No funds just proves that Kroenke has zero ambition for Arsenal

Stop Making Excuses For Our Owner !!!!!!! by Dan Smith

Yesterday Unai Emery confirmed reports that Arsenal can only afford loan deals this month. It led to some Gooners to remind each other just how much money has been wasted, either in players being sold for too little, a high wage bill and of course, contracts being allowed to run down.

When are we going to stop making excuses for our lack of ambition? Doing that you are playing into Stan Kroenke’s hands. The American is happy for fans to spend the next few years blaming Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis. The positives in those two leaving is our owner no longer had a shield to hide behind.

Were mistakes made? Without question… But is only getting 4 million for Perez or 10 for Szczesney really as obscene compared to how much we pay for a shirt or a ticket? Surely the fact that countries are willing to pay billions for TV rights negates any bad business.

Do we pay big salaries? Yes, but not as much as the Manchester clubs or Chelsea, those we are meant to be competing with. Sorry, but as a customer, if I’m being charged more than other supporters to watch my team, then you can’t moan if that finds better contracts. Many have complimented Liverpool’s model of selling assets to rebuild their squad. Yet if you look through the history of football and your see sometimes you lose money on a player, as a big club you accept that.

Man United – Di Maria
Chelsea- Torres, Shevchenko
Liverpool – Aqualani
Spurs- Jensen
Man United/Chelsea – wages on Falcao

No one gets it right all the time. It’s convenient to say we didn’t get a fee for Wilshere, Cazorla, and won’t
one for Ramsey. No one is arguing that that’s poor management.

But under the current ownership didn’t we make huge profits on the likes
of Fabregas, Nasri, Touré, Adebayor etc? Didn’t Sir Alex Ferguson admit he was paying over the odds for Van Persie based on age? So back when our board were getting things right and we were in the champions League, why were we not spending lavishly then? Why did it take an 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford to pressure us into replacing Fabregas and Nasri with Arteta and Benayoun? We were told we had no funds due to stadium debt. ..

Now we are being reminded how we spent heavily in the last winter window. Yet when I hear how much Aubameyang cost I never hear how we were only willing to finalise that deal when Walcott, Giroud and Coquelin were sold.
It’s the same with Lacazette. That money was recouped by selling Gabriel and the Ox. Add it all up and suddenly we haven’t spent heavily at all. In that same period, we no longer had to pay a salary to BFG, Cazorla, Wilshere and the small matter of Arsene Wengers 9 million a year. So we found ways to tighten our belts.

If we are so hard up why did we not accept Man City’s 50 million when Sanchez had less than 12 months left on his contract? A bit of clarity, we would have demanded that deal if we knew we would have no money in 2019.

*****Kroenke became sole owner of Arsenal soccer club in August 2018 after buying out minority owner Alisher Usmanov. The team was valued at $2.3 billion.*****

But of course, there is money. LOTS of money. Look at any revenue you want, Arsenal top most polls for money made.

So yes, argue that we should be more aggressive in contracts and sales but no longer let Mr Kroenke get away with it. This is why it made no difference to me who was our manager, things would stay the same based on who owns us.
Many disrespected the greatest boss in our history for what? To get to Emery’s first winter window and see him not be backed?

I will leave you Gooners with this to think about…
Let’s say Kroenke’s first shares were brought in 2007, since going off figures from Transfer league our net spend in 12 years is approx. 220 million.
Our rivals…
City 807m
Chelsea 566m
United 555m
Liverpool 303m

Meanwhile Forbes magazine in 2018 said Kroenke was worth us 8.5 Billion USD..

Enough Now!

Dan Smith

31 Comments

  1. It won’t let me post links!

    There’s another perspective that has to do with STCC and FFP rules. We have cash in reserves but can’t spend as our wage bill are at its limits also income from sponsors such as Puma are awful. Come the summer we will have around £80million to spend. If we qualify for champions League we will have more.

