Quote Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz View Post
it was there from the beginning when he bought the shares from Granada TV for the internet rights, clearly looking to the future payoffs.

PHW was roundly applauded by many arsenal fans when the idea of kroenke buying into the club and possibly taking over was first mooted, only becoming the fall guy when usmanov chipped in. they all share the same ideals which even to a certain extent is fine, even if it meant the degrading of the teams standard as it has done. because what has really griped the fans is the fact the manager is no longer able to make the most of the materials at his disposal, which far from being billionaire material is still considerable enough to perform better than we have for a few seasons at least. most of us wouldn't be so concerned about the off field activities if we saw that at least the guys on the pitch gave a damn.

whether it is kroenke or usmanov we are now stuck in the billionaire owner playground for the foreseeable future. many of us agree that the current owners end game is maximise their own returns before selling it on and given the size of our assets alone, only the mega rich will be able to buy into us when we are sold. who is to say the next guys will see it any differently?

wenger has made a scapegoat of himself mainly because of his refusal to acknowledge the lack of duty his players have to the paying public and his own myopic approach. football is supposed to be an escape into a world of athletes living out the fantasies we could never achieve and from the sunday league to the prem the bare minimum satisfaction we'll get is from effort and commitment to giving your all. that hasn't been seen at our club for a while which has resulted in this horrible mess and even that basic turnaround on the pitch would shut a lot of us up.
A good appreciation of the multiple issues (problems) in play now. The big worry is the fans falling into a pretty obvious trap. If Wenger goes, for the reasons you outline rather than all the reasons being plucked out of thin air without supporting evidence, the fans who have called for his head will have to give the new guy some credit if he corrects the failings on the pitch but still can't land the success demanded. But I think it will be a case of rolling on to the next batch of complaints and targeting the new guy if success is not delivered quickly. And then the next guy and then the next.

It has taken the chavs a lot time to identify the true source of the cancer in their club. It will be the same for many fans at Arsenal the sound of it and I'm not talking about fans here on GW but more the idiots you see posting to the media sites with their incomprehensibly dumb take on what's going on at the club. I can see the board hiding behind the manager for a long time to come, regardless of who the manager is.

I see Pep is using us as a negotiating chip with the big, rich clubs one of which he's certain to end up at. There's no hope of him coming here, not a prayer. Not unless he's actively looking to see his gold plated reputation machine sanded by the bastards in our boardroom. Pep and Arsenal are possibly the most unlikely match ever. Shame Roy Hodgeson got the England job, a shame for Kroenke I mean because that's the calibre we'll see coming through the door to replace Wenger. Unless they drop the pretence and go straight for Tim Geithner.

When Wenger goes I think we'll rapidly transform into a very ordinary club. I don't mean in just the football sense, but the history and the tradition, the way of doing things. We should never have let a yank anywhere near our club. To follow that by handing it over to a Russian is unthinkable but the most likely outcome.