This Sunday is Yellow Day at the Ems. Don’t ask me why, its a Red Action thing, but those guys work their hearts souls and lungs out for the club while those of us in the upper levels mumble about it not being like this in 1927, so if they say we have to wear yellow, yellow it is.
Meanwhile Lasagne Diarra is going to Real Mad for £20 million, and that really is real mad. The jolly news is that the Lord Wenger wrote a clause in the contract saying that if Harry Hedgehog as was ever sold him on the Lord Wenger would have 25% please. Also jolly amusing to note that Diarra isn’t going to get that many games for Real Mad, which was what he complained about before.
Meanwhile again, the Board at the Ems is changing. Ivan Gazidis is joining the board as Chief Executive on January 1 as we know. Richard Carr has left the holding company board where he has been for 27 years but is staying on the Football Club Board where he has been responsible for the Academy and Youth Development department.
Lady Nina Bracewell Smith has left the Board completely, and that seems to take her out of the lockdown agreement, and so means she could sell her shares.
I am not quite sure this is the moment to panic however. First, the Bracewell Smith family has been long term supporters of the club and there is no sign of a rift. Second, time marches on for all of us, and there comes a time when attending board meetings is not the thing one wants to do (remembering that directors have legal responsibilities in terms of knowing what is going on in the business). Third in the olden days the board meetings at Arsenal were like an old boys club – sherry, biscuits and a quick review of what’s what. Now it is big time negotiations over millions and billions, and that is not everyone’s cup of tea – especially as the year’s pass. (I write this with certain feeling as one who is approaching retirement from being chairman of a plc – there are times when I just don’t want to sit through any more sodding meetings).
Fourth, capitalism has collapsed. As from next season the entry price to the Ems is going to be 3 goats and a traffic cone. If anything the price of shares will decline in football as they have in my pension fund, so why buy up now, at high prices, whoever you are? If you are a football predator with money that was not in Iceland, you buy after you see the size of the bids in the next round of TV bidding. If, as expected, the price collapses, then you buy at half price.
Of course everything I ever say here is a guess and an opinion, but for what it is worth I would not expect sales of shares as a result of this, but I would expect exciting times following the arrival of Gazidis.
And just to prove that look at this goodie from the Lord Wenger himself. The club site says,
“Arsène Wenger thinks that a January signing is “feasible” but insists that developing his current crop of players is still the primary ambition.
Wenger’s young side have suffered five Premier League defeats already this season leading some to lament the lack of experience in the squad. And, with the transfer window due to open in under two weeks, Wenger has hinted at possible activity in the new year.
The manager insisted that he is on the look out for “something special” to add to his team but also revealed that he is no closer to finding it yet.
“I cannot say something will happen, but you never know,” the Frenchman told Arsenal TV Online. “It is feasible that we can do it and sometimes a [new] player can give some extra belief to the squad.
“If it appears we can make something special, then we will do it – but at the moment I can sincerely say we have not seen anything special that can really convince us we will be much stronger.”
So there we are. Yellow on Sunday please, no panic about shares, I’ve nearly got over my man-flu, and oh yes, a fat slug has been given a job in Blackburn.
Thanks for giving a different perspective. The media loves a bit of sensationalism and many blogs are falling into the same trap. We have no way of knowing what really happened amongst the board members or what Lady Nina will do next, so your take on things is as likely to be accurate as the next person’s. We can only wait and see, and hope and pray that whatever happens next will be in the best interests of the club we love.
As for the transfers, Arsene is probably being cautious because he made promises in the summer, which he was then unable to deliver and the team has faced the backlash from the media and some fans ever since. He is right though that the existing players have the quality within themselves and that still needs to be his priority because new signings are no guarantee as they would take time to settle into the Arsenal system. He also cannot afford to undermine the confidence of the current players by implying that they are not good enough and that he is just biding his time until the transfer window opens to bring in replacements for the whole lot of them as some would have it!