Match Reaction v Aston Villa

[Power n Glory]

Much of what you are saying there is plausible, I don't dispute it. Especially the comments on our feeder club status which for me demonstrates the primary shareholder has a relatively short term plan in place which isn't hugely connected to the football on the pitch or even the assets on the pitch. Simplified I would say the ex-shareholders (some of them) saw a way to cash out for a ridiculously huge return on their investment and the new guy saw extensive short term profit opportunities with sponsorships and merchandising. And the whole business of Usmanov having his cash tied up in the club but with zero say is highly suspicious. Why would he bother with such an arrangement if he thought Kroenke would be around for the next 20 years? Wenger's job through all of this has been to keep us relatively competitive on a minimal spend. He's achieved that and nobody can deny it because the facts are there to see. We don't like it, we hate the way the football has stagnated and the chance of a meaningful trophy has vanished over the hill, but what we want and what the board wants are clearly two different things.

This is why I see the whole Wenger out campaign as a waste of time. We think he's fucking up, the board knows he'd delivering. So the only way to get him out if the board won't do the job is to make his life so miserable he prefers to quit. And that's something I won't do out of respect for what the guy did for us in the past. I'm not denying anything but I'm not up for a witch hunt either. Now as for those ****s who have raped and are raping the club we have all supported for year, damn right i don't respect them. The guys who ever did anything for us have been pushed out or are dead. It's just the money grabbing bastards left, the fuckers who have watched the club go down and down and down and then stand there and say they are delighted with the results. For sure, fuck them.

The boundaries between Board and manager have been blurred in a major way and that's part of the problem.

As said before, Wenger will quite happily tell the fans that a ticket hike is necessary so we can compete with the other elite clubs. That's wrong imo and why he gets lumped in with PHW, Stan and Gazidis.

[GP]

I thought we were getting £150m over 5 years....how does that equate to £15m a year?

Yeah it's a misleading article. The Stadium naming rights aren't worth much on their own, so it should have us at £30m/season and 2nd on the list.

[Marc Overmars]

I'm looking forward to next summer just to see if we actually do anything with the cash (), they'll have a hard time trying to justify yet more limited spending coupled with player departures.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

To put some perspective on how slowly we've started this season, we had more wins at this stage in 94/95, the year we finished below Spurs and one of Graham's turgid final years. We're really struggling to break down and see teams off this season, at this rate we're going to end up in mid-table. We've lost the edge that made us the best of the rest, my biggest worry now is that we're just one of the rest.

It was RVC who was turning these draws into wins last year and that's why he was irreplacable.

We just have to string a few wins together now, I don't think we've won back to back games since Liverpool and Southampton. We'll never get into the top 4 dropping points every other week.

I think we will only because the quality of the league is so poor, teams like Everton will drop of the pace soon. Spurs are not the same as last season. All We need is a run and we'll be fine. If All the others who are going for top 4 pulled miles ahead by now then we'd have to worry.

Can I knock him out instead?

By all accounts (no pun intended) Wenger has a lot of money which he just refuses to spend.
Given the lack of trophies, why haven't the board sacked him?

Who stands to gain from us making a lot of money? Wenger gets a big salary, yes, but he gets that whatever happens, unless he gets sacked. Does he get extra money from us being profitable? Does he have shares or get dividends? I wasn't aware that he did. Unless he's looking at the longer term I don't see why he'd care what money we make. If Wenger can keep us top 4 without spending too much then the board gain far more from that than Wenger.

Who stands to gain from us winning trophies? It would mean some more income I guess but not a significant amount given how much we're raking in anyway. Who was on the board in the 30s when we had that period of dominance? I've no idea. But I and pretty much every Gooner knows who Herbert Chapman was. The manager gets the credit when the team does well and the flak when we don't. The board get very little of either. Point being Wenger is the one getting the flak most directly now, to suggest he doesn't care and is just happy to keep getting in his salary and doesn't care how we do is somewhat unfair. He does come out with some shit but you can see by his reactions he's not happy when things aren't going well. I don't believe he's able to do anything about it any more but it's not because of indifference.

He does deserve some flak, but not abuse.

This is why i don't see what he gets as a problem, his bosses pay him what they want is up to them. Only a fool would turn down money being offered to them.

He does deserve some flak, but not abuse

Very true.

[Niall_Quinn]

£150 includes stadium naming rights extension.

One thing I don't get. Why did they ask for the deal to be so heavily front-loaded again? After the self same thing fucked us over last time?

Usmanov won't need the money.

[Kano]

front load it, increase the value of the club and sell up in a couple of years when ffp kicks in

[LDG]

front load it, increase the value of the club and sell up in a couple of years when ffp kicks in

Usmanov takes over, owns 99.9%, and there you have it. The next petro-club.

[fakeyank]

you also do because you are an internet fan (living abroad of course) so when you are so detached from the live experience it is easier to throw shit at the manager. chants toward the man are fine and he himself said last week that he accepts fans have the right to complain but the amount of insults thrown at the stadium will be less proportionate than those who never go to a game and casually throw it onto the net.

I throw the same abuse when I am in the stadium!

Inshahallah I will be at one more game this season and hope to continue that tradition IF the same shower of shite continues.

[Kano]

Usmanov takes over, owns 99.9%, and there you have it. The next petro-club.

For the foreseeable future we are stuck in billionaires’ row. The thing is, at some point the old guard would’ve had to have sold up and if it hadn’t of been the yank and the ruskie it would’ve been some other rich ****s that couldn’t give a shit.

The current lot are setting out a template for future owners to copy and improve upon.

[Niall_Quinn]

front load it, increase the value of the club and sell up in a couple of years when ffp kicks in

They'll have a hard time increasing the effective value of the club now because the primary shareholding is spoken for by two individuals. Even if the share price rises on paper it doesn't mean a lot because these two can just horse trade whatever deal suits them. Instead I would imagine the front loading is to counter a possible exit from the CL and set aside an amount for a couple of transfers designed to appease the fans and stabilise the ship until Kroenke can cash out.