Opinion – Are the Arsenal Bosses still refusing to back our coach?

Does hiring Arteta take the heat off the Arsenal management by Lagos Gooner

For the 20th time, I welcome Mikel Arteta to Arsenal and I thank him for making such a quick impact on the way the team plays. With him as the manager of Arsenal, one can only pray that Arsenal starts living up to their status as a big club. However, does having Arteta mean the board of Arsenal directors are let off the hook? Are they now free of blame for how bad Arsenal has become under them?

Ever since these current members of the Arsenal board took over the running of the club, things have gone from best to good to bad and almost worse. The board does not seem to know how to run a football club successfully. With players almost running out of contract before they are offered a new contract, to taking forever to sack a coach and to finding it difficult to hire a coach, the management has never inspired confidence in the minds of lovers of Arsenal. Now, that we have Arteta, will the board sit up and start acting like they know what they want for the club?

The mood around the club right now is the mood of excitement fuelled by the determination and never say die attitude of the new coach, which he has impacted in the players, from what we have seen so far. However, just recently, I read on justarsenal.com of the possibility of Arteta clashing with the board over transfer related issues.

According to justarsenal, and I quote:”no one knows what the Spaniard was told or promised when he agreed to manage Arsenal. He may well have been told that there is no money available this month. He may also have been told that only loan players are acceptable at this time. Again, no one knows for sure.

There is no proof that the board is resistant, there is no proof that Arteta wants a particular player, we know he does not want the likes of Granit Xhaka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to leave and that is about it.”

If Arsenal doesn’t sign any player in the current transfer window before it closes, the heavens will not fall, like I wrote earlier in the week; but if it is discovered that we were not able to sign players because the board simply refused to release funds to buy or loan players, then we can safely say that the board of directors simply don’t know how to make things happen for the club.

Arteta may try his best but without the support of the board, he won’t do much. Can I please make an appeal to the board to do whatever it takes to support Arteta and save themselves from getting constantly bashed?

We are Arsenal and we are proud.

Sylvester Kwentua

44 Comments

  1. Arsenal spent around 150 M in installments and purchases last year, so Arteta would likely not get additional transfer budget in January until Arsenal can sell one player

  2. Let’s be honest we don’t have a great deal of money if any to play with after what we spent in summer. There maybe a cb in especially if mustafi leaves but we will have to wait and see.
    I would be surprised if they backed Arteta heavily now they will do that in the summer but they may bring in a loan or do
    Something just to add something defensively.

  3. As long as the Kroenke’s own the club the investment in players will be second or third rate and so will our league position at the end of the season. Regardless of how good Arteta might turn out to be, he isn’t going to turn Chambers, Holding, Mustafi, Sokratis or Luis into Virgil van Dijk or Matthijs de Ligt or Dayot Upamencano. If we want top tier results we will need top tier players. It would appear as though we might have a top tier coach on our hands. Time will tell. But, no matter how good he is, if the Kroenke’s keep the handbrake on, Arsenal will struggle to move forward.

  4. Our failure over the years was down to the board and the kroenke’s not doing whats best for the club, the board and owners dont care about how the fans feel, they’ve never supported any manager with the players they need, we always go for a cheaper option, loan or paying in installments. we all wanted wenger out but the main problem lies with the board and owners, the board are only concerned in making more money for the kroenke’s, the kroenke’s have to sell their shares to someone who is ambitious and loves football, they take money from our beloved club and invest it in the NFL, they wear LA rams kit to our training sessions.
    That sums up they dont care for the success of this club, a friend of mine once said ” Arsenal is no longer a football club but a money making machine for the kroenke’s ”

    #KroenkeOut

      1. im not talking about the latest audited financials

        over the years of playing regular champions league football and being one of the top earners with transfers

        where did all that money go to??

        just asking

        1. The official club website has the financials going all the way to 2005. You are free to confirm if the club lost any money as dividends paid out, hefty director salaries or hefty director loans defaulted. Personally, I’ve been reading the financials since Wenger’s last year upto now and am yet to see where Kronke has paid himself any dividends, loans or hefty salary. He takes only about 30k a year for his services as director btw which is nothing compared to a director like Gazidis who was making upwards of £2M a year.

