Well, good Monday to you all. I was planning on having a lie-in today, what with having been up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and Sunday for various reasons, but it was not to be.
You see, what happens in the morning is that the Blogette gets up and readies herself for school. This can take anywhere between 30 and 120 minutes from what I can gather. This morning, I asked her to open up the back door so the Arseblog basset hound could go out into the garden and do what dogs (and men) do first thing in the morning. ‘No problem’, she said and continued to beautify herself for school. Now, the Arseblog basset hound is a wise old hound and he knows that once she stirs in the morning me or Mrs Blogs can’t be far behind.
So he postions himself outside our bedroom and lets these plaintive but quite low volumed cheeps and whines which drill themselves into your consciousness to the point where you have to get up. So I get up, let him out the back, he does what he has to do and promptly goes back to bed. Being a dog he’s then asleep within three seconds and I am standing waiting for the kettle to boil. I have also come to realise that I have the slowest boiling kettle in the world. It takes fucking ages. Still, at least I have coffee now but the sneaky dog is snoozing like a sneaky old dog.
Not much going on really, apart from the fact that Arsenal financial results are out this morning. I haven’t yet had a look at them but the AST has and they’ve released a statement saying:
The AST studies carefully the different models of how football clubs are run. Arsenal’s model, based on sensible borrowing to invest in facilities that generate an increased income stream, is a model we commend. AST reiterates its opposition to any hostile takeover at Arsenal.
Unlike Chelsea who rely on a sugar daddy who thinks he is also the manager, and Manchester United who are mired in debt, Arsenal have a sustainable business model based on offering quality football in the country’s best stadium.
Now, that is a polite way of telling Dein and Usmanov to fuck off and that we don’t need or want your money. The AST being unable to use foul language in its press releases must moderate its language and say things ‘in so many words’. I, however, do not have that restriction so I can quite easily say ‘Fuck off Dein and Usmanov, you pair of cunts’.
It’ll be a day or so before the results can be studied in full but profits are up, cash is up, match day revenue is up, and these results don’t take into account his summer’s player trading (which left us in profit) and the money saved from the wage bill because Henry and Ljungberg have gone. Those two make a saving of around £10m per year, which is really a lot of money. The Chairman, MC P to the H to the Wicky Wild Wild West (dripping in gold and surrounded by ‘bitches’ with lots of junk in their trunk), said:
The best way that Arsenal can continue to deliver success is by maintaining a business that pays its own way. This philosophy helped establish our objectives for the club’s move away from Highbury and Emirates Stadium now provides Arsenal with the increased income, profitability, cash generation and firm financial foundations from which we will continue to build trophy-winning Arsenal teams for many years to come.
As I said it’ll be tomorrow before someone breaks down exactly what it all means but the bottom line is that the club is doing very well and talk about how we need investment to compete is shown up for the scaremongering tactic it really is. We have a manager whose footballing philosophy is different to any manager in the world now. They all want and need money to be able to compete, Arsene wants to build and create. We have a board that has sufficient trust in the manager to allow him to build his team in that way and at the moment we’re seeing the benefits of that. The finances are great and the football, at this moment in time, is even better.
Tell me why we need a fat oligarch and his orange sidekick again?
If you want to download and read the report yourself you can find it here and Keith Edelman talks about it here.
Away from the finances it looks like Denilson is to be offered a new deal. He’s just one of the collection of central midfielders we have but while Flamini, Gilberto and Diarra are more defensive minded the young Brazilian is more creative, more like Cesc. He’s got definite quality and I’ll be glad to see him sign on again. I’d also like us to make moves to get Mathieu Flamini signed to a new deal. He’s been fantastic this season and we shouldn’t allow him to leave.
Meanwhile another central midfielder, Abou Diaby, reveals he feared for his career after that horrendous tackle at Sunderland the season before last. He’s beginning to find his feet a bit now and he does get himself in some extremely dangerous positions although his finishing has been a bit off. Perhaps now he’s found his range with the goal against Derby we might see more from him. You wonder what he’d be like with a run of games in the middle although the way Cesc and Flamini are playing right now it’s nearly impossible to break up that partnership. Maybe he’ll play there in the Carling Cup.
Right, that’s about it. More team news about the CC tomorrow as well as further examination of the finances. Have a good day.