    1. 80 million that can’t 2 buy a world class player like wot we need. we or a joke of a club .We should stay away from games and don’t buy anything arsenal name on it until the yank as gone. Hope we get stuffed now till the end of the season and carry on losing money sad days a head of the arsenal

  2. Arsenal a big club? Very Questionable these days! Huddersfield probably have more funds to spend this window! And also I hear the budget for the summer before player sales is around 50 mil… The club is taking the p*ss out of the fans now! Kroenke can talk if he can talk and say he wants Arsenal to win all the big trophies blah blah blah then why not put a penny into the team ? It’s blatantly obvious he purchased the club to make profit.. other ambitious owners invest in squads of their team! Now it seems our transfer budget is lowering every year so the hell is the team gonna compete on a 50-70 mil transfer budget when everyone knows the entire defence needs revamped and midfield is in serious need of world class talent! Sven Mislintat is gonna need more than a diamond eye to find what we need on that misely budget! We didn’t move to the Emirates to be Europe’s finest we moved to make the fat cats richer! I feel sorry for season ticket holders spending hard earned cash to be made a mug of! I will never put another penny into the club it being tickets or merchandise until the powers that be stop ripping us fans off! As Dan pointed out we’ve barely spent when considering sales yet this is the reason they tell us there’s no funds available! Arsenal football club is really starting to p*ss me right off! Acting and behaving like a small club! Until Kroenke is gone it’s all downhill from here.

    1. Well said mate ,I feel the same when it comes to transfers ,makes my blood boil just writing this .
      I wouldn’t class us as a big club anymore ,I haven’t for about 5years ,can’t blame the managers either but emery is starting to sound like arsene when it comes to transfers ,always feels like the club just strings the fans along when it’s time to sign players (and we need quite a few )
      I’m not sure what Stan is trying to achieve here but I know 1 thing and it’s not to win trophies

  3. If we want to have a self sustaining model which is already difficult in this football climate, we need to sell players for profit to survive. Ozil, sanchez and ramsey should’ve been sold when they weren’t signing contracts and that money would have been used to revitalise the squad but we kept them too long. Stan is a terrible owner but the last regime were too slow and inactive in transfer dealings. Imagine how much those three players would have fetched us. Welbeck should have been sold too, elneny is adding nothing to the squad but under gazidis and wenger, he would probably be leaving for free too and i hope this new regime wouldn’t let that happen. As regards getting stan out, that is a difficult task as i can never see him selling our club unless he receives an outrageous bid because we are a huge asset for him to use to borrow money and the likes of david dein( who introduced him to the club), arsene wenger(who supported him and his ideas) and the ones who sold him their shares put us where we are right now.

  4. No surprise. He is different to the Glazers, Abrahamovic, Daniel Levy, etc. He is our worst nightmare come true

    Kroenke has several sports franchises and they rarely do well
    He also took a team from one city to another city, actually a different state too (he took the Rams from St Louis to Los Angeles) which basically was “f*** the fans.

    He is totally MONEY motivated and not a good person either

    The only way we will get silverware is through a manager who can find top talent cheap ie get them young, contracts ending, taking advantage of unsettled players etc.

    This Is a HUGE advantage City, Spurs, Chelsea, City, Liverpool and United have over us

  5. Why did Kroenke buy Arsenal if he’s not interested in investing money in the club, yet he still takes money out when he feels like it, for what is described as “consultancy fees”! Peter Hill-Wood should never have sold the club to him, now we’re stuck with an idiot who doesn’t even have the decency to attend matches. I don’t know what other supporters feel about the owner, but my views are as above. I have been an Arsenal supporter for many years and will continue to support them, but I don’t like what the owner is turning us into.

  6. “Just Arsenal.com” Admin,
    Brilliant article and your insight and facts give further credence to my reply to Charles Watts’ fallacious argument who is clearly a disingenuous deceitful media hacks;

    “Why can’t Arsenal sign anyone? The financial issues behind Unai Emery’s transfer woes
    Arsenal news includes a look at the financial issues that are currently hampering Arsenal’s ability to add to their squad”
    BY
    CHARLES WATTS ARSENAL CORRESPONDENT
    • 19:30, 10 JAN 2019

    Omar Khadine 10th January 2019
    Charles Watts,
    Read your interesting article which is disingenuous as ii is written with the accomplished character of a “double glazing salesman, a secondhand car salesman or a Politician; paltering, equivocations, disinformation, basically truths and lies wrapped up together knowingly to deceive the unwary and gullible read. Simply put you are a nasty individual.

    Even without a proper forensic analysis of the AFC accounts suffice it to point out that Ivan Gazidis Ex CEO of AFC while in office said in July 2018, that the New Head Coach will only have £50m in the transfer budget for Summer Window 2018. On pressing Gazidis, he stated “Kroenke will not sanction any expenditure unless necessary”. Having lost every “Top Applicant” for position as Head Coach due to the lack of transfer budget (they were looking for approximately £200m), AFC were landed with Unai Emery. Even Unai Emery was given an extra £20m (making £70m) for the transfer budget. Clearly it came from Kroenke as Gazidis as much said so. Stan Kroenke was only a 67% share holder at the time.