          1. QD. You are perfectly correct.The terms of his loan to buy AFC prevents him from taking money from the club. It should also be noted the big debt AFC has which requires about 10 million/year to service.Some do not seem to want to understand that Arsenal FC is run as a business and not as a hobby. Stan might not be the best Arsenal could have but anyone who thinks he will sell is having a dream. He is sitting on about 1 billion in appreciating real estate in the stadium alone, let alone the other companies which make Arsenal Holding PLc. Many people do not see that Arsenal FC is just a part of a group of companies whose strategy is to make a profit. Investments will not be made unless they are seen likely to show a return.

          2. Pouring acid down the drains. Knocking the building down. Setting fire to the grass. Digging up the soil. Bringing in the dogs. Are all steps forward, but no guarantee you can rid your property of a rat. Kroenke Out

  5. Klopp’s First signings after he got the job.

    Marko Grujic -Red Star Belgrade – £5,100,000 – 6 January 2016

    Steven Caulker – Queens Park Rangers – On Loan 12 January 2016

    Kamil Grabara -Ruch Chorzow – £250,000 – 15 January 2016

    He didn’t even spend up to 7 million pounds in his first Jan transfer..
    We talk about giving time the way Klopp was given time, Yet most fans want us to blow money this Jan, which is Arteta’s first.
    Are we trying to fast track Arteta’s abilities?
    So we can say well we got him this players so he should get us top four and win the Europa league?

    Fine let’s say he gets to sign players this January, and then the board refuses to release funds at the end of the season citing we spent all our money.
    The same fans would come out and still say stuffs about the board.
    Show me what Top manager got a job midway and made big money signings the same January.
    Maybe I don’t know any, but can either of you mention any either?
    Let the board and the coach be, we’ll be getting players at the end of the season.
    Damn! Arsenal fans tho

    1. Let it be?????

      Really?????

      We haven’t invested in a seriously high quality CB since Sol Campbell came to us for free in 2001.

      I’m not an owner.

      I’m not a board member.

      I’m not a manager.

      I’m not a player.

      I have no qualifications whatsoever related to football.

      However, I know if we had paid £100M+ in the last two years and had de Ligt and van Dijk as our CB pairing, we would be nearer the top of the table than we are now.

      The board say, our goal is to compete for trophies at the highest level.

      That is Champions League.

      Round of 16 exit isn’t competing.

      Finalists or Semi-Finalists is competing.

      We ain’t getting to that level without buying a proper CB pairing.

      End of.

      1. @AussiGooner
        How sure are you spending all that money on defence would have made a difference? Man U spent a reported £80M on Maguire and £50M on WanBissaka, yet they are only one position higher this January than what they were last Januaryon matchday 21. They have 7 points less with an inferior goal difference so, have they really improved?

        Also, if you read the strategic report in our previous audited financials, the goal of the club is actually to get back into fourth place.

        1. Great points QD – in many cases, trying to buy your way out of trouble leads to even more problems.

          ozziegunner, I really can’t understand your reasoning about the CL – getting to the knockout stages is not competing?
          Why not?
          Secondly, you quite rightly say we haven’t innvested big money since Sol, but the club have spent money…and just like manure and maquire, it wasn’t spent wisely.

          The only way we can spend “real” money, is if we, firstly qualify, secondly progress out of the league stages and then the knockout stages…further if possible.

          We all know that kronkie wants a self sustaining club (rightly or wrongly doesn’t even matter because he is the owner) and that was why finishing in the top four was always the goal of the club, any club come to that, before any trophies.

          It was recently said on here, that the fans wanted trophies before CL football – well that viewpoint is as dated as the dodo or those who complained about the lost decade with CL and top four football… get real!!!
          We are four years into the REAL lost decade, unless MA gets what he wants from raul etc.

