McFoot, the man born with no feet and a lump hammer on the end of his legs, would have scored you know it was a bad miss.

Didn’t he make up for it though? I said it yesterday that we might have found Pires’ replacement when it comes to scoring against Sp*rs and it was Adebayor who rose highest to power home a Cesc free kick from outside their area. Sp*rs fans will be wondering what exactly Fat Pauly was doing in no man’s land, probably looking for a chip shop, but the game was now all square. They could have gone ahead twice when first Keane was denied by a great Almunia save then Berbatov’s shot was cleared off the line by Gael Clichy. Determined to choke against sides higher up the table than 6th Berbatov could only head the rebound over from 6 yards.

How they came to regret that. When van Persie drove forward from midfield he played it to Rosicky who squared for Cesc. In his current form it was worth a crack from at least 25 yards and despite Portly Paul getting a slight touch on it the ball lashed into the top corner. 2-1 Arsenal. It was a fantastic goal from a player who is now becoming almost priceless. I didn’t think he had his best game for us (which seems funny when you consider he had a goal and two assists, but there you go), at times he seemed a little off with his passing, but he’s now added goals to his Arsenal, if you will, and his 5th of the season was the finest so far. There’s hilarious footage of a Sp*rs fan behind the goal going ‘Oh fuck!’ as it goes in. Classic.

Now needing to score Sp*rs brought on their £16.5m summer signing, Darren Bent, and he immediately had a chance. He was put clean through with just the keeper to beat but his left footed effort drew hoots of derision from everyone in the pub and chants of ‘What a waste of money’. Hilariously awful. With Alex Song primed to come on with a couple of the 4 minutes of injury time remaining, we carved them open providing a great chance for Denilson. His fairly weak shot was saved but came to Cesc who fired in a ball to Adebayor. The more you see replays of the goal the more you realise that, while the finish was out of this world, his first touch was just sensational. He rolled it up into the air then hit a wonderful swiveling volley over the despairing reach of the corpulent mess in the Sp*rs goal and the game was done and dusted. That was as good a goal as you’ll see all season and the big man showed again he’s one for the big occasion.

3-1 Arsenal. 3 points Arsenal. Top of the league Arsenal. There’s really not much point in analysing it further than that. Going into the nuts and bolts of the game would ruin it. North London derbies are often exciting games in which teams are so caught up in trying to win the game that they forget how to defend. It’s no exaggeration to say we could nearly have seen another 5-4 like the one a couple of seasons ago. Except Sp*rs could have stayed out there all day and they wouldn’t have scored, their finishing was so bad.

We could look at someone like Robin van Persie, who was pretty quiet, or we could look at our defensive shortcomings, but when Cesc and Adebayor score goals like that it’s something we can discuss another time. What you can say though is that this team came from a goal behind and then stuck three past the old enemy at home. Whatever about the shaky moments at the back, those sort of things don’t happen in normal games really, you have to just love the way they continued to play their football, knowing that the chances would come and that sooner or later we’d take one. It adds to the enormously encouraging start we’ve made this season and if you can’t enjoy a game like that without having to pick holes in things then there’s something wrong with you. I’m not saying we should ignore those things, but let’s just leave them to the manager to sort out ahead of the next game, while we enjoy the misery that has just been heaped on our local rivals.

It’s another confidence booster ahead of a very important game against Sevilla on Wednesday. Afterwards Arsene Wenger was again praising the spirit and togetherness of the squad and it really shouldn’t be underesimated how much that’s doing for us. All eleven players are giving everything for the 90 minutes and that makes a big difference. It’s winning us games we just drew and lost last season, and it’s a joy to watch.

Finally, to everyone that I met in the Wool Shed yesterday in Dublin, it was a pleasure to share a game like that with you. Jumping up and down and celebrating goals with strangers is one of the great things about being a football supporter. I hope the bloke from the Arnotts TV department didn’t get in too much trouble for his extended lunch break.

Away from that the Sunday Mirror is reporting that Stan Kroenke is set to sell his shareholding to Red & White, who should be called White & White because of how wonderfully pure they are. The People are reporting it too. Discussion on that another day but it’s worrying, I have to say. It’s still worth checking out Craig Murray’s site for more on Usmanov.

Right, that’s it. Have yourselves a fun Sunday. More tomorrow.

Saturday round-up

Morning all, a quick Saturday round-up ahead of today’s North London derby.

We already know all there is to know about team news so there’s nothing to tell you there – bar the fact that Diarra might be on the bench. Other than that it really picks itself. Rosicky and Hleb wide, and I think Cesc and the Flamster will start in midfield. Despite Eduardo’s goals for Croatia he’ll probably start on the bench. It will be interesting to see if he brings Bendtner into the 16. Despite his mouth being somewhat larger than his talent at the moment the young Dane does offer something different from the other three strikers and he could be used to batter them in the latter stages of the game if need be.

Justin Hoyte will most likely provide defensive cover on the bench and the boss spoke about how he wants to keep both him and Bedntner and doesn’t see them going out on loan. As he said, there are plenty of games to come this season.

AW is promising the team will be ‘switched on‘ and talks about how he hates losing, saying:

I read somewhere that I take defeat in a difficult way, but how else can you take it? You should not be in this job unless it really hurts you to lose a match.

Quite so. What’s the old saying? ‘Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser’. Something like that. Possibly with the addition of ‘Can’t get fooled again’, at the end.

A director of football will be appointed some time between now and the end of May. No rush there then.

Alan Smith talks to Eduardo in his first interview with an English newspaper. It’s not particularly revealing or insightful (I’ll put this down to the word count restriction or something) but there you go.

And that’s about it. I’m off to get some breakfast. See some 0f you Dublin based Gooners in the Wool Shed later on. Come on you reeeeeeeeeds.