What is the long term ambitionof our club????

[LDG]

Right, so we get a bright shiny new stadium. We're told it is to ensure the long term stability of Arsenal FC. We're told we no have plenty of money available. We're told we're after super quality.

Yet. We sell our two best (ish) players. We scrimp and save every penny we can in the transfers we have made, ditch a load of the youth project players (Vela, Bender, Traore, Denilson etc etc etc) and bring in more experience, but some players on the wane....

What excatly is the long term plan? We were building for the future. Now we're replacing the bricks that fell out. There are some bricks being laid which have no foundation, and some bricks which seem to be building something entirely different.

Far from careful planning, and looking to a bright future we were all promised before the stadium, we now have a owner content on raping the club, a manager who is more concerned with keeping a staus quo rather than pushing us on, and a board who seem spineless and completely out of touch with its fans.

We just seem to be trying to tread water, but the current is actually pulling us under a bit.

This whole thing is a mess. I've no doubt that we'll carry on keeping up with the top four (there or thereabouts) but this club is worth more than that. Some of the shackles need to come off, because we don't look ambitious. We look lost and hanging on to the coat-tails of champions league football.

Where the fuck is this club going??

[Letters]

It seems to me they're trying to 'compete' best they can while paying off the stadium debt as quickly as possible.
If they can then we could be quite well placed although our commercial dials are poor relative to our competiters and the billionaire owners thing has made it damn near impossible to compete with those teams.

[Özim]

or it could be that we don't really care too much about winning and are just inerested in profits and share prices.

[IBK]

Right, so we get a bright shiny new stadium. We're told it is to ensure the long term stability of Arsenal FC. We're told we no have plenty of money available. We're told we're after super quality.

Yet. We sell our two best (ish) players. We scrimp and save every penny we can in the transfers we have made, ditch a load of the youth project players (Vela, Bender, Traore, Denilson etc etc etc) and bring in more experience, but some players on the wane....

What excatly is the long term plan? We were building for the future. Now we're replacing the bricks that fell out. There are some bricks being laid which have no foundation, and some bricks which seem to be building something entirely different.

Far from careful planning, and looking to a bright future we were all promised before the stadium, we now have a owner content on raping the club, a manager who is more concerned with keeping a staus quo rather than pushing us on, and a board who seem spineless and completely out of touch with its fans.

We just seem to be trying to tread water, but the current is actually pulling us under a bit.

This whole thing is a mess. I've no doubt that we'll carry on keeping up with the top four (there or thereabouts) but this club is worth more than that. Some of the shackles need to come off, because we don't look ambitious. We look lost and hanging on to the coat-tails of champions league football.

Where the fuck is this club going??

I don't think there is a plan any more. We have a manager who clearly wishes to be defined more as a successful company director than a successful football manager, and a majority owner who clearly wants only the path of least resistance to his shareholding increasing in value and realises than he can achive this without silverware.

The club will take action if it percieves its CL place is at threat - but we appear to have conceded our former position to Citeh; Manure and Chelsea with barely a whimper. Waaay back when - I asked whether we were destined to become another Ajax (they have a shiny new stadium too!). I have also asked in the past what it must have felt like for Liverpool fans seeing their glory days slip ever further away after their heyday (and at least they have their 'recent' CL triumph). This reality has never seemed closer.

Its funny - I was going to post a thread today asking whether any of us feel, in hindsight, different about DD and Usmanov. I have stauchly defended the club against both until relatively recently. Now I'm not so sure that they might have been a much better option. Because there is only so much decline that can happen before it becomes impossible to bounce back.

[Flavs]

Wenger is building a team for the future

[LDG]

Wenger is building a team for the future

Barca's future, and Citeh's future.

Aye, I agree.

[Niall_Quinn]

I'm not sure anything bar the finances is on a long term plan any more. If I had to guess (which unfortunately we all do because the club never tells us anything) Wenger and the board thought the could absorb the Cesc/ Na$ri losses and that was the plan. Then along comes the Utd disaster and everything went out the window. The mad, panicked buying we have seen in the last few days goes against everything Wenger and the board has been doing over the last few years. Looks like we are in brand new territory and everything to do with the team has been torn up or abandoned. We're on a short term plan now, we must be, with 30 year old players coming in and players that have to vanish for two years in two years. It's very much wait and see, will this new team work on the pitch? Has the ongoing rot finally been halted? Is this a sticking plaster and will we go back to the old and failed plan or is this the first step in a whole new direction? And what will happen behind the scenes now the desperation of the transfer window has passed and there's a little time to take stock? That window was probably the worst handled I've ever seen yet possibly the best rescued too. But they'll have to do a lot better than that in the coming weeks and months. Certainly interesting times ahead. As fans I guess we just sit back and enjoy the ride. At least there's a little more hope now than there was on Sunday evening.

[IBK]

It seems to me they're trying to 'compete' best they can while paying off the stadium debt as quickly as possible.
If they can then we could be quite well placed although our commercial dials are poor relative to our competiters and the billionaire owners thing has made it damn near impossible to compete with those teams.

Letters. I have to put this one to bed. I met the partner from PWC who has done the stadium financing deal over the Summer. He shot me down on this theory big time, by explaining that the bonds cannot be paid off any more quickly - without the club incurring an early repayment penalty that would effertively make any interest saving pointless. Also, the company with the liability for the phased repayment of the bonds is the company to whom all gate receipts go - and match day income is the source of the repayments.

This is the main thing that has made me question Kroenke's intentions for the club. IMO he is a 'custodian' only in the sense of maintaining the status quo and (presumably) insulating the club from the prospect of an investor borrowing further against the club to fund a purchase. I don't think he has any interest in doing more than ensuring the running a profitable business - which he has worked out he can do by maintaining CL football. he is not an Arsenal, or even a 'soccer' fan.

My only faint hope is that part of this treading water is waiting for the financial fair play rules to kick in - but it is a rapidly diminishing one.

[Letters]

or it could be that we don't really care too much about winning and are just inerested in profits and share prices.

Which, in the modern world, are driven by winning. You don't make profit in mid-table.
I'm not saying they're not interested in money but the two ambitions are at least compatible.

[Joker]

We're being run purely as a business. So the only things that matter are profits, share prices, ROI, etc etc. Success on the pitch is not really linked to these financial statistics, because as long as we remain in the top 4 and are "prudent" in the transfer market (i.e. don't spend more than we recoup in transfers), the board will be satisfied that we're on a self sustainable course. Football is only secondary these days; this is what "sustainable" means in the eyes of Gazidis, PHW, Wenger etc.