Arsenal, Pt. X: Boom-Xhaka-Laca!

[rcon14]

Starting XI for the Man City game?

Leno

Bellerin-Sokratis-Mustafi-Maitland Niles (Monreal apparently nicked up, Kol injured)

Torreira

Xhaka-Ramsey

Ozil-Lacazette-Aubameyang

[SalvadorsDeli]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45094538

So, that's that then. Usmanov off to Everton to probably turn them into another top 4 contender. Kroenke will now control 100% of the club - which means he'll now take the club private and will no longer have to publish financial disclosures for the club or listen to anyone else on the board, and he can leverage Arsenal as collateral against his other investments without any pushback. It's fully his club now. He's also going taking out a loan to finance the £550 million paid to Usmanov to buy him out, and even if the loan was not structured to be directly tied to Arsenal's books, Kroenke can saddle the club with the debt and interest payments if he so pleases and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

I don't think anything is going to change super drastically overnight, but in the long-run I don't see how this is good news. Man United has survived their own leveraged buyout hell with the Glazers only because they are such an absolute commercial powerhouse that they've been able to survive the Glazers taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the club and still having plenty of money to spend. We're not built to withstand that. 

Makes me curious about the Gazidis situation too. If he's jumping ship because he knew this was coming, it doesn't inspire confidence about Kroenke's plans for the club. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by BaltimoreTerp

[UKTexans]

Don't like the move for Arsenal.

[khodder]

On 08/08/2018 at 1:05 AM, BaltimoreTerp said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45094538

So, that's that then. Usmanov off to Everton to probably turn them into another top 4 contender. Kroenke will now control 100% of the club - which means he'll now take the club private and will no longer have to publish financial disclosures for the club or listen to anyone else on the board, and he can leverage Arsenal as collateral against his other investments without any pushback. It's fully his club now. He's also going taking out a loan to finance the £550 million paid to Usmanov to buy him out, and even if the loan was not structured to be directly tied to Arsenal's books, Kroenke can saddle the club with the debt and interest payments if he so pleases and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

I don't think anything is going to change super drastically overnight, but in the long-run I don't see how this is good news. Man United has survived their own leveraged buyout hell with the Glazers only because they are such an absolute commercial powerhouse that they've been able to survive the Glazers taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the club and still having plenty of money to spend. We're not built to withstand that. 

Makes me curious about the Gazidis situation too. If he's jumping ship because he knew this was coming, it doesn't inspire confidence about Kroenke's plans for the club. 

This is nothing but bad news for Arsenal fans. I basically echo all of your sentiments.

[Dr LBC]

46 minutes ago, khodder said:

This is nothing but bad news for Arsenal fans. I basically echo all of your sentiments.

I'm still curious as to where people are getting this supreme confidence that Kroenke is going to take massive dividends out of the team (just because the Glazers did it doesn't mean the Kroenke's will).  The funding/collateral was already there for all the loans (including the additional projected amount) that had to be taken out for the Inglewood stadium - the initial naming rights deal and the contract with the NFL to lease the site for the new NFL Network HQ covers those subsequent loans entirely.

Do I expect the Kroenkes to be out there splurging in massive amount like they're Sheiks or Oligarchs?  No.  They aren't going to be content to just be a mid-table-at-best club though because the one damn thing they actually do care about is the bottom line and you don't maintain that (i.e. making the stadium a destination-spot for tourists - particularly when Tottenham just completed their shiny new toilet bowl stadium, etc.) by just being mediocre.

This is honestly just more of the same aside from there being no more "forced transparency" with the AST stuffs and even that is honestly more of the same because the Board were only as minimally transparent in annual shareholder meetings as the had to be - and often were so with outright contempt.

Gadzidis had likely been planning to leave for some time and likely saw the writing on the wall because Josh Kroenke is going to slide into his job, almost assuredly.  That was, realistically, probably the plan for some time as well.

This isn't great, but I genuinely don't see the proof or evidence for people to be so convinced this is the beginning of some slow death for the club, because there really isn't anything more than circumstantial stuff and conjecture to support that hypothesis.

[SalvadorsDeli]

I never expected Dembele to happen this summer, and in general I think signing any top class winger this summer was never going to happen if we were holding on to Lacazette - that's the conversation that never seemed to happen this summer, about whether we really want to have 100m invested in center forwards and play our best striker from the wing as a result, but I digress.

