Kroenke Sports & (occasional) Entertainment and the house that Wenger built.
A wasted opportunity.
Under Kroenke, AFC (American Franchise Collection), we live in a perpetual ‘transition’ period where there is always ‘potential’ within a ‘process’ (see transition). Long term planning for a future success, rather than immediate and focused change in order to bring success to our football club.
Problem is transition means moving from one state to another. Now if this is a process, it’s about the longest one ever known to mankind, unless I include evolution that is!
When Stan rocked up our club had already moved from our spiritual home at Highbury to the Emirates (the house that Wenger built) and with it we brought with us a suitcase full of debt. There was however the promise of being able to rub shoulders with, and compete, against the very best in the world for the game’s biggest honours. I didn’t believe it then and I certainly don’t now.
The self-sustaining model created in some large part by Wenger and the accountant side of his brain meant the debt amassed on the stadium left us with no real financial power to compete with those willing to buy success. And that they did (succeed that is!). Where Arsenal raised coffers through match day revenue, broadcasting and commercial activities, Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich financially doped (Tm Le Prof) the living daylights into their clubs… they were Dope Dealers and enablers of the first order! 😉
With the arrival of a billionaire of our own some believed things would change, but unlike the aforementioned duo Stan stated he was not in the business to win but rather to play Moneyball (maybe he misheard and thought he was buying into Arsenal Moneyball Club?). As of 2017/18 Stan had put zero cents in neither equity or debt financing into the club, whereas City’s Sheik had put in around £1 billion in loan and equity payments since taking the reins in 2008.
They (Stan and son Josh) did take out money from the club for strategic and consultancy services at £25K p/a each and in 2013/14 and 2015/3016 two chunks of £3 million were also paid out to KSE.
Between 2010-2020 KSE (as reported by the Swiss Ramble) have invested a poultry £15m into AFC for all operations and areas of the club finances, whereas at the same time Man Utd had had £1.1billion injected. West Bromwich Albion’s owners in this same time has invested £7 million more than ourselves… Yes WBA!
Now many will argue that money does not always equal guaranteed success, and this is true and has been proven in the case of United. Money + vision and the right management of funds, coupled with an iron clad will, will usually bring about a positive and upward trend though.
However, intent is everything. At least the Will and inclination to do what they could (in the case of Man Utd) in terms of financial assistance to TRY to improve their chances as owners was evident. Stan by his unwillingness to invest in his own club shows that it is nothing more than a passive income (as someone once said akin to a billionaire’s giro cheque) … money for nothing if you will.
So, no passion for football, no lifelong love for Arsenal and no desire to invest to be the best. This was a recipe for disaster and the acceptance of ‘we are really only taking part’ has led to a culture of mediocrity that has permeated down through the entire fabric of our club. Not only within the organisation but in the fanbase where expectation is now an all-time low. Stealthily the bar has been well and truly lowered over the decades and is why 5th in the league is now rewarded with a new contract. Excuses for lack of success then became the norm.
Of course, there are other clubs and fans who would like to be in our shoes be they in the premier league or lower divisions HOWEVER I see too many wasted years of opportunity where we could have truly built upon the success that was forged before, by those who truly wanted AFC to be the greatest team the world had ever seen…
So, what is my point exactly? well, I believe whilst Stan and his KSE remain in control of our great club we will always be also-rans with ‘potential’ ‘transitioning’ as part of a greater and far distant ‘process’. They simply do not make decisions or act in the best interests of AFC in order to obtain success on the field (WHERE IT COUNTS).
Therefore, as a result of our owners’ disinterest in making us a football powerhouse, we won’t ever get the care and attention our club deserves and will as a consequence get make do, and second best. Therefore, I do understand why there is now such low expectation, but I won’t ever accept it as Arsenal are better than that! We should not be a mid-table team nor have such lowly ambition.
Almost everything is cyclical in nature so maybe one day our glory days WILL return. I’d imagine though this is most likely to occur when Stan and Co have long ridden off into the sunset.
Here’s hoping I’m wrong, but history is a great teacher.
