The Arsenal Board need to start doing their job by sacking Arsene now. by KM
Arsene said we are in “great shape” after being thumped 10-2 on aggregate. That statement alone would’ve had him sacked in any top team. We are not a top club anymore. We have a top stadium but nothing more.
So onto the reason of why is he not sacked. Let’s look at the board members who can decide his future and who do absolutely nothing in this football club, except of course getting richer every day from the money we pay to watch performances like that.
Starting with the chairman – Sir Chip Keswick – a banker aged 77, whose purpose at Arsenal is unclear. What has this man done to deserve being on the board? Can you remember any evidence of him providing a strong opinion or voicing concern over our future?
Moving on to the CEO – Ivan Gazidis. Age 52, a lawyer, who has previously been a deputy commissioner of the MSL. Ivan stated in 2013 that “we can compete like Bayern”. I pretty much saw 15:3 on aggregate in the last 3 games. That’s competing I guess? He took over the duties of David Dein – a man who was instrumental to Wenger’s success in his early period at the club.
Ivan is all flashy and talks about money, but has he actually made a strong decision? Isn’t he the guy who should look at this and say, we can’t sell Arsenal as a product, because newer fans wouldn’t support a team that is utterly humiliated every game?
Next up – Ken Friar, aged 82, he’s in charge of property matters and was a major driving force in moving to the Emirates. He’s been working at Arsenal for 60 years! Remarkable, but again, what’s his real purpose? Do you think at 82, this man can still take us forward? A man who hasn’t seen change in 60 years will move on Arsene?
Next up, Lord Harris of Peckham, age 74, director. Director of what exactly? The only thing I know him for is saying we can practically get any player apart from Ronaldo and Messi. I think a few players can improve us on that 5-1 battering don’t you? What’s this person’s role at the club again?
Here comes the meaty stuff, the Kroenkes! Silent Stan as we all know him, age 69, the owner of the club, a man who is good at turning sport into business. He took 3 million out of the club for advisory services remember? I wonder what sort of advice did he gave the board – to keep earning more revenue? Last but not least remember what he said, “I didn’t buy Arsenal stake to win trophies”.
And finally Josh Kroenke, his son, age 36, the youngest member on the board. I’ll just name a few other sports team where the Kroenke family is involved and their recent records. Let’s start with the Colorado Avalnche and their recent finishes in the NHL are 9th, 11th, 2nd, 15th, 11th, 14th, 8th, 15th.
Moving on to the NBA and the Denver Nuggets who have negative win percentage in their last 4 season and sitting 8th in the western conference, again I wouldn’t say they are competing for the top. And last, but not least the Colorado Rapids who’ve finished second, 10th, 8th, 5th, 7th, 5th, 5th, 6th in their last 6 seasons. Again not really too impressive, but probably the best of the bunch I’ve mentioned so far.
So the average age of the board is 53.5, but if you remove Josh from the list it becomes 57. We have 3 people which are over 70 with the owner soon to make them 4. All of those people on a million pound + deals at Arsenal you feel like they should be doing a better job at preventing humiliation on a daily basis.
So will those people deny Arsene’s new contract? Of course not, he does all the jobs, they just reap the money rewards. Will the board change? No it won’t. Why would it? They are here for the money, not for the team. Second major shareholder Usmanov doesn’t have a board representative – why? Because his vision for the team is one of ambition and as Kroenke said, he’s not here to win trophies.
So can something be done? YES, god yes. The fans can express an opinion, but it needs to be a constant one. People will sing ‘one Arsene Wenger’ if we beat Lincoln and that’s as embarrassing as was the Bayern defeat. Even if the board doesn’t change and unless we become a huge money sucking pit, the board will not change, Arsene still has to go.
Tactically and mentally Arsenal are 10 years off where they should be and the board is not accountable for this. They are however accountable for not sacking a man, who is destroying our image and humiliating us every day. Lastly I will finish with this.
Arsene is a millionaire! He’s not a world leader feeding the poor, he’s a rich old person who’s the only unsackable manager in world history. Being a football manager is a high risk, high reward job. You get incredibly well paid to motivate ultra well paid players to perform on a regular basis and if you can’t do that, you always fear the sack (unless you are Arsene!).
Getting rid of Arsene is 50% of the problem, because if we get another yes man of the board, we might end up 10 more years with the same thing, under a different name. Should he go then? Yes! I’d rather win 50% of the time than none of the time and a new manager with fresh ideas would at least get me excited. At the end of the day football is about excitement.
Most of the fans aren’t excited to watch Arsenal, because they know what’s coming and removing Arsene would improve everybody’s morale, because the dressing room has problems, no matter how much Arsene insists it’s all good.
A new manager will also prove the point of whether it was really the fact that we didn’t have money or Arsene didn’t want to spend them? We spent 90 million this summer, 35 on Xhaka, yet we couldn’t get Kante who went to mid-tabled Chelsea for 32? We need a director of football or some new figure that would help with transfer negotiations. The manager says I want that player and then it shouldn’t be his job to negotiate his salary or transfer fee.
Removing Arsene will not solve all of the problems, but it’s a start. Even if we go to a few bad seasons without him it’s the price we will pay for leaving everything up to him for 10 years. I cannot find legitimate arguments in favour of Arsene and I’m outraged that he will sign a new contract after all of this, but he will, mark my words.
If we voice our opinion strongly enough all the time, he’ll go. The Board will take action if we force it. Now with Alexis likely to leave, you understand that Van Persie wasn’t lying. He felt the club didn’t wanna go winning ways and he was right. That’s why he left, Nasri left, Fabregas left, Alexis and Ozil will leave.
It’s a sad ending to what could’ve been a much better story had Arsene left with the FA cup in his hands 3 years ago. Now he’ll pay the price!
Konstantin