Klopp may eclipse Man Utd for most titles before he leaves. I keep hearing he won't renew a contract but who knows. If it can't be us and I have to choose between Man Utd and Liverpool for most titles, then I'll go with Liverpool. Had I grown up in England when Liverpool were all conquering I might change that.

Looking at the all time list, I was surprised to see that Villa has a fair amount of titles (7) but what struck me was that they were runners up 10 times. The meat of their titles came about when Victoria was queen but impressive nonetheless. More than City and Chelsea can claim.

I want us to put a bit more daylight between us and Man Utd for most FA cups. Looking it up online, Tottenham has a phenomenal finals record, 8 out of 9 wins. Wow! I didn't realize they had so many wins.

I'd also love to spend some weeks visiting various grounds, not just PL but others. I can only claim to have seen 3 grounds, all in London. Years ago as a uni student I visited Gateshead (long story), and a few other cities but that was years ago.
Strange as it may sound, I'm not particularly interested in seeing Old Trafford. Anfield, yes. Must sees: Brentford, Millwall, Tottenham so I can spit on it. Outside London...hmmm...the northeast, Newcastle and Sunderland, Cardiff, Celtic and Rangers, Leeds, but also Preston NE, Portsmouth, Forest, Cambridge, and a few others.

I would be saying no to Coutinho and Willian.
They could both transform the creativity in our team but long term they are the wrong type of signings for the stage we currently are as a club.
We should be using the scouting route of identifying players and not this lazy arse way of feeding off these so called super agents.
I was really excited with the appointment of edu as was hoping for more vibrant young signings like martinelli.
I know there is talk of this Portuguese talent at sporting Lisbon called Fernandez but I find possible signings of Willian despite the good player he is lazy and underwhelming.
We are a massive club but we have to be boxing clever like the likes of Dortmund and Leipzig and finding more young talents before they make it big.
Given a 3 year deal to Willian at 250 a week means we are going down the same stupid Özil route.

If we want a winger why not look at a 24 year old like Benrama at brentford
Players like Brooks at Bournemouth.
Buendia and Cantwell at Norwich.
Even the contract we gave to Cédric would have been better given to someone like Aarons at Norwich.
Ake at Bournemouth is another we should be looking at.
All players that could blow up at a bigger club and be worth double triple what you pay for them in a few years.
I hate the way we are cosying up to Kia joorobichan or whatever his name is.
I hope Raul is not taking us down a route we will massively regret in a few years.
I know we need to get back in the champions league but let's do it wisely and not go for these 'superstars ' on bloated wages with no resale value.

This weeks Tuesday club covers the Willian thing

Describes it as hanging out round the back exit at Stamford bridge next to the wheelie bin trying to get their cast offs whilst they sign ziyech.

How can we progress and get ahead whilst operating like this.

I agree with the approach and I'd like us to sign more players who are tried and tested in the prem, but the list above will be very expensive.
Ake has a £40m clause to return to Chelsea if they want him so I can imagine his fee is up in that region
Benrahma has been linked to a few prem clubs at £30m
Buendia i'd be less sure of the price.
Cantwell as the young stand out english talent would be £20m+
Aarons was talked about as £20m+ and Bayern are rumoured to be interested.

So whilst I like the idea I don't think we can afford this level. All of them are even now too well known. I thik we need to be fishing aorund various release clauses. For example there are two young CB Disasi (reims) and Salisu (valladolid) who have release clauses at £13m and £10m respectively and are both young enough at 22 and 20 to be a very low risk, low wage signing.
Pellegrini at Roma has a £25m release clause, 23, 12 caps for Italy.
You could sign those 3 for under £50m and probably double your money immediately if you sold them on in 6 months.

Also looking at players with only 1 year left on the contract to try to drive the price down and get a bargain

I'd some point I'd like to see us go for a huge signature buy at CB ala Man Utd with Ferdinand, City with Kompany, Liverpool with van Dijk. I'm not saying we have to spend as much as the former but a well established, almost can't lose (there is no such thing but you know what I mean).

It's mind boggling Mustafi is our biggest buy. Who ever scouted him should be escorted out the club and shot unblindfolded. People talk and surely he had to have heard the word about him. They couldn't give him away.

Anyway, I don't want wingers, etc, UNTIL we shore up the defense. Why we keep avoiding it, and this extends through 2 managers, is a head scratcher.