The Ramsey situation here is the one that worries me far more. Seems like the new regime has handled this in exactly the same way we did Alexis and Ozil, in which we've left it late and let the players walk all over us. IMO Ramsey is playing us, and has been winking and nodding enough in our direction to make us think he's signing something soon, all the while planning to run down his contract so that he can move elsewhere in the summer for free and get a big sign-on bonus in the process. And certainly if he wants to do that, we can't force him to move, but it seems to me we could have made moves this summer to remove some of his leverage at the negotiating table and call his bluff, either publicly put him on the market with a week/10 days to go or move for another midfielder to show him that we're not going to let his situation hold us hostage. Kovacic on a loan move would have been the perfect move in that respect. Instead they kept delaying the big decision they had to make on whether to move on from Ramsey if he doesn't sign an extension so long that it's too late and we have zero leverage over him if we do want to get him re-signed and are looking at losing him for free next summer. 

[rcon14]

It will be interesting to see how Barcelona uses its attacking toys. They have Messi/Suarez/Malcom/Coutinho/Dembele and one of those has to miss out on a regular basis. We could see another round of Dembele rumors come January.

The Ramsey situation is woeful mismanagement unless he signs a contract in the next couple weeks. They're either going to lose him in January for an incredibly low fee or he's going to put Arsenal over a barrel in terms of wages.

[Dr LBC]

7 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

I never expected Dembele to happen this summer, and in general I think signing any top class winger this summer was never going to happen if we were holding on to Lacazette - that's the conversation that never seemed to happen this summer, about whether we really want to have 100m invested in center forwards and play our best striker from the wing as a result, but I digress.

The Ramsey situation here is the one that worries me far more. Seems like the new regime has handled this in exactly the same way we did Alexis and Ozil, in which we've left it late and let the players walk all over us. IMO Ramsey is playing us, and has been winking and nodding enough in our direction to make us think he's signing something soon, all the while planning to run down his contract so that he can move elsewhere in the summer for free and get a big sign-on bonus in the process. And certainly if he wants to do that, we can't force him to move, but it seems to me we could have made moves this summer to remove some of his leverage at the negotiating table and call his bluff, either publicly put him on the market with a week/10 days to go or move for another midfielder to show him that we're not going to let his situation hold us hostage. Kovacic on a loan move would have been the perfect move in that respect. Instead they kept delaying the big decision they had to make on whether to move on from Ramsey if he doesn't sign an extension so long that it's too late and we have zero leverage over him if we do want to get him re-signed and are looking at losing him for free next summer. 

I think the roots of the Dembele stuff is effectively floating in a similar situation to what happened with Alexis last season in that if Barca want him (want to head off the market for him, then a a Ramsey/Dembele swap with cash going one way or the other (I suspect we all know which way that would be...) could be on the table.  Just like acquiring Mkhitaryan managed to satisfy a need that Alexis wasn't fulfilling (someone who could take the total pressure to create off of Ozil's shoulders, because Iwobi was floundering fantastically at it and Jack never returned to form), Ramsey is not someone we want to lose, but if we're going to lose him we're in a better position now to withstand that than we were 6 months ago and we could manage to bolster a weakness (a natural wide-player who can create both off the cut - after beating a fullback with speed - as well as cross - *cough*DamnYouHector*cough* - and also contribute in the goal-scoring tally).

[SalvadorsDeli]

So, Gazidis gone, with Raul Sanlehi promoted into a 'head of football' role effectively overseeing Mislintat and Emery, and the club promoting from within to elevate Vinai Venkatesham as the head of the financial team. Given our commercial deals have seemed to lag behind our rivals, not thrilled that there's not a new face coming in on that side but the talk is that Venkatesham played a big role in securing the massive new Adidas deal, so I guess we'll just have to see.

Big implication here with no direct CEO replacement being announced, and instead 2 new positions being created, is that the plan is to announce Josh Kroenke as the new CEO with him delegating the day-to-day responsibilities to Sanlehi and Venkatesham. 

[Dr LBC]

On 9/18/2018 at 11:37 AM, BaltimoreTerp said:

So, Gazidis gone, with Raul Sanlehi promoted into a 'head of football' role effectively overseeing Mislintat and Emery, and the club promoting from within to elevate Vinai Venkatesham as the head of the financial team. Given our commercial deals have seemed to lag behind our rivals, not thrilled that there's not a new face coming in on that side but the talk is that Venkatesham played a big role in securing the massive new Adidas deal, so I guess we'll just have to see.

Big implication here with no direct CEO replacement being announced, and instead 2 new positions being created, is that the plan is to announce Josh Kroenke as the new CEO with him delegating the day-to-day responsibilities to Sanlehi and Venkatesham. 

And I don't see that as a bad thing.  Aside from the business with the Nuggets (and we can discuss till we're blue in the face how difficult it is to become a true contender in the NBA unless you both hit it huge in the draft AND then manage to wheel and deal your way to surrounding a superstar with at least 1 other star - and doing that in a middle-market is even more a task), I don't really see why people are so quick to lump Josh in with his old man unless it's just purely because they've decided they hate Kroenkes no matter what or without valid reason.