          Spuds received a reported £100,000,000 from their CL final appearance, let alone any other revenue – that’s where the money lies and we are just starting to realize that, what we took for granted, was so essential to our club under kronkies self sustaining requirements…and therefore, the first requirement of those he employs.

          I have to ask everyone, why does kronkie employ the board and the likes of raul, edu etc? They are making the decisions and, one assumes, he rubber stamps their well paid decisions – let’s start questioning them and their decisions since they took responsibility for transfers and contracts ( yes, I know three times the word decisions was used, but that is what it is all about).

          1. Ken your second and third sentences, taken together, perfectly sum up the vast difference in ambitions between yourself on the one hand and me and many other Goonrs on the other hand. If you limit your ambition to being merely also rans then you may be certain you will never become more than also rans. Just my take but I have thought precisely this all the time I have been debating with you on here. Surely we compete in order to win things, and top competitions too, as well as smaller ones, and not just to stay as also rans?

          2. No matter how Manure have faired with some investment. The fact remains. Without investing in a decent CB pairing we will not progress. If we do not invest in a decent CB pairing we will remain a million miles from the teams that do compete for the elite trophies regularly. Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Juventus regularly reach the last 16 of the CL. Maybe you missed the interview from 2 weeks ago with Edu and Raul, they said clearly, it’s the ambition for the club to compete for and win the elite trophies. What is an elite trophy? Are we likely to compete for any trophy without investing in a decent CB pairing? No! Am I sure of that? Yes!

          3. Jon, once again you take your views as those of many others, when, in fact, that is quite the opposite.
            Why you cannot put over your own point of view, without needing crutches to support you (and whether it’s true or not), is a sign of weakness – argue your case on your own beliefs for goodness sake!!!!

            Why on earth does the CL qualification appear to be the talking point that envelopes everyone’s thoughts?
            Without that money, your dreams of winning trophies under kronkies self sufficient model is neigh on impossible…as a realist you should know this.
            You’ve been bitching about since 2006 it seems!!!

            Why you don’t understand that a top four finish is a trophy on it’s own, I just fail to comprehend.

            We have been competing with clubs with more money than us for decades, even before kronkie and gazidis came to town, but the landscape has changed since abramovitch and the sheik have arrived.
            The only way we can compete with clubs who can buy any single player they want, is to be where the big money is…the champions league…then we can attract the bigger players everyone wants.

            I say, once again, the lost decade started four years ago and, as you said quite recently, it was nice to win three cup finals, but we need to be with the big boys…changing your mind now it’s gone, shows how wrong you really were about top four, CL and how that kept us competing with the best.
            My concerns are for the future of our club, not winning trophies…spuds and pool (until last season) have done pretty well without them, or haven’t you noticed? Their fanbases haven’t dwindled, look how they reacted to qualify for the CL.

            Forest, villa, leeds, sunderland, wimbledon, swindon, ipswich, derby, birmingham (to name a few) have all won trophies over the years – what do you think their supporters want today? They’d swap trophies for stability any day of the week and that’s my personal opinion…not sure if many other gooners agree, frankly I don’t care…

  6. Well said AussieGooner.Financially,recruitment will depend to a large extent on who we can sell to at least reduce the wage bill.Realistically the prospects of selling the likes of Mustafi,Luis,Socratis and Mik for example are poor.So, no outs,no ins.

  7. According to a radio sports news item that I’ve just listened to Arteta has said that we will have to make the best with the players already at the club

  8. As a fan of Arsenal I am appealing to the board to do the needful so as to enable our Coach Arteater to bring back the glory of the club. Arteater should table all what he needs to revive the club to the board and allow them play their roles. Assist the Coach please

  9. This constant divisive board bashing is really not based on any facts.
    The facts are, the financial records clearly show, no money is being taken out of the club by the owners. We have a somewhat difficult situation, because our revenue is under pressure, mainly because of 2 things:
    1) We have less income as we are not in the Champions League

    2) For several years, we have not been able to develop players to become more valuable, sell them and reinvest

    Just last summer we still made a significant net investment in players, with a clear purpose to bring us back in CL in the short term and to make us more competitive in the long term.