Agreed. Coutinho has been shite since leaving Liverpool and given that it was his dream move youd expect more. Even when at Liverpool I recall a workmate complaining about how brilliant he could be one week and anonymous the next. Purple patch towards the end of his time there but a nothing since.

Hi david.

Totally agree.

Jack Grealish.

We simply aren’t gonna get players like that either right now, he’ll end up at a United or chelsea or someone like that. He will cost 50 million which would probably swallow our budget whole. Ake similar

£50m? And the rest. Shame as there is a No.10 shirt waiting for Grealish at Arsenal. would love to see it but he's out of our price range. Unless Stan opens his wallet. So yeah he's out of our price range!

We really need a Petit and Vierra type set of signings. Completely under the radar, totally motivated and committed, with bags of quality.

Rather like Wilfried Zaha a bit back. He’d have walked on hot coals to play for us but we couldn’t afford to prise him out.

Hi Soc.
Most of the squad decided to take a paycut.
To then pay Coutinho or/and Willian these bloated wages is just ridiculous.
One being 28 and the other 32.
Raul will need to be questioned if these deals are sanctioned.

Agreed LTG

Exactly

It’s all very well saying don’t sign Willian (which I agree) and coutinho (which I Don’t as a loan would make sense) but who do you sign instead.

I too like max arrons and think he would be perfect but he’s probably going to cost another 50 million.

At the end of the day we need 5 new players to get us going. Can we ignore that and spunk everything on one player

It’s a no win scenario. A vicious circle, the budget won’t stretch.

With a limited budget we have two options
1) spend a lot on an elite player to shore up defence or midfield and make do with limited signings or no signings in other areas that need strengthening
2) spread the money more thinly across the squad but risk every position being an average player

Last season we seemed to go with Option 1) having spent a lot on Pépé.

It is a really difficult one to call. We have to be super smart and uncover cheap gems, and I can say with some certainty that uncovering cheap gems is not done via cosying up to super agents.

Like I said before I think we do need to look at the loan market which can plug some gaps short term whilst we bring in younger permanent signings in problem areas, and also look at players with release clauses (to save lengthy negotiations and being messed around) and players with limited time left on their contract. Ultimately we're going to have to take some risks - for example Memphis Depay has 1 year left on his Lyon deal and therefore could be purchased relatively cheaply, he's just had a big knee injury which is the risk. But we've taken those risks before with Overmars and Kanu and they've worked. We're not in a position where these types of players can just be discounted because a player like Depay, at 26, without his latest injury but with his 1 in 2 goal record in france would normally cost £40-50m

I think Utd remain favourites for him, if he leaves at all.
I agree that the relationships with the agents is of great concern.

Yep £50M. No telling what Ake would cost. Then...there's, uh hmm, Partey.

I forgot about tour budget restrictions. Are the LA Rams further restricted financially? Kroenke is not going to spend what it takes to get us to back to prior (top 6) which was below our base level at one time (top 4). We are slowly creeping downwards. This past season may not be one of those one off seasons. Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool have gone through 1 or more seasons almost as bad as hours and in the matter of Man Utd and Liverpool I think weren't they as low as us? Can't totally recall but Moyes and Rodgers finished very low.

Anyway, the root of it all is ownership. Kroenke shouldn't have been let near the club. Dein didn't do his due diligence on him. The Glazers at least just shut up and wrote checks from what the football people wanted. The Liverpool American owners may not have understood football but they wanted to win. From day one I said we should have held our nose and gone with Usmanov as we only had 2 choices. If the Saudi royals buy Newcastle, they will do what the Emeratis have with City.

If money is the issue, and I assume we are, hopefully scour the lower leagues as well as the SPL for the best central defenders out there. We got lucky with Kos but buying the same overseas carries a bigger risk because of the added issue of adjusting linguistically and culturally. Football is football but players not being happy lifestyle wise has hampered performances on the pitch.

Sort of thought that was Raul 's association with Kia was to capture hidden low budget, raw talented wonder kids/players. At least within the 19 to 27 age range.
Willian, Coutinho....probably wind up at Spurs.

For me the biggest shock was that Liverpool didn't shoot past 100 points. It seemed almost as much of a foregone conclusion as their winning the title. Had Covid 19 not happen and their rhythm not broken it would have happened.

