First things First – Dortmund Away
Tomorrow brings back the Champions league format for 2011/12 season and will be held in that big German spare tyre known as Munich’s Allianz Arena. As German spare tyres go it always makes me think of Helmut Kohl for some reason – I mean, who’d want to be referred to as a big Helmut!
Anyway, moving on, as the journey proper starts in Dortmund and this could prove to be a tricky test. They’re the champions of Germany (so obviously unseeded and in pot B for the draw) and they are renowned for having quite an atmospheric stadium with both seated and standing areas allowing for a capacity of just under 81,000 fans. It has also been noted that they haven’t had the best of starts to the season currently sitting at 11th in the Bundesliga after an indifferent start. Nothing Arsenal fans could potentially imagine of and it’s obviously great going into a game against a team struggling to find form……..oh.
The line-up for Dortmund could be quite interesting and if I were to choose the players on the comical merit of their surnames I would go for the following:
Weidenfeller
Koch – Kringe – Hummels – Piszczek
Bender – Goetze – Großkreutz – Kehl
Zidan – Le Tallec
Arsenal go into the match with a couple of players hoping to be on the plane not making it. Aaron Ramsey has picked up an ankle injury in training and to be honest I think a rest wouldn’t be a bad thing for Aaron at the moment given the amount of match play he’s had recently. It’s one think getting an ankle injury that you can recover from but it’s another getting a Jack Wilshere injury that seems innocuous at the time but end up being 3 months on the sidelines.
Tomas Rosicky is also going to be out of the game and I’m sure he’ll be gutted at missing the chance to return to his former club once again.
So with this in mind the squad that travelled to Germany was only 18 men strong and with Ramsey out it’ll be interesting to see who will play in the centre of midfield. If Wenger sticks with the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation then I would imagine that Gervinho would come in for Arshavin and would he be willing to play both Song and Frimpong in the middle with Arteta just sitting in front. Could you imagine that? A Song/Pong tag team in the middle of the park and if any player was lucky enough to get between then then SMACK Mertesacker will be straight onto him. If so, then I would imagine the line-up would be something like this:
Szczesny
Sagna – Mertesacker – Koscielny – Gibbs
Song – Arteta – Frimpong
Walcott – RvP – Gervinho
Tomorrow’s came is the start of a two-match ban extension to the one imposed by UEFA for Arsene not using his own phone to speak to the bench against Sudanese. Which in turn was a ban for the magnificent performance by Massimo Busacca in the game against Barcelona when he sent off RvP for continuing to take a shot some 100ms after the whistle had blown amongst 95,000 squealing fans in the Nou Camp. Therefore, Pat Rice will effectively be in charge tomorrow so no doubt we will see lots of flapping of arms from the touchline.
AST AGM
On another note, the Arsenal Supporters trust held their AGM this evening and whilst I was not in attendance the great job of certain Tweeters gave the wide audience a true insight into how the AST keeps the current Arsenal management team on their toes. And rightfully so. From the snippets I’ve seen it there were some great insights to many of the questions of the tip of fans tongues:
| Are the fans committed to the running of the club | Yes | The fanshare scheme is only a year old and currently has 2,000 members and has invested over £1M. |
| Does this run against the plans of the current owner(s) | Yes | Due to demand from fanshare scheme there is not enough shares available (in a capitalist world this must push up the price). Current owners “cooling” on previous promises for increased fanshare
£2M was raised by selling Armoury bricks (wonder if that includes maintenance outside shop entrance/exit?) |
| Arsenal unable to meet wage demands of players | Not true | Arsenal currently 4th highest wage payers. Current structure though means that persistently injured Abou Diaby is on a higher salary than the highest salary earner at Spuds at £60K a week (A WEEK)
This means that it is hard to differentiate top earners amongst the squad. |
| New Stadium Hindering Progress | Yes/No | Arsenal is not getting the same value in the current market compared to other clubs. The number of partners is currently limited to long term exclusivity deals. This hinder underlying revenue for club rather than just impacting transfer budget.
Transfer budget currently stands at £50M following summer activity. Therefore, this has actively not been spent. Therefore reduced income can only translate to increase ticket prices which impacts fans rather than owners |
| Reinvestment in the squad is not available | No | As mentioned earlier, the transfer fund currently sits at £50M. This is the amount left after recent transfer window. Money said to be spent only on players that can improve the squad. However, with revenue linked into aforementioned commercial partner deals the only way to increase revenue would be to have more success on the pitch. Double dilemma at the moment as current squad does not have the depth to push on through the final stages of the season in 4 separate competitions. Therefore, no investment, no progress. No progress, no prize money. No prize money, no investment, etc., etc. |
| Arsene not willing to spend money | True | The transfer policy for the club is between Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis. |
| Are the board/owners actively managing Arsenal? | It would seem not | The perception is the Kroenke is not driving decision making at Arsenal and his investment in a strategic one. All team management and to that extent, the strategy of the club, is driven by Arsene Wenger.
As highlighted above, the fanshare scheme could be at risk due to neither Kroenke nor Usmanov willing to release shares and Usmanov only releasing the same number of shares than Kroenke. Suggest that only individual purposes are being served rather than embracing fans desire to be more involved. |
Looking back over these comments there are some big areas of concern.
The financial power that Arsenal may have had a few years back has gone and whilst it appears that it is not the actual debt of the new stadium that is holding the club back it is in fact the deal that were negotiated at the time that may have lacked a little foresight through the life the of terms agreed. This will impact the club for the next 3-4 years at least.
Furthermore, and reading between the lines, there is a strained relationship between Gazidis and Kroenke with Ivan struggling to get Stan to commit to anything or become more involved in the over-arching strategy and implementation. I have been critical of the squad’s development since Gazidis joined the club and this was before Kroenke was heard of at Arsenal. There seems to be some conflict here and as to what the resolution will be we will have to wait and see but this dynamic may not be something that will stand the test of time – something will break.
What’s also concerning during the intervening period is that fans can expect additional trauma with transfer situations like the Nasri debacle that was just experience. Long term contracts needs to be resolved for Robin van Persie, Alex Song, Theo Walcott and Thomas Vermaelen and with the spectre of every Arsenal fans favourite agent, Darren Dein, hanging over these deals then we have some rocky times ahead. And people still cry out for the return of David Dein………!
There will be more detail on the AST AGM via various channels but I’ve filled in my forms already for the AST and they have a stake at the top table and with the right approach, they have the chance to influence the future of the club. Thanks to @legrove and @DarrenArsenal1 for the updates during the AGM.
Right, bring on Dortmund tomorrow – love a bit of Champions League! Until then, Auf Weidersehn Pet.
GG
GloryGunner: Thoughts on THE Arsenal 