Arsenal’s AGM is an invite to come and give them a kicking
FooTBALL, as Gary Lineker said, is a simple game. Chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the Germans win. The Arsenal AGM is very much like that, too. Have a row for two hours and, when you’ve finished, Arsene Wenger’s the manager, Stan Kroenke’s the owner, the best player is probably leaving in the next transfer window anyway and you still haven’t won the league since 2004. And now it’s time for lunch. This year’s session was a classic of its kind. over 300 shareholders voted the chairman Sir Chips Keswick out, only for Kroenke to use his 67 per cent holding to vote him back in. Then it was announced that chief executive Ivan Gazidis, in addition to his £ 2.6million salary, had received a £919,000 bonus — for the first season since 1997-98 in which Arsenal failed to qualify for the Champions League.
‘Ivan is doing a fantastic job — we’re fortunate to have him,’ said Sir Chips, at which point Gazidis seized on the mood of whimsy to announce that metrics showed Arsenal to be ‘the most consistently over-performing team in the Premier League’. Which may have come as a surprise to Sean Dyche.
Finally, to guarantee that everyone went home uneasy, Wenger announced that, despite signing a two-year contract, he would again review his position at the end of this season.
For, having admitted that uncertainty over his future was harmful to the previous campaign, there is no reason why he shouldn’t do exactly the same thing this season.
And on it goes. Kroenke told the supporters he was about winning trophies, not making money, but viewing his American interests, if his money-making was on a par with his trophy- winning he wouldn’t be able to afford a hot dog at Leyton orient.
In the NFL, a league in which 40 per cent of teams make it to the play- offs, Kroenke’s Rams franchise — formerly St Louis, now Los Angeles — haven’t gone there since 2004. He bought a very strong Colorado Avalanche hockey team that has tailed off into insignificance, with a single play- off appearance in seven years.
His Denver Nuggets basketball franchise haven’t made the playoffs in four years, when 16 of 30 teams progress each season. As for the Colorado Rapids MLS franchise, they won the championship in 2010 but have been inconsistent since, missing the play-offs in four of seven seasons. There is little that bodes well for a big, titlewinning splash at Arsenal.
Yet there is a glimmer, if not exactly of hope, then certainly a window of opportunity. Next summer, it has been announced, Dick Law, Arsenal’s chief transfer negotiator, is leaving. This could be the ‘catalyst for change’ Gazidis was talking about last season.
Without doubt, Arsenal have a vacancy in the recruitment area. A director of football, to take the pressure from Wenger. He will resist it, as he always does. Wenger believes he should direct football and, for many years, there was no argument. But not lately. Arsenal’s buying is ordinary. Their squad is weak in comparison to their rivals. Increasingly, they need that change.
This is not yet a poor season. Results in Europe are good. Arsenal are in fifth place in the Premier League, a point behind Tottenham in third. Yet nobody considers them title contenders.
They travel to Manchester City on Sunday with many fearing the worst, considering Liverpool lost there by five having put four past Arsenal two weeks earlier. The fear is that Arsenal will drift as Kroenke’s American interests drift. Colorado Avalanche were the best team in the NHL when he arrived. Where are they now?
Arsenal need one of two things. Either an executive with the remit to operate as Wenger’s equal, and not be marginalised; or a transformation. A restructuring of the way the club operate, a new coach, a director of football, a new regime.
Alternately, they can stay as they are, playing their simple game. A furious racket once a season and, at the end, another team win. Again.