I've been doing some scouting for defenders for Arsenal in the lower divisions and in Scotland pro bono, borne all expenses, used all my years of experience watching football, observation skills honed over the years and want to throw some names out there as possibilities. I don't know if they are viable, too costly, whatever but maybe good enough for us at the right price. Some of these players are among promoted sides so may not be available.

Tim Ream, Alfie Mawson, Joe Bryan - Fulham
Pontus Jansson, Julian Jeanvier - Brentford
Ben White, Liam Cooper- Leeds
Matty Cash - Forest
Kristien Pederson - Birmingham
Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle - Derby (on a sidenote, I've never understood why Derby is pronounced with an 'are' sound and not with an 'er' / 'ir' sound as in the name 'Irwin' ? )
Mads Anderson - Barnesly
Shaun Hutchinson - Millwall
Ashley Williams, Tomas Kalas - Bristol City
Patrick Bauer - Preston NE
Sean Morrison, Aden Flint, Curtis Nelson - Cardiff
Joe Rodon - Swansea
Cameron Carter-Vickers - Luton
Christophe Berra - Hearts
Kristopher Ajer - Celtic
Scott McKenna - Aberdeen
Paul Hanlon - Hibs
Kirk Broadfoot - Kilmarnock

Man City are close to signing Ferran Torres, 20 year old highly rated winger from Valencia. The price has always been said to be £40m for him, city have got him for around £21m as he only had 1 year left on his deal and prices have come down from covid. There are deals to be had.

This would be the perfect summer for Kroenke to put his hand in his pocket, bargains out there and FFP restrictions are lifted/eased this window

That doesn’t mean he’ll do it.

Hmm...I have Netflix so I guess I'll take a look when I'm bored.

Kroenke and 'money for Arsenal' will never be in the same sentence. We are on our own. Always have been. Lomekian was trying to make a case for him at the time, saying what he did for his American sides. Lomekian has forgotten more football than I would ever know, but he (and others) were wrong on Kroenke at the time. Very wrong. Crazy as it may sound but we'd have been better off with the G;azers over Stan (note, I dislike both of them).

And yes, I will also remind all that it was Dein who left the board between the Scylla and Charybdis situation with either Kroenke or Usmanov. One of the best things to happen to The Arsenal was David Dein and one of the worst things to happen to The Arsenal was David Dein. I just wish he would have put his love for the club (of which I have no doubt) over his personal ambitions for running the club.

We are stuck with Kroenke for the rest of his life and his son Josh's life. The only way to extricate ourselves from him possibly is....
1. He takes a beating in the next (and I believe it will happen) global financial crash and he is made "an offer he can't refuse"
2. The fans unite in earnest and hits him in the pockets.

I think Josh will be a better owner than his father after he father passes but he won't be an ideal owner.

American, it was Dein who introduced Kroenke to the club. It was a bad decision that presumably came from seeing what Abramovich was doing for Chelsea. I’ve always wondered if blindfolded he stuck a pin in the Forbes rich list of multi-billionaires and decided to go with whoever the pin landed on without doing any research on them. As I say, Dein was silly.

But, and it’s a huge but, it was Fiszman that handed the majority ownership of the club to Kroenke. It was not Dein, who had already seen the problem with Stan as he’d already linked with Usmanov. If you want a similar principle think of a goal that’s given away by a bad mistake. Is the main fault the biggest mistake by a defender, or the forward who lost possession up the other end of the pitch? By going on and on about Dein and never mentioning Fiszman’s central role in the KSE takeover, using this example you seem to want to blame the forward up the other end of the pitch. Not the defender who made the biggest error. I don’t know who the last player was who gave the ball away before Kolasinac at White Hart Lane, but you can bet your bottom someone had previously lost possession and if they hadn’t the game would have progressed differently in some sort of way. Yet surely the main fault has to be that of Kolasinac who stupidly gave the ball to Son to score Tottenham’s equaliser, not whoever it was before that.

The main fault has to lay with Fiszman by handing the majority control to Kroenke from his death bed. Before Fiszman did that, Stan was only a minority shareholder. Dein has much responsibility for that, but at least Kroenke’s power over Arsenal was very limited. It was Fiszman who turned Stan into the majority owner.

Absolutely, there's more chance of us going unbeaten in the league next season!

Exactly. Same principle but there’s more chance of winning the Euromillions jackpot three weeks running when you’ve never bought a ticket.

Speaking of unbeaten (hat tip to Rich), I wonder if it won't be easier for Liverpool to do it this upcoming season than it was last season? They will have known how to handle the pressure. Just thinking.

In any event, the winner of the EPL being from the top 3 the previous season is a still has an excellent record. It just is. No rhyme or reason. It may not happen next season but its amazing how it has held up for every season except one.

Chelsea and Man Utd have the same number of points at 3rd so I think it might be warranted to expand it to 4 clubs to see if that stat keeps going. There are some things that happen for whatever reason and there is no logical explanation such as the EPL stat. Another example of random coincidences, is that in America the 3 biggest crashes in the last 100 years has occurred in October and either a year before or after or during a presidential election year. Economists don't know why. Random coincidence or a pattern that has some merit we just haven't seen yet?

I'd love to break it. Imagine going from 8th to title winners? (as Leicester fans look upon with a smirk).

City just had a £40M bid for Nathan Ake accepted by Bournemouth.
Josh K to be present for FAC final Saturday maybe. Hmmm. Protocol reasons possibly or Stan there. Seems a few Chelsea & Arsenal players whether injured or out of favour, could be present at Wembley. Either way, the result on Saturday to propel the club into the EL, along with the monies gained, might just have an incentive, Kroenkes, to dig deep and fund some needed transfers. No guarantee naturally.

For AG

Arsenal Football Club
Fiszman bought into Arsenal Football Club and became a board member through his purchase of an 8% stake from his friend David Dein, starting with 10,000 shares in 1991. Fiszman slowly increased his stake to 24%, the largest shareholder as at 27 September 2007, at which point he led the building of the new Ashburton Grove stadium.[citation needed]

In March 2007 Fiszman sold a block of 659 shares for over £3.9m to Stan Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE).[4] This was a significant sale as reducing his stake to less than 25% resulted in a loss of veto rights over any future changes to the company statutes. Speculation linked this with a move abroad where he would substantially reduce any Capital Gains Tax liability that would come with a sale of his stake in the club.[5] Fiszman stated his desire not sell any more of his shares for the foreseeable future,[6] after the sale of 5,000 ordinary shares to Kroenke takes the American's stake in Arsenal Holdings plc to 12,756 Shares (representing 20.5%). On 27 March 2009 Fiszman sold 5,000 ordinary shares of £1 each in Arsenal Holdings plc to KSE, UK, Inc, at a price of £8,500 per share.[7] On 11 April 2011, two days before his death, he sold his Arsenal shares amounting to 16.11% of club's stake to KSE, due to his declining health.

There really isn't. But that aside would you say that you KNOW it won't happen?

I know you’re a pedant but have you never heard of saying things tongue in cheek? I’m quite sure there must be people, my guess would be quite a few, who always get their lottery tickets bought for them. I’ve had tickets bought for me, and I’ve bought tickets for others. So there probably is a chance of winning the Euromillions jackpot three weeks running when not buying the tickets themselves, even if it’s very unlikely.

What are you asking if I know something won’t happen? Anyway, at what point do you think it’s fair to say in everyday language that you know something won’t happen? When there’s a one in a billion, trillion chance maybe? Or not even then? Or less? Or a lot less? Any idea at what point you think it’s okay for people to say it in everyday language, or are you just being pedantic again?

Because I firmly got the impression that a poster from across the Atlantic seemed to think he knew Liverpool would win the title before football resumed, even to the point of him wanting them to be awarded the title had the season not resumed. Because the odds of them not winning it would have been astronomically less than one in a billion, trillion. Moreover, you didn’t feel the need to challenge him about it?

I do think it is harder to go unbeaten now than when we did it. Not because the best teams are any better, we still had a strong Man U, chelsea with their money, Liverpool still good and N.London derbies. More that with the extra money in the league even the weakest teams can have a game winner in their ranks. Those players might be inconsistent but they have the ability to turn it on for 1 game and be unplayable. See how Sarr played for Watford against Liverpool - they got him on his best day.

Expecting a back 3 for the final with Tierney in the 3. Tierney appears okay in this position but against Chelsea I would let Saka push forward as his crossing and ability to pick out players in the box is far superior to Tierney. Probably Holding will play but it should be Sokratis. And the rest basically pick themselves. Ceballos will play but I remain unconvinced by him. His inability to create chances suggest he is not anywhere near good enough but there is no other player available at the club who appears to be pressing him for a place. Would bring M-N to replace him very early if necessary.

