John Evans
I have found recent developments around the top end of the Premier League most interesting. If we take a look around at our nearest rivals in recent weeks what do we see?
At Man Utd we see a club that has just won the League Title for a record breaking 19th time. We see a manager in Sir Alex who is heading towards the end of his career with every passing year but does he look at things as all well and rosy in his back garden after yet another title triumph? Or does he take the more aggressive stance of stating openly his desire to improve his squad and actually backing those words up with investment in his playing staff early on in the summer months? United have just won the league for the 19th time and they have splashed over £30m on two of the best young English talents around today. You can say what you like about the talents of Mr Jones and Mr Young but you can’t hide from the fact that United and Sir Alex have shown great powers of ambition and aggressiveness in what they have done in recent weeks. Both of these recent signings manage to break our record transfer fee paid as a club yet for United they are medium cost regulation type signings. They have in effect laid down a marker as a club and said ‘come beat us now’ and I for one would love to see that if I were a United fan.
Over at our London rivals Chelsea we see a club that managed to finish second in the Premier League last season and who also reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. This was considered as a complete failure, so much so that the manager lost his job on the same day that the season ended. They have scoured around the top end of European football for their replacement and in all likelihood have now installed an out and out winner as their new number one. A guy that took a relegation threatened club to the safety of 11th and a cup semi-final in his first season as a professional manager and then in his second season won the league going unbeaten and also managed to lift a European trophy. Not bad for a 33 year old eh? The message as a club is clear. Finishing second is unacceptable. It is a failure we will not stand for. You either win or you are out as we expect to be winners. Is this really such a bad message to be sending out to the club’s fans, the media and potential new signings?
In comparison to these messages being sent out by Chelsea and United we managed to finish fourth last season and got knocked out in the second round of the Champions League. We also managed to get well beaten by a mainly reserve United team in the FA Cup and we ended up hailing the season as one of ‘progress being made’. We amassed fewer points in the League than the previous campaign and finished in a lower position yet we hail the season as a ‘success’. We come out as a club and state that finishing second would be acceptable for the next 20 seasons as we recognise finishing second as having a successful season. At Chelsea finishing second once is deemed failure enough to lose your job.
For me you can say what you like about the negative impact that Roman’s millions has had on the game in this country but if I was a Chelsea fan I would be delighted to hear that message coming out loud and clear from the club I support. Second is not acceptable. We as a club expect to win. What is wrong in that? What message do we want to hear coming out of our own club? If we had just won the League and spent £30m + on two new players would we be complaining about the so called ‘risks’ associated with showing this level of ambition?
I fail to see how success as a club can in any way shape or form be a negative thing and to all those people that see it as such I challenge you to make a valid point that changes my mind. If you are successful as a football club it widens your appeal across the world, it opens up new marketing opportunities that currently do not exist. It increases your income and it makes you more profitable as a club. If we won trophies we may not have even needed to increase the ticket prices at the ground due to the larger levels of marketing sales across the globe. You spend some money and you get some money back in at the other end, this is how things work in businesses all over the world. If you don’t spend any money and all you do is sit on your fingers waiting for the phone to ring, it doesn’t just happen to ring. In business you have to make it ring. Otherwise all you end up doing is procrastinating and that in my eyes is what we are now doing as a club. We are merely putting off the inevitable that will need to happen at some point in the future.
I can therefore predict a scenario developing within our club where the fan base levels of discontent grow bigger and more vocal over the coming few years. During this time Usmanov’s position will get stronger and stronger and at some stage in the future (maybe 3-4 years maximum) the pressure will get too hot for the Americans to handle. They will then decide to sell up to Usmanov and let him splash a little of his fortune on turning Arsenal into a club that once again regards finishing second as a failure. This is why Usmanov hasn’t run away and cashed in on his share percentage. He is playing a longer term wait and see type game that in the long run will see him gain full control of the club as was his original aim when he bought shares in Arsenal in the first place. The truth is the current hierarchy at the club we all support didn’t want to sell there shares to Usmanov. The real reason for this being true boils down to the fact that he is - in the opinion of the current board - ‘overly ambitious’ and doesn’t fit in to this self-sustaining model that the current board talk up as gospel. Usmanov is too ambitious for the current crop of directors at our club. I know for a fact that their has been much disagreement in recent months regarding the best way forward for the club and some top names within the ranks do not agree with Kroenke as the choice to improve on matters. This discontent will only grow and grow over time as nothing major will change at the club until someone takes control who has the money and the ambition to genuinely turn a corner.
Once genuine change happens at the top end of the club and we begin to sail in a new direction which will have to happen at some point we will then begin to see a shift in the culture and the expectation levels within the club we support. We might then get into a position ourselves where if we did win the League we would still go out and splash £30m on two new signings to make sure we stay there or we might find ourselves finishing second and condemning it as a complete failure. Then we would know that we are a big club again and being a big club again for me can only be a positive thing.
(Ed’s note – Just to let those of you who are following the Gooner Gambling Scheme that with England’s elimination from the Euro Under 21s last weekend, we are looking around at other options to use the freebet from Scotbet, with a possibility we might look at one of Stan Kroenke’s teams in the States to cash in. What we will do is give 48 hours’ notice before the event the next bet is on, and the words ‘Gooner Gambling Scheme’ will be in the title of the piece trumpeting it. For those that fear they might miss the boat, we can send out an email to notify you that the details of the next bet are online. If you wish to be notified in this way, just send an email to [email protected] with ‘Gooner Gambling Guide’ in the subject line and we’ll do the honours. Don’t use this address for anything else though).
