Morning Gooners,

We read all the time in the press about our barren run of what is it now, 7 years without a trophyย and it washes over most Gooners heads but when you actually dwell on the subject you really have to ask why this is happening at a club who run the business so well and tell us that we should be the blueprint of how other clubs should be run.ย We disclose our profits every year and yes they are substantial.

Arsenal haveย recentlyย entered the Asian market in order to promote our fine club and reports suggest that the Asian community have taken a liking for Arsenal, whyย Iย cannot possibly comprehend, because all they see right now is us losing or drawing. So what makes us so popular out in Asia when we struggle to win our fixtures and haven’t managed to get our hands on any silverware for seven years?

Arsenal FC ย may well be a financially well run club, some would say a successful club, but how many supporters really care how many millions we have made throughout the financial year? All that does is show us that money should have been available for the transfer window and as we all know, we do not spend our like a club that is successful.

Football teams and football clubs are two separate things, high finance people are employed to run the business side while for the team we have a head coach who is responsible for the footballing side of things.. Looking at the two sides of the club you have to agree that the business men are winning hands down and Arsene Wenger and his team are flagging a long way behind.

Many supporters believe that funds are being held back by the business side to make their figures look so good at the end of the year but Wenger and his team also make money for the club. The sale of players at their peak has been common at Arsenal and vast amounts of money has been paid to the club for them. This all sounds rosy as far as making money for Arsenal FC but for the supporter who pays the highest prices for his tickets, it’s not a very good return.

Stan Kroenke often comes under fire from the supporters, they seem to think that he is all about making money and filling his pockets after the profits have been released. Many believe that if we had Alisher Usmanov, our second major shareholder, in charge things would change and more money would be released for transfers, but that is only speculation.

Mr Usmanov has stated that more money would become available if he were in charge, he has also offered some of his own money for a place on the Arsenal board but are his intentions for the better of the team or for sole purpose of heading up the Arsenal ladder of hierarchy?

I for one believe that at this moment in time, Kroenke has a good record of running Arsenal as aย successfulย club. Since he has been at the helm we have moved from Highbury to The Emirates which is a step forward and I all the time we are recording profits each year so why should we even consider Mr Usmanov?

Mr Usmanov is a very wealthy man, he’s estimated to be worth in excess of 12 billion pounds which is a huge sum of money but should he ever ‘own’ our club, how can we be sure that he would spend any of that vast amount on bettering what we have at the moment?

If Mr Usmanov was to donate some of his vast wealth for the better of the team without any strings I might feel differently, but at the moment Mr Usmanov would only part with money for favours, so this does not bode well with me. I personally would like see a ‘donation’ made with no strings from Mr Usmanov as a way of making the team more successful and in doing so, make the shares he holds moreย beneficialย to him. But at present Kroenke holds all the keys and Mr Usmanov seems not to be in his plans.

Back to the ‘team side’ of the club and the running of it by Manager Arsene Wenger.

Now this is far fromย successful,ย  no silverware for 7 years but we have qualified for the Champions League status since it began which in itself makes in excess of 30 million a year butย Iย can only see that asย beneficialย to the business side as the money is not used for making the squad stronger.

How can I say that, you may ask. We really only spend within the barriers of what we have sold.

A ยฃ30 million ย signing is never going to happen at Arsenal, 30 bob is more our limit.

So why do we not purchase top players, after all the club can afford one at this price every year, but we never deal in amounts like this and this is why we haven’t added trophies to our name.

Arsene Wenger seems quite happy to carry on managing things as he does and he is not being pressurised by the business side of our club to beย successful, in fact what he doesn’t spend goes into the kitty so why would they want to change a profitable system.

That is my ย is my view of the way things are in the club and I can only see things changing when we fail to qualify for Champions League and although it hurts me to say it, that could happen this season.

Arsene Wenger has a chance to change our season as the January transfer window approaches. He could sign 2/3 players who are much-needed, but I suspect that the business side have already calculated our profits for this term soย maybe, andย as usual, we could see just a couple of cheap players arrive, if any!

Some good news ahead of the NLD, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott,ย Szczesny and Gibbs should all recover from injuryย in time to be in the squad forย Saturday. Added to that of course is the return of Wilshere after serving his one match ban.

All we need now is Diaby and Rosicky to get fit.

Why the German camp felt it necessary ย to play Mertesacker for 90 minutes last night I’ll never know…..

Written by Steve Palmer