[Almunia is a clown]

[quote="Herd"

The Duplicity of Wenger in all this is quite appalling ,I used to think that he fought the board for each player and transfer but it s clear he is fully embedded with Silent Stan and Gazidis ![/quote]


Wenger is as greedy as Stan the Syrup, the old "Custodians", & Gazidis, the Economics graduate continues to fill his pockets with filthy lucre like the rest of them, even acting as "Financial Advisor" to the recent Arab financed PSG takeover talks.

A proper Football manager would have demanded the RVP transfer cash be spent on the playing squad to make a serious challenge for major honours, instead Wenger is quids in for another bonus like the rest of them!

Wenger is a greedy lying hypocrite, yet the AKB's will be toasting another fine set of financial results in a couple of months.

[highburyJD]

there's enough thats actually happened without getting upset about imaginary future events
lets see what money we spend...

[QuartzGooner]

As I said on another thread, why would Dein Jr want to mess with the club?
His dad may have fallen out with the board, but the Deins remain personal friends of Wenger.
Plus I hardly think the sales of Adebayor and Clichy (and hopefully Song) will weaken the club.

[Red Member]

our decline is now starting to accelerate.
this happens to all of Kroenke's sports teams once he starts sucking the money out of them.

I think we are in a similar position to the Colorado Avalanche - an ice hockey team in Denver
they won 8 championships between 1996 and 2003 then up popped Kroenke. they haven't won anything since (sounds familiar )
Last season they finished 29th out of 30 teams in the NHL.
Funnily enough you havent got to look far on their fans message boards (similar set up to on here ) to find a post about Stan Kroenke and their team. This is one of their posters and the comments he makes could equally be made about Arsenal.
[i]First up, it fills me with zero confidence. He has basically affirmed he is a basketball guy (the conversation always ended up going back to that). The most worriesome comment for mine, was the wishy-washy commentary around "maybe adding to the team in a year or two".

Like a fair few here, he over rates our prospects coming through. Duchene, O'Reilly and co. are entering their fourth year in the NHL. Does it take 6 years of NHL hockey to realise potential? A lot of players would never get there.

Every other team also has rookies and prospects they get excited about as well.

Also, this young garbage? We have (next years ages):-

Downie (26), Hejduk (37), Jones (28), Kobasew (31), Mcleod (29), Stastny (27), Hejda (35), Hunwick (28), O'Brien (29), O'Byrne (28) & J S Giguere (36).That's 11 out of a 20 man line-up CIRCA 28 odd and over. I don't buy that garbage.

What I see, is that we are going to be continuing to ride the cap floor. Our line-up isn't magnetising to fans and players alike. This is why I have little hope in free agency this year. The Kroenke's are JUST making a profit (some say it's 6 million, some say 2 million) - therefore, one additional player of note, and they are making losses, and The Kroenke family would rather lose fans than money. [/i]

[Red Member]

and if that comment didn't hit home then how about this one from another of the Colorado fans.
and they are what Arsenal is on the way to becoming. this Colorado team doesnt even make the play offs anymore (the CL places equivalent)

Kroenke indicated that all NHL teams are a bit wary right now of signing players to huge long-term contracts. How do you know? You said you don't know. I've seen plenty of big contracts.

Again, people are buying into mediocrity. He's a sloppy, non-committed owner. He has no idea about the product. He has no idea about the market. His "plan" has way too many if's, maybe's, try's.

AO3, the good teams that have built around a core have done so with the likes of Crosby, Malkin, Neal, Fleury & co, or Briere, Giroux, Pronger and co, or Backstrom, Overchkin, Green & co, or Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom and co, Sedin, Sedin, Bieksa & co, or Kopitar, Doughty, Quick and co, or Savard, Chara, Seguin, Krejki, Thomas and co.

Anyways, I think you get my meaning. Our nucleus has a much lower skill and talent base than those teams listed. MUCH lower. Yes, we will have some decent runs. Scrappy teams always do. Look at how The Islanders finished the season as an example.

If/when we finish lower than 20th next year, are we STILL then re-building? Want a tip? Any team that consistently doesn't make it into the play-offs like us is re-building.

[flash gunner]

Here we go the old blame Kroenke for Wengers faults He's only owned the club for a year or so while Wenger has been fucking us up for 6-7 years now. Red Member with his usual blame Kroenke smokescreen

[Babatunde]

Here we go the old blame Kroenke for Wengers faults He's only owned the club for a year or so while Wenger has been fucking us up for 6-7 years now. Red Member with his usual blame Kroenke smokescreen

Wenger is to blame. 90%.

However you do have to ask yourself why Kroenke would have come out a year ago, after Wenger had a shambolic season, and publicly gave his backing to a proven loser who had just completed six years without a trophy.

You would also have to ask why, as Wenger's boss, Kroenke has been willing to lay down the law to him when it comes to making extra cash from pre-season tours (Wenger was against it and got vetoed), of forcing Wenger to sell Nasri (Wenger wanted to keep him, vetoes by Kroenke)...but when it comes to investing in quality personnel and addressing the mediocrity of Wenger's mnagement, Kroenke is mysteriously silent? Isn't that strange?

Wenger is responsible for Arsenal's mediocrity, for their status as a selling club and their lack of success.
It was not Kroenke that failed to get one over on Alx McLeish in a cup final and not Kroenke who lost 8-2 at OT.
Wenger is lame and dinosaur. The game has passed him by, he became defunct the minute Chelski became the first London club t lift the CL.

However you can't overlook Kroenke's lack of pressure on Wenger. Wenger does what he wants because he has no success targets/objectives.