    I have no personal interest in defending the board, but I really don’t think the board is to blame. The fact that we have had a terrible first half season comes down to the former manager and the players. Yes, the players also have to take some of the blame, when it seems they now have much more to give, than they did.

    Instead of this constant blame game, let’s get behind all the team, the manager, and the whole club (including the board). The numbers, both in points in the league and in the financial records actually show, we all have a common interest in improving how we have performed for several years. And it isn’t because of lack of net investment.

    1. That was a very interesting post and well thought out
      I have a question: should the owners dip into their vast personal wealth now or in the summer to get Arsenal back on track after these few erratic and in places, dismal years? I realise that the club wants to be self sustainable but without an injection of money particularly in the summer the club might end up going backwards which no one at the club wants

      1. FFP says a club can only spend £30M of the owner’s money spread out over 3 years. Ofcos clubs like Manchester City and PSG seem to spend their owners’ money and still get away with it. How they do it I do not know but I wouldn’t blame the board for following the rules.

    2. So was Gazidis blameless then, in your view? I’D SAY IT IS VERY STRANGE IF YOU ABSOLVE HIM OF HIS MANY “CRIMES”!

  10. AndreaS can i ask you a question??

    Why arent we playing champions league football???

    Over the years arsenal was known for developing players and selling them for profit, where is all the money we’ve made from transfers all those years???

    And where did you get you fact that money was never taken out of the club ever since the kroenke took over??

    In 2015, we had cash of nearly £160million which could be available to invest in players, however Arsene Wenger spent only £10m on Chelsea’s Petr Cech.
    In the same window Manchester City spent nearly £150m on the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Nicolas Otamendi, whilst Chelsea invested £62m in eight players.

    Where’s all the money we’ve made all over the years??? clearly its not being used to buy players

    1. He also uses Arsenal as collateral to beef up his accounts, we are a bargaining chip for the man and then at the end of his tenure he will get rewarded for it, his initial stake will sky rocket. We are jewel in his portfolio, only he’s now using us to have himself a bigger jewel with that huge venture in making a football stadium over there that makes the Emirates look like a mini mart, it has decorations that can rival a small city, but some think he’s over extended and he’s going to have to take a huge hit on it. I hope this doesn’t put our club in trouble because they’re saying it’s a billion dollar investment if he was to pay that way. He needs Arsenal to show a profit because that will work in his favor, it wouldn’t look so attractive if he was leaking money with his assets.

      (Small print ..I am not in any way an expert in these matters and I was always crap at maths, this is all pure conjecture from someone who is on outside looking in and couldn’t go much further out without falling off the planet. And it’s some things I’ve heard people say already)

    2. You should not make statements about football and finance that are not true or not possible. If you look properly into the last 5 years our “management” has spent fortunes on players and our squad and for reasons because we haven’t been successful we have actually devalued and got rid of players for zero value. Saying we haven’t spent any money is absolutely ludicrous. To say we have been badly managed and badly funded is more accurate. The reasons we are where we are is NOT down to not investing, it is down to bad investments and bad managers.

      1. Buying players like xhaka, mustaffi, elnenny,etc, letting wenger go on for at least two years too long, signing players on long contracts that are not worth it, letting players go for zero, failure of Emery and poor decisions are costing this club dearly. We are paying for the last 5 years now big style.

  11. I’d be happy enough to wait til the summer if teams are gonna hike up the price now and our options being more limited in numbers of the quality players available. No club is going to want to lose a quality player during the season, they may get more bids for the player come end of season. But if we do know who our top targets are, or at least one of them, and if the player is happy to join well then it might be worth an extra couple of million give or take, so to get him in now, and then next season he’ll be a little more settled in the team and more comfortable with his living arrangements. If it’s Upa that fans are thinking of then you may forget that one, they’re fighting for the title over there and are still in the CL, this is really one of those times you say ..why would he join right now, it’d be daft, and he wouldn’t be the player we need if he saw this now as being the right time to move.

