Watch Now
Nope. I don’t think I will. 
There’s more than enough evidence that we had the money and could have spent it. There’s more than enough evidence that Wenger fully and completely controlled our transfer activity, no one came or went without his say so. There’s no real evidence the board ever really said no to a Wenger ask.
It’s exactly as you said, they were in it together, happy to not push on and make those final steps.
This doesn’t really track either, for all the “lack of investment” between 06 - 12 Arsenal could have very easily developed a squad from 2013 onwards to compete for the league and CL consistently when he had more money at his disposal.
We didn’t because of Wenger and his flaws in the market and squad building. We all know the year we come closest to the league Wenger notoriously spent very little on impact players.
There are plenty of deals that should have happened if Wenger had a better grasp on the market and was decisive.
I felt like the early years of his control were wrecked with excessive conservatism on the spending when we had the cash reserves to get the key player or two we needed to stay a football super power.
It’s hard to say whether it was his disinterest, Wengers refusal to play in the mad new world of financial madness, Gazidis, all of the above or his lack of 100 percent control with Usmanov refusing to budge for years on end.
Latterly when they started spending bigger they weren’t geared up for it and spent and hired atrociously- probably hampered by their poor understanding of the sport and poor Board advice.
It’s been a long period of tragic decline and as the owners they have to take the ultimate responsibility.
I’d like to believe that the youth project strategy will bear fruit and that Edu and Arteta can execute although the jury is very much out. I’m hopeful it may turn although it’s far from certain right now. A strong run in and I may even be back to season ticket seeking land. A poor one and I shall continue mostly watching from the comfort of my south Hampshire living room.
Interesting watch. You can tell that Josh is finally now approaching the level of knowledge / engagement that a football club owner should have.
The Kroenkes have invested a lot of money over the past few seasons. Looks like now there’s a strategy for the money being spent. Think Edu has a lot to do with that. The last summer we had as well as the January window where we purged the squad, it’s part of a wider plan. The hardest job for a foreign owner is appointing the right decision makers. We’ve made progress with Edu (albeit not without bumps in the road).
Whilst I’m not “excited”, I am relieved to some extent.
Richard Jefferson cosigns Josh, that’s a dub
Edu was overruled on the Arthur Melo loan / obligation to buy. If we knew more about the details of how/why he was overruled I think we would know with a lot more certainty what is going on. If the concerns were his injury record and risks tying an obligation to buy with such a player that would be a good overrule. If it was about money because no big transfer fee was allowable on top of the summer spend that would tell us a lot also, although the club would never admit it anyway.
This is what every supporter would like to know.
Was it Wenger who wouldn’t spend or was it the board who wouldn’t back him or a combination of both?
Whoever it was is to blame for our fall out of the CL and our mid table mediocrity.
I agree that the lack of urgency as well as our indecisiveness and constant scrimping over every transfer, while all our rivals got the players we should have, is why we’re in the mess we’re in.
If it was Kroenke who refused to invest, then Wenger shouldn’t have lied to the supporters.
But if it was Wenger who was dithering and not being proactive enough, then the board should have sacked him for incompetence, which seems unlikely.
Why would Wenger deliberately make his job more difficult by not strengthening positions that he said needed strengthening.
This is why I blame Kroenke.
Either way, all this proves that the club has been very poorly run since we moved to the Emirates and both the board and manager have persistently lied to the supporters.
Arsenal Presser
Really interesting Josh Kroenke interview where he talks about his love for football, his family’s involvement with Arsenal, the Super League & interacting with fans. (@RoadTrippinPod)
Arsenal and the Super League tells you what the Kroenke’s are about, not the fans.
They’re not interested in success, they want to make as much money as they can out of us.
We’re the perfect vehicle for them to do that.
We have a massive fan base and we’re one of the most profitable clubs in the biggest and richest league in Europe.
That is why Kroenke found us attractive, not because he has any love for football.
No we’re not. We are on the brink of announcing a massive loss.
The Kroenke’s being tight owners who won’t invest has long been dispelled. Where do you think they whipped out £50m for Partey from? Because you won’t find many clubs that’ll pay full cash for a player these days and we did it. We spend as well as any club we can compete financially with anyone.
Hell, this board sanctioned a €80m bid for Vlahovic this January after spending sizeable sums in the summer window. White, Tomiyasu, Lokonga, Ramsdale and Odegaard cost close to £200m and if Vlahovic signed for us we’d have taken that spending to around £270m.
