Arsenal Lobby

So, Italian press seem pretty confident that Ivan Gazidis is going to join AC Milan in some sort of management role (managing director, CEO, take your pick). Apparently, he's buddies with Elliot Management, the group currently running Milan.

Putting aside our personal feelings for Gazidis, this would be a bad move for us purely for the timing. We've just gone through a huge restructure which Gazidis led. All the new guys are still getting settled within their roles. To suddenly lose the man who runs the show day to day would set us back.

The danger here is that a new CEO arrives with a different vision and rips up the structure we just put into place. There's also the question of who would appoint his replacement and what their intentions would be.

Ideally, Gazidis should see his project through to the end, not when things are just starting.

Dont see any reason why Ivan should join Milan except to be with his friends and i’m sure he understand better. Everything we have here are just bigger and better than over there.

Wtf that's weird news.
He got fed up with Arsenal fans as well?

Jay29 wrote: Italian press ...

*What are some of the best Football books/Auto-biographies you have read and would recommend to others ?

Pep Confidential, Das Reboot, Henry's biography, Bergkamp's biography, Soccernomics, my dissertation are some of the best I've read.

Brave New World by Balague is supposed to great as well, if you don't mind the whole Spurs thing.

Thanks
Have only read Bergkamp's book from those

Club statement on Gazidis speculation:

https://www.arsenal.com/news/club-statement-ivan-gazidis

He's pissing off for sure

What a strange decision man. Hopefully we can find some financial guru as his replacement, we're severly lacking in that department.

Stan Kroenke has reached agreement with Alisher Usmanov on his buy-out of Arsenal. It's not just an offer - Usmanov has accepted the terms of a takeover that values Arsenal at £1.8 bn.

— Jeremy Wilson (@JWTelegraph) August 7, 2018

This will put Kroenke at the 90% threshold that will force an automatic sale of all other shares. So Kroenke will own 100% of the club and can do with it what he likes.

The biggest concern if him turning the club private, meaning he can take money out from it without having to disclose it to anyone. Accounts wouldn't be public anymore, so we wouldn't be able to hold any of the club's financial dealings to any sort of accountability. In the worst case scenario, Kroenke could use Arsenal to leverage his other sporting projects, which could see a reduction in available funds for Arsenal to compete.

Currently, KSE has said that none of Kroenke's bid will be leveraged against Arsenal, and that it's all coming out of his own pocket. A small silver lining, I guess.

Wow, I don‘t see how this is good news for Arsenal fans.

We really got *bleep* over by David Dein’s and Fiszman’s petty fighting allowing Kroenke to increase his influence at Arsenal.

At the moment, KSE are insistent that the way Arsenal are being run isn't going to change. Self-sustainability is still the way forward.

However, fans will understandably be anxious since we don't know what Kroenke wants to do and how he's going to do it. We're now completely at his behest.

Now things were already kind of like that, but it's unnerving when a shady businessman makes the club private and can now hide away any of his transactions.

Yeap the last part is concerning one, self sustain or not, being able to withhold financial information from public is never good.

That's the thing though, things won't change. It's like offering Wenger a 10 year contract, you know what you're going to get.

Kroenke will want to have his team be competitive but won't do anything about it if it needs a little push, so we'll rely on finding a cheap good coach and cheap good players, who will eventually be sold for big bucks that might or might not all be invested back.

As long as our finances are strong and we continue to improve our commercials, we shouldn't be hurting for money even if Kroenke decides to take money out of the club.

Finding undervalued talent, honing it, and selling it when the time is right is what we should be doing, anyway. You can succeed that way (see: Dortmund, Atletico) while also keeping a consistent source of income through sales.

I don't agree that buy low and sell high is what we necessarily should do but yeah it doesn't mean no success either. As of right now we have some qualified people who can find good talent for cheap but what happens after they are gone? As well as Dortmund have done while Mislintat was there, look at them now. They are not a club that we should be inspired from, they were lucky to find a good coach and a talent spotter and have been riding that success for a few years until they left and now are back to being a good but not good enough club (for their ambition, or their fans ambition).

It's the same with Atletico and Simeone, they were a mediocre club before Simeone and his team of coaches came. What happens when they are gone?

They also both happen to benefit from regular CL football, which means that some players and coaches will stick around even if there's no trophies. That is not the case with Arsenal in the Premier League and we are already seeing signs after missing two years of it.

This is not a sustainable way to be a great club in the Premier League, but if this is Kroenke's ambition then we just have to deal with it.

There is no sustainable way to be a great a club in the Premier League, though.

It used to be that you could outspend the competition but the financial differences between clubs are now far less pronounced. There are still gaps but I believe it'll be impossible for anyone to build dynastic success like in Spain, Germany or France because of this.

Manchester United were the closest to achieving this but they had Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City as competition at various points over the last two decades.

All success is dependent on luck as well. You could argue that Dortmund/Atleti aren't the models to follow because they were just a perfect storm of elements, but this is the case for all successful teams.

United were dominant because they had Ferguson. Madrid and Barca are dominant because of Messi and Ronaldo. These are factors you can't replicate.

The big spending clubs are dependent on income from the outside, so what happens if they dry up? The clubs who aren't as rich and depend on finding gems are dependent on scouts and coaching, so what happens when those scouts and coaches leave? It's ultimately the same result. Teams can prepare for change but they can't future-proof their success.

I only bring up the Dortmund/Atleti model because it's the only one we can realistically implement in our circumstances. Kroenke isn't going to put money in to let us compete with City in the transfer market, and we don't have the raw brand appeal of United. Shopping in the same market as them immediately puts us at a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean we can't compete. We have to find a competitive edge somewhere else.

Yeah I know why you brought up these clubs, it's clear we're going for that route.

For the record, I think we're well set for successful seasons with the setup we have and I'm excited for the new season, I just worry about the longer term.

But maybe by that point we'll have reached some success and we'll change our way of operating, similarly to Liverpool right now after years of selling key players.

Cech will play against Chelsea, wonder what’s going on with Leno

any other club which went un beaten all season?

IF they are why are arsenal called invincibles ?

boyzis wrote:any other club which went un beaten all season?

IF they are why are arsenal called invincibles ?

Preston did it before the Premier League era which started in 1992.
I guess because of media attention growing worldwide people just liked to put a label on things, and that's why we got that tag for our accomplishment in 2003/2004.

ok thanks el gunner

el mean L

L means lover
L means looser

which one are you?

Emery apparently has banned the squad from drinking fruit juice

would have thought that would be banned regardless


unless he banned fresh fruit juice.

Arsene Wenger during his playing days - pictured here playing for Strasbourg (against Monaco) 1978



https://twitter.com/historylvrsclub/status/1036948251742752768

Guendouzi won player of the month award.