Henry, Rosicky, Arsene – Will The Last One Out Of The Building Turn Off The Lights?

Sunday is the day for all the fantasy transfers to be contained in one bitesize chunk for the week. As per usual, Henry is off to Barcelona according to everyone for £20m. This represents an interesting exercise in Transfer Market Inflation; ten days ago, he was worth £15m, then £17m, now £20m so by the time Arsene sits back at his desk the value should be about £25m. Unless of course, it is complete crap in which case he is worth 30 goals next season as we storm the Premiership and Champions League, undefeated. Don’t snap my head off for making outlandish predictions, it’s Fantasy Football after all. On which subject, The People continues its campaign to bring you only the truth which this week sees Tomas Rosicky off to Atletico because Arsene’s future is uncertain, which seems to be the basis of all reports of a mass exodus from The Emirates.

To upset all those who believe we need experience, Kyle Bartley has apparently been signed from Bolton Wanderers with a fee to be decided by a tribunal. The massively experienced England Centre Half belies his tender sixteen years of age and represents a new wave of English players at the Club.

A thought popped into my head yesterday and got bored, so it went down the pub instead. However, faint traces of it remain and it concerns AW’s future. The first thing is that there is a strong indication that he will renew his contract at the end of the season and that is the appointment of a Director of Football. It has gone a bit quiet on that front but more than anything that is to do with his holiday. However, it was widely assumed that he would ‘move upstairs‘ in the near future to take on that sort of role. When someone else is appointed, that kind of blocks that route. After all, there seem to be all sorts of conflicts potentially arising if AW sits on the Board alongside a DoF, who would prevail in a disagreement over policy, for example.

Perhaps a more important consideration of this would be what I will term ‘Arsene’s shadow‘. Currently, there is no-one at the Club who could take over the reigns from AW when he left. It could be that someone like Bould is being groomed for such a transition but fundamentally, no-one has experience of successfully running a big club. Brady and Rice both held managerial reigns in the past but Celtic and Watford were hardly resounding successful during their tenures. That means an outsider would have to come in. That person would need to be a strong personality with clear ideas of how things should be done; how would AW react to that if they were not the same as his own? Not that I think this to be a problem that we will face for several seasons yet.

Looking back over the last forty years, I cannot think of one successful Club who have promoted from within and had an ex-manager on the Board. When Busby left the manager role at Old Trafford to move upstairs, McGuiness and Farrell both complained of being in his shadow. Liverpool promoted from within but Shankly, Paisley and Fagan all left the Club when their successors took over the reigns.

Which brings us full circle to how this ‘mess’ originally started. DD is being linked with a Director’s role at Newcastle if Mike Ashley takes over at Newcastle although if the press are to be believed, Freddie Shepherd does not want to sell to him. However, DD would feel right at home, being at odds with a Chairman although the difference this time would be that the major shareholder does not want his head on a platter. Still, it shows how little is happening in the World of Premiership Football if the tabloids think this is a major piece of gossip.

’til Tomorrow.