AOT
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Yes, because he has shown his financial support for Wenger and Arteta. He just didn’t have much control before
Now he can fully implement his vision, since he acquired more than 90% Arsenal shares in 2018. FSG required nine years before making Liverpool dominant in EPL, so I predict Kroenke would need around five years to do it
Liverpool also appointed one of the best, klopp… Not everyone can be that succesfull. But you are right in defending kroenke. Lot of money has been spent last years (mega deals to ozil, auba, willian), huge signings of laca, auba or last summer.
in the 4 years since KSE took over they have modernized the club top to bottom and sacked Wenger.
now we have a clear direction the club want to take and have financially backed all 3 managers we have had in that time, even in the pandemic where it was difficult to predict what would happen.
things like this DO NOT happen over night and needs to time to develop, but we are on a good road right now, even finishing 5th.
People need to be patient with this project and i can only see us improving further and predict us to close the gap further next season and beyond
Exactly – well said.
In the 4 years they took us out of Europe , our worst League position in 25 years and we are no longer a club who qualifies for the CL
None of that is positive
They have also had two sets of backroom staff shake ups, lost gazidis and his henchmen, lost FL, given away players and carried on paying their salaries, not fixed our defensive issues, cut the PL squad to the bone and are still saying they need a minimum of four new players.
We certainly do have direction – it depends how one views that direction… the end of season stats do not lie.
Well said!;)
A well written article. Hope some now see why I refer to our club as Mediocrity FC. The owners have absolutely no ambition. All they care about is money and so they always talk about transitioning, just to keep expectations low and rewarding their yes man with a new contract for finishing outside the Champions League positions. It’s not all about investing money. It’s also about demanding success which Arteta and Edu Gasper’s bosses do not. We sure are in trouble
That doesn’t make sense.
Even if the Kroenkes only care about money, as you claim, they have a clear “money interest” in seeing Arsenal back in the Champions League.
That is where the money is.
They obviously don’t want it that much with their lack of investment do they now!
WBA owners are more ambitious.
Stan is moneyball only.
Champions League or not, Arsenal is a global brand that is profitable. Thus, Kroenke will always make money however little it is. He doesn’t think it’s worthwhile to invest heavily and follow up with demanding success like Abramovic did at Chelsea. Look at his LA Rams’ achievements along with their $5bn state of the art new stadium and compare with Arsenal. There’s a clear difference like light and day
Kroenke has allowed Arsenal to be a big spender for many years. In fact the biggest spender this past season. All despite a financial loss for 2 years in a row.
It is false myth, we aren’t spending, and it is a bad excuse, that has been used for at least 10 years.
Spending is no guarantee for success, I’m sure you know. Kroenke doesn’t demand success. No multi-billion dollar global brand employs a complete novice to manage it’s affairs. Never ever. That shows his lack of ambition. It’s not all about money
Exactly, no multi-billion dollar global brand hires any key personnel without thinking they can do a proper job for them.
Kroenkes obviously believe Arteta can bring us success, otherwise they will continue to loose money, as in the past 2 years.
So again, if your logic is, Kroenke’s are greedy bastards, then their recent investments make sense.
It doesn’t make sense to claim the Kroenkes are happy to see us outside the CL. It really is quite simple.
No way Kroenke will make decisions, he doesn’t think are the best for Arsenal’s income. He has invested heavily in order to get us at least back into the CL, and he will want that investment to pay off. Claiming otherwise, doesn’t make sense.
No doubt Anders
Absolutely, false excuse that sadly started with wenger.i liked him, but he started that trend always complaining about that. But i did not hear at the times all the 15/16 teams that had less money complain each time they would get beaten by arsenal…
They have decided to take action before the fall became actual mid table. It does seem they are showing more interest. There was an issue when we signed the likes of ozil, then Sanchez – wenger did say that even though could buy expensive players again, they still couldn’t compete with those more, you also had an improved Liverpool on and off tye pitch and spurs showing ambition. Gazidis on the other hand believed that the team should be competing for trophies and in his last 4 years we saw more influence taken from wenger , xhaka and Mustafi were signings made by the board . By the time it came to wenger actually leaving we actually saw the horror show that gazidis had planned hiring of mtinslat who recommended mkhytarian over Wengers preference of martial in the Sanchez swap. Mtinslat believed he would be more than a super scout, then the double act of vinai and sanhelli with the appointment of emery who stated he didn’t need any changes. This period was the low and would result into our lowest finishes in recent history . The signings made pepe, sokratis, lichensteiner add to that guendozhi who would take willock who had been promoted to the first team under wenger was sent back into the youth . Pepe and guendozhi were solely purchased to sell on for big fees and it has fallen flat for we all know why. When arteta was appointed along with edu the club got rid of sanhelli, vinai went back to what he actually did gazidis jumped ship early as he wanted wenger out and has escaped any form of blame for the demise of the club. Josh has agreed to edu’s and arteta demands of the manager choosing the players which if you look at city and Liverpool the scouting team identifies those who can play under there manager but the manager has final say. So the club is going in the right direction the only question being – if odegaard, sakha, martenelli etc continue to get better , if a big bid arrives can the club say no and hold the player to his contract or being able to reject because the player is happy due to the team competing and winning. The rumours of Gabriel seem to be getting stronger every day if we can convince him to reject juve then it shows he actually believes in the club and it’s vision. If he leaves is it a case of wanting champions league football or arsenal selling to make money on him ?
Nice article…*AOT
I have never for once talked negative of the team throughout the season. I knew where we were coming from, and I know were we are now. We’ve massively improved.
.all thanks to the kronkes, they have shown they have the balls to sustain our club even with no champions league, they have constantly invested in the club, much more than Liverpool, are the owners to blame for poor recruitments?
I might not have same mindset as other fans who have never purchased a match day ticket nor any club merchandise but will criticize as though they are season long ticket holders!.
We failed to achieve the top four, negativity won’t reverse the table but will rather inflict more dent on the team, as their is power in our words. Choose picking the posatives instead
I’m so proud of the team’s progression and improvements. It can only get better. Thank you lads for bringing smiles back to a lot of people’s faces… and giving me hope in particular that the future of Woolwich arsenal will be trophy ladden
Hoping for a more and better season next season 💪. I love you Arsenal ❤️
Nice saying ❤️
Didrik, you seemed to have disappeared the last two or three games.
I wanted to read your thoughts on the final positions and how that happened – did I miss your input?
I have been working abroad and went to Greece to check if the sun still had an influence on my skin 🌞🫣.
I have been watching our games and I think our bad experience in the neighbourhood also had bad influence against Newcastle. Our paper thin squad lacking key players wasn’t able to handle the pressure.
I didn’t expect top four and believe we achieved what we deserved this season. I’m optimistic about our future and believe we will get better next season. Next season do I expect top four and that we are ready from day one.
Hope you had a good working break.
Whose fault was it that we had a paper thin squad?
I assume you mean the spud game when you talk about the bad experience in the neighbourhood?
Whose tactics proved wrong, including pitting Holding on a one to one with Son?
Why is it sooooo difficult to get an admission that MA messed up and cost us CL qualification?
Many thanks Ken, having this paper thin squad is related to our rebuilding process and it has been a calculated risk.
We had key players out and lost against a better Tottenham team, which isn’t a catastrophe to me at the moment. I agree that Arteta’s team management wasn’t good against Tottenham, but he has all the details about our players included Takehiro Tomiyasu health situation. Not playing him against Son must have had a reason I believe.
On the 12th of May, Tottenham was better than us all over the pitch. I don’t believe we could have done much to stop them in this game. Tottenham has been better than us six consecutive seasons, and was one point behind us in 2016 when we were runners up.
Instead of focusing on things we can’t do anything about I’m focusing on the next season. I expect Arsenal to maintain their progression, and to use the transfer window to build a stronger and more competitive squad. Which is necessary to take the next step.
We can definitely be more hands on regarding players in/out. We should expect Arsenal being able to sell players we decide not to use for different reasons. If our players isn’t sellable we are obviously recruiting wrong players. From my point of view the future looks bright for The Arsenal 🔴⚪️
I can recommend this article about Arsenal.: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/12617412/arsenal-fall-short-in-champions-league-race-but-they-are-well-set-for-future-success-under-mikel-arteta
Good response
Some people are simply trying to fix blame on certain individuals whereas there are several factors which led to Arsenal’s late season limitations.
Is ridiculous to hear people say be patient. Its been 18 years and we are going backwards.
So to answer the question. NO. We will never win the PL, we will never win a European trophy and will never even challenge for trophies with the Kroenkes
*Reddb10
In terms of history, we ain’t richer than Liverpool, but guess what….do you remember how many years it took Liverpool to win their first EPL glory?
We just need to be very realistic…..we will win the league, with or without fans who had boldly written the very team off here on this group.
It’s free to be posative you know, I mean it’s not expensive it’s free.
Would you prefer Newcastle’s owner Mohammed bin Salman? I don’t understand how FA can accept a club owner like him, it smells really bad…
I agree with GIA the support is better now and I’m sure that Arteta will have at least £150 million to spend on new players in the next window. Which I believe is needed to build a stronger and more competitive squad.
In spite of that we are not going to be competitive with the big spending clubs like Man. City, Man. United, Newcastle and perhaps Chelsea. We don’t have their spending power. But, we need to have a strong team competing top four, and being ready to grab the league title when we get the chance.
Winning the PL is a tremendous task and I don’t expect us to do it, with less resources than some of our opponents. I’m satisfied if we play regularly in the CL league and do win some Cups. If we need a club owner like Newcastle to win the league, I don’t want us to win the league, sorry🔴⚪️
Don’t have their spending power? 250 million in 2 1/2 years and more to come is not spending power?
Add to that giving away players for embarrassingly low fees like Mavro 2.5 million, Guendouzi for 8 million, and Auba exit?
Not to mention losing a lot of money if they move Pepe?
Big spending, little coming in from sales, that seems like spending power to me.
It can’t go on forever, but Arteta averaging over 100 million every Summer seems like big spending to me.
Well, big spending for you might not be big enough spending compared to a team that have won the league four times last five years.
We are spending but other clubs have definitely more spending power than us. Since we won the league in 2004, Man.City has won the league 6 times, Man.United 5, Chelsea 5 and Liverpool 1 time.
Please try to convince me that spending power doesn’t have a correlation to success in football.
Pep at City has spend more £1 billion on purchases since he joined the EPL.
He spent £100 million on Grealish one last season.
Chelsea spend £97 million on Lukaku alone.
Etc.
We spend £130 million on 6 players last season,
Yes, it’s the reality 👍
The reality is, that if one spends wisely and actually coaches players, then one can compete.
Why did city pay £100,000,000 for Grealish? Because he had been coached properly and had his god given talents honed to perfection.
I ask you to look at the Invincible squad and how they were put together – apart from DB, they were all players who had been rejected or came from clubs deemed lower than us.
No reasoning with some people Ken.
Fundamentals are missing.
How the kroenkes can be deemed as good for our club is beyond me.
Super league was a great Kroenke idea! Let’s be in a league where we get more money but don’t actually have to compete and worry about staying in that league!;)
That and confessing ‘I’m not here to win things’ should be enough of a red flag for anyone;)
Is it my opinion that Kroenke is good for the Arsenal? From my point of view he has been our main problem for many years.
I don’t like him, but he has changed his approach and started to spend “his money”. Now Kroenke has full control with our club which is also the main reason for him to spend. He’s a clever businessman and he will do what’s necessary to make Arsenal competitive again, no doubt.
If I had to choose between Mohammed bin Salman or Kroenkes as our club owner. I would have been choosing Kroenkes 99 out of 100 times.
I don’t disagree with you, but it’s more complicated to do it today because the competition is totally changed.
The benefit we expected to get from our new stadium changed dramatically when FA signed their first multibillion media deal. Together with the new super rich club owners the football economy changed totally, which are influencing very much on the competition nowadays.
Next season do I expect Man.City to win the league and Liverpool #2, Chelsea #3 and Arsenal #4. Tottenham, Man.United, West Ham and Newcastle will be there, and perhaps also Leicester.
I have very much respect for what Wenger has done for Arsenal, but even him would have been struggling in this environment. I expect next season to be the most competitive ever, particularly behind #1 and 2.
Even if we maximise all level of our organisation and hired one of the best managers in the world, we will struggle to win the EPL. From my point of view we should build a strong and competitive squad and be ready to grab the title when we get a chance. I’m afraid that we need a Leicester season to manage it.
Yes, £100,000,000 for a player that have played a little and have too many touches on the ball. I like Grealish, but I’m not sure he will be a success for City, but they have money and time to wait and give him time. In Norway we are curious about their new striker 😉
To be honest I don’t understand why Raúl Sanllehí bought Pépé, but he had to leave in a hurry afterwards. I have heard that Raul and his agent friends had very deep pockets. £72 million for Pépé is a fraud, sorry.