    Then Gazidis found another £9m, as AFC Board, Gazidis and Raul Sanllehi had come to an understanding with Barcelona FC to sign Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona on £9m upfront and a further £100m to be paid in Summer 2019. The paperwork had been prepared and we were told that the documents had landed on Barcelona FC desk just after the dead line. Then further now AFC has the £300m Adidas deal over 5 years, meaning another £60m this Summer. That is £160m in total The £100m for Dembele wasn’t plucked from thin air!

  7. Lol…all this babble and points being made, has been made over a thousand times by us fans..and Guess what it doesn’t change! it doesn’t get better…
    We can only hope a billionaire springs up and buys Arsenal, I don’t care what some of you think when you say “Oh you want us to spend like Oil rich City?” like “You wanna turn us to a money blowing team?”.. Fück héll yeah!! wake up people, everything in the world is being monetized now, we can’t enjoy our sports anymore without people trying to make money out of it unlike before. We are getting left behind.. Yes City spends a lot, they needed to shuffle their squad and they did..Look where they are now? Manchester Nobody-fücking City is constantly Chasing the league and targeting the UCL while we constantly argue between ourselves and even struggle to make top 4..
    If you’re gon reply my post telling me how we should hold on to our philosophies and not blow money on players then better don’t do that, don’t bother a bit, keep that búllshít in your head

  8. I think our ambition is clear to see tbh
    While Chelsea sign a future star (and loan him back )
    We scour the Chinese football league looking for the next bargain buy or Barcelona’s cast offs
    Its getting that bad again that fans online are Hoping we lose again just so we sign players (think that’s happened for a few seasons now )that’s how desperate some of our fan base is .
    Read an article yesterday form 2012 and that speech that Ivan gave us that we would be now competing with the worlds top 5teams in terms of transfers (I remember when arsene was asked about this statement he had a sly smile on his face so I knew it was bullsh1t)so here we are 6-7 years later and where do we find ourselves ??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️.
    That board needs to get real because it’s doing more hard m than good the way we are being run .

    1. If you are referring to a pulisic, he is imo a waste of money. I won’t let Arsenal with our limited resources waste money like that. That is a player benched by Sancho who is 2 years younger ,that some say is less talented an Odoi who is already on Chelsea book. He has only 1 goal and two assist so far this season and 10 goals in over 100 games for Dortmund. Imagine Chelsea paid 56m for him when they arguably has a more talented player in Odoi who they refuse to give playing time. We can’t do that as our lack of money shows and we should look for a more realistic way to compete with big spenders in epl. Buying like Atletico ( they spend big sometimes) or Dortmund is the way forward for us to compete.

    2. I always thought it was West Ham that had everyone’s cast offs…. surely we’re not turning into them!!
      As much as I don’t like the way things are & the way they’re heading… I could NEVER bring myself to want us to lose!! I’ll always support them & attend when I can….

  9. Why not hit him where it hurts. Start boycotting games, forfeit buying season tickets until something happens. Otherwise all you are saying is just making noise if it is not backed with
    action.

    1. If everyone who reads Just Arsenal gave up their season tickets it would make f*ck all difference.
      A- I would estimate that far less than 500 fans look at this site, i.e. less than 1% of the 65,000 capacity.
      B- with a waiting list of about 40,000, those tickets would be snapped up. C- before anyone says that Wenger got sacked after the swathes of empty seats at the end of last year, that’s ??, those seats were paid for so Kroenke still got his money. Ok so match day food and drink sales may have been down a little but I dare say hardly noticeable. Boycotting games hurts the team far more than Kroenke. Boycotts only Work with mass mobilisation but needs someone to organise it. It’s ok you suggesting season ticket holders to give up their seats, I take it you don’t have one and therefore didn’t wait years to get one and have no hope in hell of getting another after the revolution is over and you want another. So, give up your Sky and/or BT subscription, don’t buy Adidas products, boycott all the other sponsors products, don’t visit Ruanda. You either do it all or it’s pointless.
      Anyway, got to rush off now to get to the London Stadium to support my team!

      1. Declan! I am surprised at your estimates.
        Far be it for me to gloat but you are way way off.
        In the LAST 30 DAYS, JustArsenal has had 110,000 separate visitors and 1.4 MILLION Pageviews!
        500 fans! Indeed!

