Morning all, what a fine Saturday it is. A lie in, the hangover I was expecting doesn’t seem to have kicked in and plenty of Arsenal news to tell you about.
Firstly the Chairman has written a letter to the shareholders in which he talks about Stan Kroenke and his ‘investment’ in the club. It’s well worth a read and the main points seem to be:
- The current board are Arsenal fans and Stan Kroenke isn’t
- The club is generating its revenue in such a way that it is invested back into the club and not going out to service loans or to fill the pockets of directors
- The board have the best interests of the club at heart. David Dein may have been an Arsenal fan but the ‘irreconcilable differences’ were obviously that he didn’t have the best interests of the club at heart.
Obviously there’s a bit more to it than that but he’s made their position very clear. This is on top of Danny Fiszman’s denial that he was ever involved with Russian investors and the implications of him calling that story a ‘total lie’ are very clear. P-Diddy H to the W has spoken to Kroenke and will be meeting with him soon, it will be very interesting to see what happens there.
Away from all the boardroom shennanigans Arsene Wenger spoke about the appointment of a football director and he says it will happen in the summer. Some people, notably Goodplaya in yesterday’s Arsecast, expressed some concerns that Arsene might have too much control over this appointment but it seems the boss is not looking to surround himself with ‘yes men’, saying:
He will be appointed by me but it will not necessarily be a friend of mine. It will be somebody who will do the job well because if I go one day the guy has still to work here.
Can’t really argue with that and there’s a growing feeling that the man in question could be Wenger’s first football signing at the club, Remi Garde.
He also addressed the situations of Julio Baptista and Jose Antonio Reyes, saying he’ll be meeting with agents and Real Madrid in the near future. It’s obvious Reyes doesn’t want to come back to England but Real Madrid don’t seem to him either. However, that could be as much to do with the uncertainty surrounding the managerial position there with Capello likely to get sacked no matter what happens in La Liga. Baptista has been the single biggest disappointment I can remember in an Arsenal transfer. We all saw how good he was for Sevilla and we all remember the protracted tranfer business the summer before last so to see him blunder and stumble his way around, one or two games apart, has been horribly frustrating. If the price is low enough he could stay, again depending on what happens with Reyes.
In fact, perhaps it’s all a plan. Arsene Wenger has told him to play badly on purpose so his transfer value plummets. He’s now worth €14,99 and 10 kilo bag of spuds.
The keeper situation is an interesting one. With Jens set to stay for another year the boss has said he sees it as a battle between Lehmann and Almunia for the number one position. Crafty stuff, Jens has Euro 2008 to motivate him and the thought of losing his place at Arsenal and therefore his position as German number 1 is the kind of thing he needs, in my opinion. He was brilliant last season but without the focus of a big tournament his performances have dropped.
With regard to William Gallas the manager says he wants to keep him and that there are no problems with him at the club. His season has been hampered by injuries and frustration at going from a team challenging for everything to a team which, in the end, challenged for very little this season. We’ve all seen what a fine player he has been for Chelsea but there haven’t been too many times he’s performed at that level for Arsenal. I’m reserving judgement but if he stays we need to see a much better player than the one we’ve seen this season and perhaps then he can put himself in a position where his opinions and ‘suggestions’ about the team are better regarded.
Tomas Rosicky says his season has been frustrating because of injuries. Yep. I’m looking forward to seeing an injury free Rosicky next season. He’s shown recently that he could just be very effective from the left hand side. You feel that if he could link up more with Clichy and if Clichy could produce a final ball every now and again we could become more dangerous from the left.
Justin Hoyte has signed a new long term deal with the club and hopefully he can continue to improve and eventually make the right back position his own, leaving Eboue writhing on the ground in annoyance. He doesn’t have Eboue’s flair going forward but for me he’s much more solid defensively and doesn’t have Eboue’s diving, cheating, faking, timewasting and general cuntery about him.
And that’s about that. No other news, there’s football on this morning and Walrus looking cunt Allardyce is leaving Bolton at the end of the season. Splendid news. He’ll go somewhere else and make them as hated as Bolton.
More tomorrow.