Not impossible but highly unlikely. They are not too dissimilar to FSG in how they run their clubs however the big difference is they make the right decisions at the right time.
– brought in a world class manager (Klopp) to elavate them.
– hired a brilliant technical director who is now leaving (Michael Edwards)
– player recruitment has been almost flawless at least a 95% success rate
– sold players at the right time to get maximum value at large profits
– Pro active in the transfer market i.e their original plan was to sign Luis Diaz in the summer but moved plans forward when they saw Spurs bid for him
Where as it’s been a stark contrast compared with KSE, who are guilty of consistent poor decision making, hiring the wrong people, reactive in the transfer market etc
Liverpool have been successful during Klopp’s time pushing City all the way over the last four seasons and are in their third champions league final in the same period of time despite spending a lot less the the mancs. So there is the blueprint for KSE to follow. Just imagine if they had brought in Mancini and poached Edwards to replace Arteta and Edu and gave them £150M to spend this summer imo we’d be a real threat to the other top sides.
Exactly, it’s intent PLUS good decision making and action that wins the day as I mentioned. Money alone doesn’t do it but sure can help..
Could not agree more.
Yet here we are rejecting £20m odd from wolves for AMN last summer don’t hardly play him send him on loan in January then look to sell him for £8m this summer. Great business sense and that’s before we even get onto Dino & Guendouzi
Under the Kroenkes Arsenal have been a big spending club. Spending much more than Liverpool and Spurs.
Using the Kroenkes as a scapegoat takes away focus from the fact, we haven’t been managed properly for mayn years.
That is where the Kroenkes failed.
Wenger should have been replaced much earlier, and the Kroenkes have now realized they need to be more hands on, instead of allowing one man to run the show, because of his glorius past.
Kroenkes are showing great willingness to invest in improving the team and the organization. It is now up to the people in management to turn into success.
Nice saying Anders, but according to Forbes we had more or less red figures every year from 2007 to 2013. We kept our club running by player sales and property sales.
From my point of view Kroenkes has changed their strategy after taking control of our club, and have had a much more proactive approach after Wenger left.
I agree that our management has potential to do a much better job related to players in/out etc.
I agree the Kroenkes now have a much more hands-on running of the club. Personally I believe, they took too long to realise Mr. Arsenal (AW) had lost his ability to be in front of nearly all managers in the footballing sense.
Unfortunately, we have also been very bad at developing and improving players to make a profit on sales. Also very much a “trademark” under Wenger. To this day, the most we have received for departing player is around £35,000 on the OX 5 years ago. Before that our most expensive sale was actually Overmars back in the nineties.
I don’t see any top club in the PL with greater potential than us. We have had remarkable results while our organisation have been sleeping😉
Anything to do with The Emirates Didrik?
Had everything to say about the Emirates, Anders do understand that.
Not his money though.
Just via the self sustaining model and not via injected funds.
That is a semantic difference. As he is the owner of the club, and let’s the club invest heavily despite running up a financial loss, he is in fact using “his” money.
There is no semantics involved here. The point is he puts no money in that is not generated by Arsenal football club through a self sustaining model and associated revenue I.e like city/chelsea owners as two examples of the super rich that have.
And look where they are/have been. Both CL winners and league winners.
The Guardian 28 February 2022
Arsenal have said the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were the main reason for losses of £107.3m for the year end May 2021 after releasing their latest consolidated accounts on Monday. The figure was more than double the £47.8m loss for the same period in 2020.
“The results for the financial year have been materially impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused the majority of matches for the 2020-21 season to be played behind closed doors,” Arsenal said in a statement.
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“For matches played behind closed doors there was a complete loss of ticket (and other matchday) revenue. Pre-tax losses (unaudited) of £85m are considered to be attributable to the impacts of Covid-19.”
With only two out of 31 home games in the period having any fans present, match-day revenue was down £75m to £3.8m, the club said. However, the match-day losses were offset by an increase in broadcasting revenues (£184.4m) reflecting distributions relating to the completion of the 2019-20 season and the club’s progress to the semi-finals of the Europa League.
The club made a profit of £11.8m on player sales, down from £60.1m in the previous year, and spent £244m in wages.
“The financial challenge remains significant, but the club continues to have the unwavering support and commitment of its ownership, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment,” the statement said.
