Stan Kroenke has come in for a lot of stinging criticism from Arsenal fans almost since he took full control of the club and much of it has been justified, however, the question has to be asked, what do the fans actually expect him to do right now?
He cannot just inject a ton of money into the club for transfers and expect to stay within Financial Fair Play regulations, remember Arsenal, then under the management of Arsene Wenger, was one of the most vocal proponents of FFP with Wenger calling owners that put in huge amounts of money into their clubs as “financial doping“.
You cannot point towards the likes of Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain and say their owners inject unlimited funds without also accepting that they are being punished or have been punished.
Clubs can no longer rely on their owners to inject money without that money being accounted for.
It is also not the case that Kroenke has not put money into the club, he has but it is lack of income from the Champions League, poor transfer business and huge salaries that have contributed to the limited transfer budget not the owner refusing to put his hands in his pocket.
Now, do not get me wrong, Kroenke is the ultimate boss and the mess we are in is down to him, he took his eye off the ball and allowed the likes of Ivan Gazidis and Wenger to make horrendous decisions on transfers and contracts, it is down to him that the squad was allowed to decline to its current state because he refused to act on Wenger and Gazidis much earlier.
I am struggling to think what he can do to be honest, he cannot buy his way out of this mess, he has a new manager and directors in place and the early signs are that they have acknowledged the mess and do have a plan in place to rectify past mistakes.
I also cannot see any proof that Kroenke has been taking money out of the club, all I have seen is that he has put money in and mistakenly not acted when the people charged with managing the finances have royally screwed up.
It is not Kroenke’s fault that players have been allowed to leave on free transfers or massively below their true valuation but it is his fault that he did not act to put a stop to the incompetence.
And even if Kroenke was to sell up, any new owner would still be restricted by FFP.
So, I am in no way letting the owner off the hook but I repeat the question, what do we expect him to do now?