See no reason why we can't win the final but it needs concentration from the defenders, a lot of pressing and every player to turn up from the first minute. Players like Pépé, Ceballos, Luiz, Xhaka cannot just go thru the motions. If I see Xhaka and Luiz making sideway passes or backwards passes early on I know Arteta will have failed to get them up for the game.

Thanks Zed,
Fiszman (and others) are not exonerated, however, as i recall it he had a choice of Kroenke or Usmanov. Two reasons Usmanov was not wanted as I recall was 1. His sketchy background and 2. Dein was part of it.

What choices did he have? The club was going to go either eventually. Who brought them (Usmanov and Kroenke) in?



Wikipedia, not the best source in the world but...

Usmanov moved into the football arena in August 2007 by acquiring a 14.58-percent stake in the English football team Arsenal. He and his business partner Farhad Moshiri bought the stake in the club owned by former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein for £75 million.[54] David Dein was appointed as head of their investment vehicle, Red and White Holdings, which became the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors.

On 28 September 2007, it was announced that Red and White Holdings had increased its shareholding to 23 percent, making it the second largest shareholder in the club behind Danny Fiszman on 24 percent.[55] On 15 February 2008, he increased it further to over 24 percent, giving him a stake just short of Arsenal non-executive director and major shareholder Danny Fiszman's 24.11 percent.[56] However, there was speculation that Usmanov might already be the club's largest shareholder at 24.2 percent, which he later increased to 25 percent on 16 February 2009.[57]

Red and White Holdings confirmed on 28 February 2008 that it was the club's largest shareholder and the company said it "has the necessary funding to increase its stake further [but] it has no current intention to make a full takeover bid for Arsenal for six months."[58] If the stake were to reach 30 percent, Red and White Holdings would have to launch a formal takeover. Usmanov said he had been an Arsenal fan for seven years and he had a great love for Arsenal.[citation needed]

Usmanov's interest precipitated a "lock-down" agreement by the Gunners' board, whereby chairman Peter Hill-Wood announced that club directors could sell their stakes only to "permitted persons" before April 2009, and had to give fellow board members "first option" on shares until October 2012.[59] However, there was a termination clause in the agreement in October 2010.[clarification needed][59] "The lockdown...makes us bullet-proof," said the then Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman.[60]

American businessman Stanley Kroenke, already a major Arsenal shareholder, increased his stake in the club to just over 62 percent in April 2011 after buying out Fiszman and Lady Bracewell-Smith,[61] making him the majority shareholder. As Kroenke's stake had risen above 30 percent, he was obliged to make an offer to buy out the remainder of Arsenal shares. Usmanov refused to sell, however, and maintained his stake.[62]

(More Wiki)

Kroenke is the largest shareholder of Premier League association football club Arsenal. Arsenal already had a technical link-up with Kroenke's Colorado Rapids when in April 2007 Granada Ventures, a subsidiary of ITV plc, had sold its 9.9% stake in Arsenal Holdings plc to Kroenke's KSE UK inc.[34] Kroenke went on to buy further shares in the club, taking his total stake up to 12.19%.[35] The club's board initially expressed skepticism that a bid would be in its best interests,[36] but gradually warmed to him as part of counteracting Alisher Usmanov's rival bid for the club.

By June 2008, the board had prepared to let Kroenke take over the club,[37] and on September 19, 2008, it was officially announced that Kroenke had joined the Arsenal board of directors.[38] Kroenke had a beneficial interest in, and controlled voting rights, over 18,594 shares, representing 29.9% of the issued shares. Thus, he was nearing the maximum 29.99% threshold, beyond which he would be forced to make an offer for all remaining shares.[39]

On April 10, 2011, it was reported that Kroenke was in advanced talks to complete the takeover of Arsenal.[40][41] The following day, it was announced that he increased his shareholding in Arsenal to 62.89% by purchasing the stakes of Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, and agreed to make an offer for the rest of the club at £11,750 per share, valuing the club at £731M.

http://www.thearsenalhistory.com/?p=13265
2007

It’s well-known that Stan Kroenke was introduced to Arsenal by David Dein, whose thinking was that Kroenke’s money could help Arsenal compete with the newly rich Chelsea, who were benefitting from Roman Abramovich’s billions.


All roads lead to Dein.