Didrik, as you are aware, covid affected every club in the country, so I really don’t see why you are using it as some kind of defensive mechanism.
We won a cup final and CS behind closed doors and reaped the financial rewards from those games.
Of course our figures regarding transfer money into the coffers is down – we gave players away and continued to pay their salaries!!!
Aubameyang was awarded his mega deal by the current regime and I fully understand he wasn’t scoring goals, but to give away a golden boot player and then not replace him was unforgivable… and was the main reason we are not in the CL, along with the failure to improve our defensive record.
I also hope for a better season, but how much longer kronkie will support MA if elementary mistakes keep getting made, is anyone’s guess.
Just to document what Anders is saying, Kroenke has been using big money to keep us floating and making us competitive in a difficult time. I don’t like Kroenkes, but they have obviously changed their approach after taking control of our club in August 2018.
Not just about spending big money. It’s also about where and when you spend it. Now you will say that lies at the feet of the manager and board but when things don’t go well Kroenke still has to take a large portion of the blame and ultimately the responsibility lies on his shoulders as he employs them to make the right decisions. The other thing is Kroenke has spent a lot over the past 5 or so seasons and that looks good at face value and you obviously give him credit for that and absolve him from criticism on that front however when you delve a little more into everything, I can give examples of when he does deserve criticism. So yes has spent big in some transfer windows
– 2016-17 summer window around £100M.
– 2018-19 summer window (Emery’s first season) estimated around £147M
-2020-21 (Arteta’ first full season)
– last summer. £150M.
But I can also give you examples of a lack of spending primarily January transfer windows when we were on the cusp of achieving big things but didn’t make the necessary additions or even no additions at all to get us over the finishing line.
-2015 summer window, only brought in Cech and we went on to agonisingly missed out on the title to Leicester in what was probably are best opportunity to win it in the Emirates era.
-2016 January window after what had or more like hadn’t transpired in the previous summer we bring in Elneny that same season which wasn’t enough in the end
– 2013 summer window needed a striker dilly dallied over Higuain for the majority of that summer, then the Luis suarez fiasco happened, we eventually ended up signing Ozil on deadline day.
-2014 January window, sitting top of the league with but still needing a striker and midfielder to help get us over the line brought in Kalstrom(with a broken back sigh!) and fell away in February
– 2019 January window Emery said in a press conference we could only sign players on loan which we preceded to do in comes Dennis Suarez end up narrowly missing top 4 and lost Europa League final
– last January no signings to help us secure top 4
So in summary I find you defence of Kroenke a little baffling but hey its all about opinions
I am not sure, you hace actually understood my points. I can see it is a fact, we have spent plenty, and I find crtiticising Kroenke for not spending an accusation contrary to the facts.
But I have also clearly criticised Kroenke for not being aware of how badly Arsenal was run in the latter part of Wenger’s tenure. He should have intervened much earlier. I hope these last couple of years much more active ownership will help.
Also the only reason our net spend is so high is because we have sold players abismally over that period, however if we managed contracts players competantly and sold them at their market value all of sudden that net spend isn’t big and Kroenke’s investment in the playing staff and allocation of transfer funds doesn’t look so great after all 🤔 @ AndersS
The other way around, I think.
If player development and player contracts had been managed better, we could have made a much bigger income on sales, and thus not had to rely so much on nett investment.
This is one big difference between Liverpool and us. Their owners have not had to make such large nett investments, because theya have sold some of their best players for a huge profit, while we have let contracts run down on the likes of Sanchez, Özil and Ramsey.
AndersS, another big difference is that liverpool have never given away their assets and, then, continued to pay their salaries….or inserted ridiculous buy out clauses that see players like Mavs and Guendouzi leave for a mere pittance of their worth… or have players leave because they couldn’t fit into the playing style on offer… or allow players contracts to run down to the point where they can leave for nothing.
Good points AndersS
These are amongst the most important factors that helped transform Liverpool in contrast to other clubs such as Arsenal. Being able to sell players for astronomical fees was a major factor in kickstarting their sustained success. They have also invested sensibly.
The situations that led to several of Arsenal’s senior players running down contracts seriously hampered the club when it came to competing with the very best. Much of this happened over a number of years and has influenced how things have been managed over the last few years.