All those Arsenal fans who objected to Usmanov and backed our 'custodians', and then went on a march about it (well done Dead Action), and then claimed our financial model would reap dividens...well well how silly do they look nw?

The only ones getting dividends are the soon to be mega-loaded c*** who will sell on a healthy club with a mammoth cash reserve and who annually give themselves pay rises. Hilariou.

[QuartzGooner]

Darren Dein such a villain?

I do not buy it.

A friend of mine suggested the following which makes a lot of sense -

That Darren Dein is helping Arsene Wenger.

1.) Arsene knows we need to raise roughly £20M per season to pay off the stadium bond.
It also looks to me like the club are stashing surplus cash in the bank to have the balance of the bond in effect "paid off", even though they can only pay it off in installments until 2031 or risk financial penalties.

So what better way to raise cash than selling off players?

2.) Wenger is close to the Dein family.
Very handy that Darren Dein is a facilitator in player transfers through being a commercial advisor, even if he is actually registered as an agent or not in every deal he is involved in.

3.) Wenger identifies players to move on, and Dein helps him move them off. The club profits.

4.) This does not happen in every case, as sometimes it might be against the club's wishes..i.e. RvP.

5.) But it matters not, as long as the club raises it's money, and pays off the stadium bonds, then it can get to a position where it either has a semblance of a chance of fighting for honours, or can make a nice profit for the owner if/when he sells his shares.

Besides, a very viable case can be made for each player leaving.

Henry - knew his time was up as a regular in the Premiership, back injury, time to move on.

Adebayor - Good riddance!

Clichy - Was struggling for form for two seasons.

Nasri - Bit of a hot head, had a good half season, might as well cash in.

Cesc - Was always going back to Barcelona at some point.

RvP - Perhaps this was genuinely unplanned, but we got a good price.

Song - I thank you very much Mr Dein and Mr Wenger, his sale has helped us!

[StuartL]

So the board are forsaking any semblance if a title challange in order to stash the cash, so that our liabilities are covered in full - even if we cannot pay them off early due to thd penalties that would be incurred.

What other manager would stand for that, let alone be complicit and actively appear to encorage it.

[I Hate Hleb]

At £7m a year and with no pressure to win anything, which other manager wouldn't?

[Herd]

I simply don't buy into the severe penalties for early repayment bullshit.
Im no finance wizard but in todays cashed strapped times wouldn't any bank welcome early repayment even if they had to alter the terms of the agreement to do so .
After all it's not like RBS are flush right now !
Ive forgotten who but there was a guy who used to post on here that knew about such things perhaps he could enlighten us all.

[augie]

Wasnt he fcuked off the forum ?

[supergeorgegraham]

our decline is now starting to accelerate.
this happens to all of Kroenke's sports teams once he starts sucking the money out of them.

I think we are in a similar position to the Colorado Avalanche - an ice hockey team in Denver
they won 8 championships between 1996 and 2003 then up popped Kroenke. they haven't won anything since (sounds familiar )
Last season they finished 29th out of 30 teams in the NHL.
Funnily enough you havent got to look far on their fans message boards (similar set up to on here ) to find a post about Stan Kroenke and their team. This is one of their posters and the comments he makes could equally be made about Arsenal.
[i]First up, it fills me with zero confidence. He has basically affirmed he is a basketball guy (the conversation always ended up going back to that). The most worriesome comment for mine, was the wishy-washy commentary around "maybe adding to the team in a year or two".

Like a fair few here, he over rates our prospects coming through. Duchene, O'Reilly and co. are entering their fourth year in the NHL. Does it take 6 years of NHL hockey to realise potential? A lot of players would never get there.

Every other team also has rookies and prospects they get excited about as well.

Also, this young garbage? We have (next years ages):-

Downie (26), Hejduk (37), Jones (28), Kobasew (31), Mcleod (29), Stastny (27), Hejda (35), Hunwick (28), O'Brien (29), O'Byrne (28) & J S Giguere (36).That's 11 out of a 20 man line-up CIRCA 28 odd and over. I don't buy that garbage.

What I see, is that we are going to be continuing to ride the cap floor. Our line-up isn't magnetising to fans and players alike. This is why I have little hope in free agency this year. The Kroenke's are JUST making a profit (some say it's 6 million, some say 2 million) - therefore, one additional player of note, and they are making losses, and The Kroenke family would rather lose fans than money. [/i]

I think the evidence is right in front of us all. Corzola went to MALAGA !! ahead of us last year. Vertongha to Spurs now Sahin to Liverpool plus all the others we lose out on. Something is very wrong at Arsenal and you can bet that Ox and Wilshere we be off as soon as their contracts run down. Why were the board so scared about Usmanov ? If he brings success thats a good thing and it would not be the same as City and Chelsea.

[begeegs]

I simply don't buy into the severe penalties for early repayment bullshit.
Im no finance wizard but in todays cashed strapped times wouldn't any bank welcome early repayment even if they had to alter the terms of the agreement to do so .
After all it's not like RBS are flush right now !
Ive forgotten who but there was a guy who used to post on here that knew about such things perhaps he could enlighten us all.

It is quite common for mortgages to have penalties for early repayment, so I would presume that is exactly the same with the stadium debt. Also, it isn't cheap, mine was pricey if I repaid within 5 years and then the percentages go down after that.

[supergeorgegraham]

Its 6 years since Dein was sacked and I think that was Arsenal darkest hour. When and if results start to go bad this season there will be cries for Wengers head. I believe he wont sign a new contract anyway but the problem will not be fixed by a new manager.
People turned against Dein when he left but he had to sell his shares and Usmanov seems to be interested in investing in the team.
Kronke has the power now and he is going nowhere. A lot like our great Arsenal FC.