    I’d refer we look to add another midfielder, then before next season starts we’ll have a better picture of that area and see how the new guy looks in CM, along with Pepe, Martineli, and Nelson also with some bedding time.

    1. Grandad, im like you, a spade is a spade, it all seems pretty obvious to me. We have been badly managed.

      1. Hello Reggie
        That was an interesting read
        Was the failure to manage Arsenal as a whole down to one man? As in Kroenke the owner failing to keep up to speed with the detail and therefore, allowing his management team to mess up?

        1. As mentioned by Reggie above
          the majority of the blame for
          Arsenals futility over the
          past few years can be
          attributed to woeful
          recruitment and inexplicable
          handling of players
          contracts, the majority of
          which perpetrated by the
          Dynamic Duo of Wenger and
          Ivan the Idiot.

          How can any Arsenal fan
          forget the following
          decisions..

          -Spending a kings ransom for
          a Mustafi when the likes of
          VVD, Umtiti, Toby A, KK were
          available for FAR less $

          -Signing Xhaka for more $
          when Kante would of walked to
          the Emirates from SB.

          -Choosing to sign Socratis
          for the same money as
          Soyuncu, who is currently
          starring @ LC and worth close
          to $50M.

          -Spending $60M on Auba when
          Gunners worlwide were
          screaming for the club to
          address the issues at DM & CB
          (AUBA has been nothing short
          of spectacular but at the
          time was it the right move)

          -refusing to sell Sanchez to
          MC for a reported $60M when
          the Chilean was never serious
          about extending his stay in
          NL.

          -Allowing the likes of
          Welbeck, JW and Ramsey to
          wind down there contracts and
          leave for nothing, costing
          the club tens of millions in
          necessary transfer fees.
          There sales alone could of
          financed a Top CB this
          summer.

          Ozil on $350K a week, enough
          said.

          -Practically giving away
          2 young stars in Gnabry and
          D. Mallen for peanuts.

          Sadly I could go on and on
          and on…

          1. Ace, great post! Detailed facts about many disastrous happenings and also about who was responsible. I love facts and honesty!

        2. Sue, Kronk is the owner and he employs various people do do various jobs to achieve results at this club. The whole of the management team around Gazidis and his time ballsed up. Emery now it turns out wasn’t a good appointment by the latest set up but lets hope that was a blip and they haven’t cocked up again. We are now in some sort of recovery mode and its a wait and see.

          1. Sue, maybe in hindsight we should have got Arteta after Wenger but maybe he wasn’t ready, maybe he was, maybe another 18 months under pep has primed him. He has come in at a time where we are financially in a tight spot but he would know the situation. I hope he can work with what we have and slowly but not too slowly get us back in the CL and release some more funding for him. We need Arteta to be what we hope he can be.

  12. A big part of this debate isn’t really the total dollar, sorry pound, value, it is how the money has been spent. Collectively over the past number of years we have made a lot of poor decisions (some good ones as well). The poor certainly outweigh the good. If we were to spend the same amount of cash, but spend it well, we will move up the table and be able to challenge for trophies and get back to the cash cow that is CL.

    Don’t get me wrong, lots of cash would be nice. Another poster said that the back room needs to be held to account for their decisions and that is right.

    Calling for Kroneke to leave and “give us back the club” is like tilting at windmills, but I understand the sentiment :-).

    If the backroom works to strengthen the club, together with Arteta’s direction on the field, good things will happen. It may take a little time but we can quickly get to the point where we are thinking top four and not fearing bottom three.

    Buying old injured players at inflated prices will not equate to support for Arteta. A strategic loan or the right big spend would be great, but doing nothing is better than doing something stupid.

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