Right then, shall we get the Lady Nina stuff out of the way first? I think so.
Yesterday, Arsenal’s third largest shareholder, Nina Bracewell Smith, let it be known that she was keen to sell her shares in the club. This is no surprise. It’s been no secret that she’s been willing, and trying, to sell her shares for a long time now. She owns 15.9% of the club.
Why has this desire to sell her shares gone public now? I think I agree with John Cross in today’s Mirror. She wants to sell, nobody’s buying, and making it known far and wide that her shares are up for grabs might rouse some interest. She might even have made a phone call to JayZ, you know.
There was a lot of speculation that Stan Kroenke might purchase them and launch a full takeover of the club. Perhaps she was trying to force his hand to buy them now when he would have had to match the £10,500 per share price he paid for the Carr brothers shares – this would only have been valid until May. There was also the suggestion that Kroenke was set to sell his stake in the St Louis Rams to fund his purchase of Arsenal. The news that he has exercised his right to purchase the remaining shares in the NFL franchise rather puts paid to that, unless he buys the Arsenal by loading the purchase price onto the club’s existing debt and we have to hope that doesn’t happen.
On the other side Alisher Usmanov doesn’t seem to want them. We know Lady Nina and the board had rather a falling out and you can be quite sure there was dialogue between her and Red and White. Remember, when David Dein went behind the back of the board to engineer Kroenke’s initial share purchase it also included her shares – and there’s no doubt that lines of communication between those parties will be have been open since her departure from the board. Dein may have ‘left’ R&W but I don’t think he’s gone too far.
So, where does that leave us? There’s almost 16% of the club up for grabs. It doesn’t look as if Kroenke wants it at the moment, it doesn’t look as if Usmanov wants it, so the ownership of the club might diversify even further. I’m no expert in these kinds of things but could it be a case that smaller investors decide to buy up a few percent here and there, or would she only sell in a lump? Anyway, the bottom line is that this really is nothing new, other than the fact it’s gone public on a very slow news day, so we’ll have to just wait and see what transpires.
Of rather more importance at the moment is the Sp*rs game tomorrow night. Again the Mirror there’s the story that Robin van Persie will face a fitness test today, probably, and may well be set for a place on the bench tomorrow night. It would be a great boost to have him back but let’s remember that he’s been out for a long time, is traditionally a slow starter after returning from injury, and if we’re expecting him to get straight back into the form he was in when he got injured we’ll probably be disappointed. It’ll be good to have him back and that depth on the bench all the same.
Nicklas Bendtner admits it’ll be good to have a fit van Persie in the squad again as he talks about how his goal tally has increased due to his central striker role.
Other team news suggests Sol Campbell is fit and ready, what a game that will be for him. A former Sp*rs man who left them for us and came back to us via Portsmouth who knocked them out of the cup on Sunday. He might as well take the pitch in a Robert Pires mask he’ll be that unpopular. It’ll be no bother to the big man, he’s been there, done that and quite probably worn the t-shirt plenty of times before. Alex Song is a doubt, having missed Barcelona, and we’ll get more news on that via the press conference later on today. More on that game tomorrow.
In other news Owen Coyle reckons Jack Wilshere should go to the World Cup. The Bolton manager is singing the praises of the Arsenal youngster as he impresses during his loan spell up there. I just hope he comes back untainted, level headed and ready to fight for his place at Arsenal. It’s one thing getting some games for a Bolton side chock full of cloggers like Kevin Davies, breaking into the Arsenal side is a different thing entirely. And while it’s good that he’s doing well up there I think the last thing he needs is to go to a World Cup at this stage of his career.
Pre-World Cup transfer speculation sees Bacary Sagna linked with Inter Milan with some rent-a-quote stuff from his agent. Can’t see this one happening at all, he’s an important part of our best back four. I still, despite his cult hero status and all that, don’t see Eboue as anything more than a decent replacement for certain games, so letting Sagna go would be a mistake. Anyway, it’s little more than tittle-tattle at this stage.
And that’s about that. There will be a ton of pre-Sp*rs stuff for tomorrow and we can really start to concentrate on that game then. Arsene’s press conference will be on ATVO later, always worth a look.
Till then, take it easy, share purchasers.