Josh, by all accounts, wants an active role - for the people whinging about "Silent Stan," this is progress because if his kid is doing it, he isn't.  Moreover, if Vinai and Raul operate in the roles they're believed to be in, then the only real duties of Gadzidis' that Josh would be taking over would be the corporate partnerships and marketing stuffs - which, let's be real, Gadzidis was pretty mediocre at - and the Kroenke family has more ties to more lucrative partnerships.  We'll never have sugar daddies, but we could have owners who are more adept at bringing in the advertising and sponsorship bucks to provide an offset to increased spending (and as long as that leads to more wins, more silverware, and thus more bonuses/money, we've pretty much seen with the Rams that the Kroenkes don't mind spending money to make money if they're not having to spend their own money/liquidity).

Also, if this move leads to a new chairman and the ousting of Sir Chips Keswick from the position, that's all very delicious gravy.

[rcon14]

Preferred League Cup XI for me:

Lichtsteiner/Holding/Mavropanos/???

Guendouzzi/Willock/Elneny

Welbeck/Nketiah/Smith-Rowe

Our squad has a lot of decent depth in CM, but really lack fullbacks and winger options.

 

 

[khodder]

7 hours ago, rcon14 said:

Preferred League Cup XI for me:

Lichtsteiner/Holding/Mavropanos/???

Guendouzzi/Willock/Elneny

Welbeck/Nketiah/Smith-Rowe

Our squad has a lot of decent depth in CM, but really lack fullbacks and winger options.

 

 

I wouldn't mind trying to move one of our young wingers back into a left back spot similar to what was done with Ashley Cole.

[UKTexans]

Sounds like Ramsey is leaving on a free at the end of the season.

A very talented player but very inconsistent. Admittedly injuries are the forebearer of poor form.

How has he performed under Emery so far?

[Dr LBC]

6 hours ago, UKTexans said:

Sounds like Ramsey is leaving on a free at the end of the season.

A very talented player but very inconsistent. Admittedly injuries are the forebearer of poor form.

How has he performed under Emery so far?

Not very impressive and that he's been (justifiably so, given the nature of his contract but this is also something that's pretty standard-fare for Aaron) selfish - has a bad habit of playing higher than the forward(s) when he's supposed to be in a box-to-box role, does his damnedest to avoid carrying the ball (largely because...), looks far more often to be played into the channel to go for the gusto than to continue a string of passes or play one of the forwards on.

Word has been that it was Gadzidis that tabled the big contract offer to him and (this is still iffy, but it's definitely plausible) that Emery determined that for the amount of that contract the club could get a replacement player that fits his (Emery) system better than Aaron Ramsey does.  And if that's the case, I'm actually alright with it; it's a level of taking charge of contracts and not letting the players dictate to management that this club has lacked for a good while.

Ramsey's a quality player but not in Emery's system, and when you've got a player who is a better fit who is younger (in need of minutes to work the kinks/mistakes that come with youth out of his game), and who appears to buy more into the "we-over-I" mentality of the side now - referring to Guendouzi here - my only real regret with Ramsey is that we didn't sell him in the summer (though if that was selling to a direct in-league rival that wasn't City - who are already overpowered - I understand the line of thinking there as well).

[rcon14]

On 9/28/2018 at 4:45 PM, The LBC said:

Not very impressive and that he's been (justifiably so, given the nature of his contract but this is also something that's pretty standard-fare for Aaron) selfish - has a bad habit of playing higher than the forward(s) when he's supposed to be in a box-to-box role, does his damnedest to avoid carrying the ball (largely because...), looks far more often to be played into the channel to go for the gusto than to continue a string of passes or play one of the forwards on.

Word has been that it was Gadzidis that tabled the big contract offer to him and (this is still iffy, but it's definitely plausible) that Emery determined that for the amount of that contract the club could get a replacement player that fits his (Emery) system better than Aaron Ramsey does.  And if that's the case, I'm actually alright with it; it's a level of taking charge of contracts and not letting the players dictate to management that this club has lacked for a good while.

Ramsey's a quality player but not in Emery's system, and when you've got a player who is a better fit who is younger (in need of minutes to work the kinks/mistakes that come with youth out of his game), and who appears to buy more into the "we-over-I" mentality of the side now - referring to Guendouzi here - my only real regret with Ramsey is that we didn't sell him in the summer (though if that was selling to a direct in-league rival that wasn't City - who are already overpowered - I understand the line of thinking there as well).

If City wanted Ramsey for a significant amount, I would have been fine moving him to City. Arsenal are not competing with City in the next couple years (the years in which Ramsey would be productive), so it's not really like it's working against you.