      2. Well, all these other sponsors put their money because they know the fans are there and watching. The moment fans begin to boycott games they will revert their endorcement. So don’t dare tell me fans boycotting games don’t matter.

    2. If everyone who reads Just Arsenal gave up their season tickets it would make F all difference.
      A- I would estimate that far less than 500 fans look at this site, i.e. less than 1% of the 65,000 capacity.
      B- with a waiting list of about 40,000, those tickets would be snapped up. C- before anyone says that Wenger got sacked after the swathes of empty seats at the end of last year, that’s ??, those seats were paid for so Kroenke still got his money. Ok so match day food and drink sales may have been down a little but I dare say hardly noticeable. Boycotting games hurts the team far more than Kroenke. Boycotts only Work with mass mobilisation but needs someone to organise it. It’s ok you suggesting season ticket holders to give up their seats, I take it you don’t have one and therefore didn’t wait years to get one and have no hope in hell of getting another after the revolution is over and you want another. So, give up your Sky and/or BT subscription, don’t buy Adidas products, boycott all the other sponsors products, don’t visit Ruanda. You either do it all or it’s pointless.
      Anyway, got to rush off now to get to the London Stadium to support my team!

    3. I support the suggestion…..because without that action, he will still come to the club and pick some money..

    4. Well said mate we always say it but never do it .We should stay away from games because every season we get mugged of stop buying arsenal goods and season tickets for the next 3 seasons so the yank can feel it like we do getting mugged of

  10. I don’t even know why we bother with this Kroenke discussion anymore? We’ve seen what he’s like for over a decade now, so we know what to expect. And now he has full control of the club, I imagine he’ll start taking more money out of the club.

    Just like Wenger, Kroenke won’t suddenly change is philosophy, and like Wenger, it’ll only get worse.

  11. The only way to rid SK is to show him we are not going to pay him. And it’s has to be loud and clear.

    Single owner is not a crime but not showing ambition is!!!

    Owner has to match fans in terms of expectations. He should just buy some midtable if he wants midtable place.

  12. REALISM demands that we ask ourselves this question: Is our owner actually stealing from us? I say that he IS , though of course it is legal theft, just as banks, utility and insurance companies do all the time. Simply put, this man -if you wish to call him a man, which is little more than anatomically true – is the lowest sort of filth and he and his sort have ruined what was once an honourable sport and turned top level football – I do NOT indict lower level clubs in the same way – into a one way theft from millions of duped and half aware fans into the filthy morass it is today. I am in my late sixties and easily remember when top level clubs were honourably run(though even then there were a few exceptions, but they were EXCEPTIONS) and players were in touch with real life and real people.

    I have long despaired at the steady corporate morality crumble in life and with virtually everything corporate led, that knows the price of everything and of how to market and maximise it. BUT that neither knows nor even cares about value and fairness.

    Top level football today is a stinking pit with Kroenke among the very biggest stinks in it. At my senior age, and seeing the awful truth as clearly as I do, I have a daily battle between continuing to feed my (and our) addiction and of walking away clean from the whole swamp of despair but then being able to face my own conscience with peace. Without conscience, NONE of us are any more than merely anatomically human.

    Our 132 year old club is really being owned and it’s policy decided by the lowest piece of filth that passes for “humanity.” Weep with me, fellow Gooners!

  13. We have successfully forced Wenger out, time for kroenke to pack his back.

    I want to see some “kroenke out” banner.

  14. “Arsenal spend in 12 years is approx. 220 million.
    Our rivals…
    City 807m
    Chelsea 566m
    United 555m
    Liverpool 303m

    We can not. I must say again we can not compare ourselves to Man U, Man City and Chelsea. This is a Huge issue with Arsenal fans.

    We are, we will always be a club…as stated by the club…that we will spend what we earn.

    I do not agree with the owners approach but I am willing to let the club are what Sven, Raul and Unai, allow the 5+ players brought in and the rest of the work to be still done, be worked on.

    The issue is fans want us to spend £40m on 5 players in the space of 2 Windows (dare I say even 1 window).
    We have never behaved like this type of club and never will.

    Under our old gaffer we have been led down a path that ended with an imbalanced squad. Not bad players, just not the right balance.

    On top of this we have to address our mentality, focus, desire.. why don’t we discuss this and address if the players deserve what they earn? Call our owners tight but they pay their employees handsomely and sometimes I wonder if they should be!

    1. Tom
      Point of article is reasons given for no money are no different to top 5 clubs who do spend
      If u make money we make, yes you compare

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