The bushes were hacked back successfully yesterday and it’s amazing how true to the current situation at Arsenal they were. Marca and El Mundo Deportivo turned out to weeds, parasites taking over the beauty of Mother Nature; Henry was stubborn but just needs some TLC before blossoming in full again whilst Dein was left on his own in the wilderness once all the others had been taken care of.
Today was going to be about the fixtures, ‘the first cuckoo of Spring’ - the time when you realise the new season isn’t that far away. They are out at 10am (GMT) and will be on official website and just about everywhere within a nanosecond of being published. My preference would be something like Liverpool, Chelsea, Man United, Spurs the first four games of the season and then the first games in January. Why? It leaves time to recover points in the remaining thirty games but that will probably be our run in…
Keith Edelman has told the Daily Star that the Club are willing to utilise the £40m facility to buy players in order to remain competitive,
A football club should not borrow to buy players. However, if you are building a fixed asset - such as our stadium - which produces a positive return after you have paid back the debt, then this a sensible approach. The reason we have a trading facility was because we would be disadvantaged without it if we wanted to sign players. We were concerned that with our debt, clubs would not take our credit. This facility allows us to cover the fact we may have to give a letter of credit to back up second and third year paymemts to guarantee payment
The timing of these comments leaves a lot to be desired and in many respects they are unnecessary. I had assumed that the Club would be delving into this ‘kitty’ to fund the transfer fees required to purchase the players, unless of course they happen to sell someone for sufficient incoming funds to cover the outgoings. In this I was obviously wrong. What I fail to understand is the last couple of sentences. Have the Club genuinely been knocked back on transfer deals because of fears that they would ‘welch’ on those fees? If so, who, what, where, when and why do any other clubs believe that to be the case? Or is this just the Board’s doublespeak for providing a rationale for accessing these funds? Are they a prelude to a transfer splurge? I just do not see the necessity for Edelman to have said that. For a Club that do not comment very often on their commercial dealings, even the requirement of their public listing would not have required such a statement, especially not one so ‘negative’. Edelman is trying to put a positive spin on the use of the facility but all he has done is confirmed the belief that right at this moment in time, the Club is a bit hard-up, its money tied up in Assets and ongoing Projects.
Of more concern though is the timing of this announcement. In the week when the Henry debacle has hit third gear, the Board have successfully made themselves look panic-striken at the thought of losing their main striker. Any comment from the Club on transfers would have looked like a sop to Henry but this one makes it look as if their collective resolve is crumbling in the face of an unsettled player. Whilst this may not be the case, perception in football determines how news is portrayed and this is a PR Own Goal by the Club. It makes Edelman look a poor leader, lacking judgement or ‘gravitas’. Surely they could have found an organ with a higher ranking that The Daily Star to run this announcement through, even though this was probably a PR mailshot? Do they not have any ‘tame’ editors who would have run this one more ‘authoritatively’? I presume it was made with the intention of reassuring the support and markets that there was no problem with funding transfers at the Club; perhaps even a warning shot across Kroenke’s bows ahead of the supposed meeting that they are having next week. Certainly from that point of view, the timing is a little awry - put a story like this in the public domain at the start of next week if that is the case.
Unfortunately, I come back to the nagging thought that this was intended to quell any dissension from within and without about the apparent lack of transfer dealings so far. That there are another two and half months to go before the transfer window closes should mean that no-one panics over inactivity. In the world of Football, at this time of year, media is the God that is worshipped. There is a constant trickle of negative PR about the Club at the moment, the Board not showing a firm control of the situation and the PR department definitely on the back foot. As Laurel and Hardy said, “That’s another fine mess you’ve got me into“.
’til Tomorrow.
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