@AOT, 5th is not mid table. IJS 🤔
I’m Talking next year!;) and 8th positions in two other years is pretty mediocre.
But nit pick if you want if it floats your boat;)
😊👍
If by ‘successful’ you mean winning the EPL again, the answer is no, not while Man City and Liverpool are still around. Domestic cups are a possibility but to me that does not spell success for a club like the Arsenal. The Europa League should be possible considering Glasgow Rangers almost won it!
Stop fooling ourselves; Kroenke knows how to win. LA Ram’s recent super-bowl victory was not a fluke. Their formula: a winning team consisting of the right players, managers, coaches and executive support team – ensuring that the right decisions are taken at the appropriate time.
We fell flat our faces when we took two wrong decisions in January: ditching our main striker without a replacement and cutting the size of the squad. The board is culpable and should take responsibility for failing to lead.
We now have the ideal opportunity to raid our faltering neighbor from SW London to bolster our executive leadership team. Let’s see if Kroenke is really interested in winning the league.
It is cathartic to read such a goodly number of intelligent and thoughtful posts from fine minds such as Anders S, East LDN Gooner and Didrik, among others too, Mishael etc!
Among the welter of dismal and say nothing posts on JA generally ,THIS thread has generated an unexpected and very welcome number of thinkers. How very much I wish THIS standard of thread werethe norm instead of the exception.
But the palm must go to the excellent article itself where the brain of AOT has astutely put the real CULPRIT Kroenke himnself in th dock to be charged by knowing Gooners who know where the actual trouble with our club lies and has lain for years past.
I do accept there is some measure of hope but only SOME measure, in the way that KSE(meaning Josh, rather than Stan) have seemed LESS remote and uninterested these last very few years, when compared to previously.
Though I prefer not to overstate what to me is only a slight improvement from KSE.
Cheers Jon! Happy to spark a debate like you say with some sound arguments on both sides. That said like you, for me, the blame has and always will lay firmly at the feet of our absentee landlord whilst his dollar bill stained hands hold the keys to the kingdom.
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Cheers AOT, pleasantly surprised that you were savvy enough to acknowledge the intimate link between the stadium ruse and Wenger himself, as far too often the blame for this drastic miscalculation is laid squarely at the feet of our absentee landlord…the fact remains that Wenger’s disdain for the modern “superstar” and his overwhelming desire to be smarter than the other guy, cost us dearly in the end
as for the article itself, it definitely has it’s moments of insightful commentary, as you know we have some similar trains of thoughts about a variety of matters, but unfortunately it came a bit late, as the site has been populated by a who’s who of Apologists since the inevitable happened on the final day of the season, so the discussion it has evoked lacks the requisite amount of nuance for my liking….of course, that scenario has nothing to do whatsoever with your well crafted article itself, as it deserved a better fate…take care
Cheers TRVL4E!
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We shall just have to try to help them and their Illness! 🩺👨⚕️
I wonder how many teams would have liked to have won 4 of the last 8 FA Cups?
Our time will come again, just like Liverpool’s has, but how many times have they won the league in the last 33 years? Once whereas we have won it 5 times. Chelsea and Man City were different cases bank rolled by oil men and corruption.
During spurs superiority years over Arsenal what exactly have they won? They would have loved to blow the dust from their trophy cabinet, to make way for 1 League cup, let alone 4 Fa Cups.
Stop putting Arsenal down, we over achieved this season, sure the losing half of the last 10 matches was horrible, enhanced by the sum improving at the wrong time.
But b’jesus get over it.
18 teams in the premier League won f all this season, 3 of them lost their premier League status and Man United, even with a squad assembled for £700m and a 5 time balon dor winner finished below us, while we were playing Cedric, Elneny, Tavares and 4 other players that cost £6m collectively and are 22 or under.
Yeh did say exactly that in my scribbles;) ..but don’t suppose you read it. I don’t compare Arsenal with the other teams as they are not my yardstick by which I measure..
It’s About ambition fella, and that is the problem right there and the reason for the article.
Well it seems that a section of our fans were not impressed with the club’s fa cup exploits and /or our top four finishes…. so what makes you think anything will change?
I love Arsenal just the way we are, and we have seldom been perfect. When we won the double in 71 with Frank, Charlie and Peter Storey in our team I couldn’t resist ❤️⚪️