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