Kroenke might want this club to grow in value like any reasonable owner would. But they are not holding us back.
Kroenke has only just started investing in recent seasons, which he had to because there was a complete lack of investment when he first bought the club.
Since he arrived he’s averaged around 30m a season on new players, which is nowhere near good enough and buying players like Partey should be the norm for a club of our size.
The reason he’s having to spend more now is because of his complete lack of investment before.
We could go into next season without a genuine top quality attacking player and I can’t remember that happening before.
His tight fisted approach, as well as negligence for more than a decade, meant he’s having to spend to get us back to the level we were, and it’s shown that his under investment was a false economy.
A business person “invests” money into a business to make money, a complete fool throws his money down the pan never to see a return.
Exactly.
We have a businessman owner rather than a responsible football club owner.
Profit before success is what our owner is all about.
His recent spending is too little too late after seasons of unacceptable levels of under investment.
Actually I don’t think you got my point haha, a good business man is a responsible club owner.
Chelsea,Man City, PSG etc have thrown obscene amounts of money with hardly any profit in relation to what they’ve spent. They’ll never get their money back, that doesn’t seem very responsible to me, just like nobody will ever buy Arsenal due to the huge amount of money the Kroenke’s would demand and rightly so.
I actually feel the club is in safer hands with our owners rather than any oil barons because that type of income won’t last forever.
I’m not sure Kroenke had a clue about building a successful club.
We were just perfect for someone who wanted to make money, with very little investment.
We had moved into a new stadium.
We have a massive fanbase.
There was a long waiting list for season tickets.
We were one of the most profitable clubs in Europe.
We had a manager that achieved relative success on a small budget.
He also knew that football supporters are a captive audience that will not swap to another product, no matter how bad we are.
This is a recipe for a businessman like Kroenke to wade in and fill his boots.
He was clearly here to make money rather than achieve success on a sporting level.
He has no interest in Arsenal, no interest in football, he rarely attends games and knowing his background of buying up sports clubs he was here to increase his bank balance.
As much as don’t like Chelsea or Man City, their owners investment has meant they are considered top European football clubs and there might be other clubs that follow that trend.
I don’t see Kroenke as a safe pair of hands.
What has he done since he came here?
We’ve had absolutely appalling decision making, which has meant we’ve have steadily dropped down the pecking order behind Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U.
Consequently we’ve dropped out of the CL had consecutive mid table finishes so we’re finding it difficult to attract the best players here.
But also spurs, Leicester and West Ham are catching us up and clubs like Newcastle, Aston Villa, Wolves, etc, are also chasing us.
This is down to Kroenke’s negligence and lack of knowledge of how to run a PL club.
You really are exaggerating, all the clubs you mentioned bar City, Chelsea and Liverpool have won fuck all all nor are they likely to, Leicester was a one off.
Nothing is going to change at Arsenal regarding the ownership, all you seem to post is saying how bad the club is being run, why do you carry on then?
If you love your partner enough take the ups and downs no matter what, but if you think that person treats you like shit constantly you get a divorce, so a lifetime with a football club shouldn’t be any different
I was very wary about it at the time but in retrospect the Kroenkes buying out Usmanov and taking the club fully private in 2018 marked a big change. They have been much more willing to pump money into an entity that they wholly control and that they can operate as they want, without having to worry about the regulatory shackles involved with a publicly traded company.
The other thing I take from that interview posted upthread is that Josh is genuinely interested and personally invested in what is happening at the club. Stan clearly bought Arsenal without any knowledge of or meaningful interest in football - it was just an investment and a way to diversify and expand his holdings in the sporting sector. But Josh seems intent on carving out his own professional niche distinct from his father and running Arsenal and being involved at a much deeper and more regular level seems to be an important part of that.
because the club has only been his for the last few seasons. Why would he be in charge of investing in the club when he was not the only shareholder?
His lack of any investment cost us PL titles and has seen us fall out of the CL.
What’s the point in being a major shareholder if you’re just going to sit back and watch your investment fail?
We’ve gone from title challengers to mid table fodder under Kroenke and the way this club is run is an absolute shambles and has been since he arrived here.
If it’s not Kroenke’s fault, who’s is it?
you cant just do whatever you want within the club when you are a major shareholder…so if you expect that from the kroenkes why isnt Usmanov etc getting a kick in the jaw?
Josh isn’t a good guy. If he wanted to stop the strategy for ESL he could have, but he didn’t. I don’t know. Just very cynical about all the PR stuff at this club.