Memorandum

(Recovered from some scribbled notes found on Danny Fiszman’s private jet by the cleaners and transmitted to the Online Gooner)

To: Arsene Wenger, Manager Arsenal Football Club

From: The Board of Arsenal Football Club

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Dear Arsene, While you and the team were enjoying the creature comforts of the club coach and the joys of the M6 and M1 on Sunday evening, the board had a quick, impromptu meeting in Dan’s executive jet and wanted to let you know our thoughts.

We think you’ve done a great job in the last few years and we really want you to carry on for as long as you want to. We know you’re absolutely the bee’s knees in finding amazing talent and creating a football team which entertains us all. The fact that you’ve done it all on shoestring is even better; ok, we know we haven’t won anything for a few years, but maybe next year?

Even so, the problem is that, just now, we’ve been rather unlucky, we can’t seem to stop giving away silly penalties, missing easy chances and having to play those dreadful Scousers or Mancunians or the nouveaux riches flash gits from west London.

Fortunately the hard part of the season is over and we feel sure we can get back to winning ways against Reading and Derby. So, with those six points in the bag (not that we’re over confident you understand), we’d just like to ask you if you could consider indulging us – and indeed the fans – for the remaining games.

What we had in mind was the following:

1. Some solid defending; you know what we mean – the sort of stuff which brought us all those 1-0 wins under Georgie boy; there’s that bald chap who helps with the reserves these days; we seem to remember a chap who looked liked him played for us a few years back. Perhaps he can give the moody Mohican some tips about the offside trap?

2. Sending Eboue and Senderos off on a long, well-deserved holiday. We’ll happily send their P45s as well after they have cleared out their lockers. We’d even give them free transfers, but remembering that you got Villarreal to pay over £2m for Cygan (we seem to remember we actually paid less than that for him – so we made a profit on Pascal!! Amazing!), we’re sure you could get someone to give us next month’s interest payments on the stadium loan for the pair of them

3. Give Cesc and Toure a rest – they are knackered; we know that, the fans know that; we think your computer which measures the Prozone stats and calculates their energy or fatigue levels has developed a fault and we’re sending the IT man round in the morning; as Lady Nina observed over a glass of bubbly: “if we can’t beat Reading and Derby without those two, we might as well let the fat man from Uzbekistan in the door and retire gracefully”; the rest of the board agreed she had a point

4. Please start Theo, up front; and tell the defenders to boot the ball long and give Ade some heading practice so he can knock the ball down for Theo to run onto; we used to do quite well like that with Niall in the side against the rubbish teams a few years ago, so why not try it against Reading and Derby?

5. Let Gilberto captain the side for the last few games; he’s a good egg and deserves the chance to say goodbye properly – we know the fans would like that; let’s face it, you made a pig’s ear of not giving him the captaincy at the start of the season, so it would be a nice gesture to say sorry in this way

6. Let Jens play in goal; for the same reasons; old Manuel is a nice enough bloke, but Jens deserves his chance to say goodbye as well. We think you are a bit of sentimental soul at heart

7. Play Diaby in centre midfield – we think he’s the nearest thing we have to PV4 at his best. Don’t you think it’s worth a try?

8. And finally, please tell us what has happened to Denilson?

We do hope you’ll have a think about the above – especially point 2.

We also look forward to opening the chequebook up in a few weeks’ time. We don’t need to do much, just a little tweaking here and there, including: