So according to the chairman’s statement in the Arsenal Holdings plc Financial results for the year ended May 31, 2009, Arsène Wenger chose not to strengthen his squad any further than the purchase of Thomas Vermaelen over the summer. Toure and Adebayor out, a cheaper option in. It is claimed the manager did have all of the money raised from the sales to Manchester City available. Here’s the relevant section.

Although transfer activity in the summer window was limited I can assure supporters that this followed lengthy discussions with Arsène Wenger and reflected Arsène's assessment of the player resources, both within the existing squad and available on the transfer market, rather than any necessity or financial constraint. Our two key acquisitions this year, Andrey Arshavin and Thomas Vermaelen, have proved very successful and Arsène has the resources to bring more players in, if he believes doing so will add to the quality which we already have in the squad.

Wenger’s so closely tied to the board, and well paid to boot, that he is not going to contradict this statement and indeed has recently made noises to the same effect, which is timely to say the least. So there are one of two scenarios here.

The chairman is stating the truth, which begs the question of why the manager did not feel he could make his squad any stronger with the purchase of a couple of £10-£12 million players. Another question it begs is what the hell Arsenal’s worldwide scouting operation is doing. Surely they should be looking for the next Vieira, the next Vidic, the next Cristiano Ronaldo.

The other scenario is an alternative that is too galling to contemplate. The board have used transfer profits for other parts of the Arsenal operation. Whether the reduction of the loan on the Highbury Square redevelopment (from £133m to £47m) came from property sales alone will provide the answers to that. I’ll await an analysis of the figures by someone more qualified than I to determine that, although given these results only tell the story up until the end of May, there inevitably remains speculation.

Perhaps the reality is somewhere in between. It was also today announced the sale of a ‘block’ of flats (quite possibly – if Fraser and Neave have pulled out of their decision to purchase a similar number and sacrifice their deposit – the very same collection of apartments) to London & Stamford Property Limited for £41.7m. Might the money from Manchester City have been held in the first instance to ensure there was no crisis in the event of failure to beat Celtic and qualify for the lucrative group stages of the Champions League? And even though that was achieved – allowing a few days for the club to push through a couple of potential purchases – might there have been some caution awaiting the deal with London & Stamford to be resolved? With £133m due next April, the board would have been very keen to reduce the amount they had to renegotiate the loan for as much as possible.

Maybe the late August conversation went something like this – Arsène, we think we will be able to strike a deal to sell a good number of the flats, but we need the Manchester City money as a back up just in case it falls through. Can you hang on until January?

Pure speculation of course, and there’s really no way of knowing the truth, so often the case with the club these days.

What is clear though is this. Home matches at Arsenal are proving a tougher sell than in past seasons, despite the team’s relatively healthy start to 2009/10. Something has to be done to get the punters back in or next year’s figures will not look as healthy. Tickets can now be brought on general sale, no membership required. If the team are genuinely competing for silverware, then most games will sell out. If they suffer a dip and have a season anything like the previous one, then profits are going to head south. And if the manager’s net transfer spend of minus £20 odd million is what happens when record profits are announced, God alone knows what follows when the situation is less healthy.

The club are losing money hand over fist due to the disastrous giveaway kit deals struck with Nike and Emirates a few seasons back. And there are the stadium loan repayments on top of that. Arsène Wenger has had to fund any transfer incomings from sales rather than investment from the board. They call is self-sufficiency. Some might call it conservatism and lack of ambition. But don’t worry everybody. Record profits this year, eh? If the football fails to deliver, just look at those lovely balance sheets.

Keith Burkinshaw sometimes attends Arsenal home matches. There used to be a football club over there indeed.