Right, we’re still talking Double-D as you might imagine and before the madness could get too out of hand Arsene Wenger spoke yesterday. He spoke of the ‘huge disappointment’ at Dein’s departure which is completely understandable given the closeness of their relationship and the length of time they’ve worked together. However, he also said:
My position is that I am linked with the club very strongly. The relationship with the rest [of the Board] has always been very good and we try always to have a good understanding.
His press conference this afternoon will certainly be one of the most eagerly anticipated in quite a while and how he reacts to the barrage of questions will be very interesting indeed. As I said yesterday I don’t think this is going affect Arsene’s position at the club a great deal. He has always spoken about honouring his contracts and I don’t see any for that to change – despite the rather pathetic headline making in the Mirror. Where does he say he might quit? We know that there was a board meeting yesterday and it you’d have to think that Arsene himself will be involved in the appointment of Dein’s successor in terms of the football work he used to do at the club.
What Dein does next will be interesting. Will he sell to Kroenke straight away and get back on the board as his representative? It would make for an awkward boardroom and any hostile takeover bid with his involvement would put paid to any chance of him convincing anyone he’s in it for the best interests of the club ahead of the best interests of David Dein. When the Chairman talks so candidly about him being ‘in league’ with Kroenke you know it’s bad. Basically he went behind the backs of the board, who work for Arsenal, and tried to sell the club out from underneath them. Conniving isn’t the word. I don’t want to go on too much about it though – there are more thoughts in this week’s Arsecast so tune it to that if you feel like it.
More reading: Alan Smith talks about Dein (not sure about the Rocky bit, I have to say), Fiszman the power behind the throne, Lady Nina in The Sun, Peter Hill-Wood talks about Kroenke and makes lots of sense.
Elsewhere though the hype and sensationalism was all too obvious. Firstly we had Ian Wright spouting off on his radio show (some thoughts here) and he’s followed it up with more in today’s Sun. He’s just stoking the fires of speculation, he has no concrete information, and unfortunately because of his stature as such a great player for us people will take what he says as gospel when it’s anything but. I also find it rather ironic that the man who encouraged Thierry Henry to leave Arsenal for Barcelona should now take such a keen interest in the well-being of Arsenal Football Club. Still, I’m sure his willingness to talk, tabloid style, is nothing whatsoever to do with promoting a video game or his own radio show.
Then the Times reported that the ‘senior’ players were going around the training ground saying “he’ll be back”. Now, I’m not sure what access, if any at all, the Times would have had to the training ground yesterday. We know that Thierry Henry is close to David Dein and his sons but what happens at board level really shouldn’t concern him or any of the players. While Thierry and some of them might be ‘unhappy’ in the way anybody would be unhappy when something happens to somebody they like there’s just need to suggest that such unhappiness might see them leave the club. Do I even need to tell you what a load of shit this is (and you can see how gutted Arsene looks in the picture)?
It’s a big shock to almost everyone associated with the club that he’s gone and big changes take a little while to get over but you get over them. Arsenal Football Club is more than David Dein or any individual. As far as I’m concerned the David Dein story now pales into the background because we have the small matter of a game against Sp*rs tomorrow and that’s where the focus should be. I have no doubt the manager will keep the players minds on the task at hand and while I’m sure many of them liked David Dein and were surprised at the suddenness of his departure they’ve got a job to do on the pitch.
And speaking of on the pitch life could be made more difficult by the absence of Cesc Fabregas. He’s suffering from a virus and his chances are described as 50-50 with Arsene saying he won’t gamble on him if he’s not fit enough. With Diaby hopefully back you’d imagine Denilson will slot into midfield otherwise it’ll be the same the team that started against Citeh. There’ll be more team news and a fuller preview of the game in tomorrow’s blog.
Now then, time for this:
The Arsecast has a brand new sponsor this week and it’s OleOle.com – which if you don’t know is a football community. You can use OleOle to read and talk about football, follow news, scores and statistics, and even write about football. Anyone, and everyone, can join and participate and best of all it’s free.
In this weeks’ show there’s no blogchat, just more waffle from me about the football, David Dein’s departure and further thoughts on why I don’t want Stan Kroenke at the club, the Man in the Bar has a player history, there’s an interesting theory about Arsene Wenger Hawkins and more.
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (15mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode24.mp3]And that’s that, what an interesting week it’s been so far. More tomorrow.
