Morning all.
Kev left this comment late yesterday evening:
Aaron Ramsey still unresolved?
Reiss Nelson still unresolved? (The Sun reckon that’s about to change with him signing a new long term deal)
Carl Jenkins is still not sorted?
David Ospina still faffing about?
Joel Campbell, where is he, let alone is he staying or going?
Perez wants to stay, first he wants a move to Sporting, then he wants to stay and now he wants a West Ham move. Make up your mind!
Welbeck has finally come back off of holiday and no decision has been made about him yet?
Gazidis, well is he staying or is he going?It’s all a bit Wengerish isn’t it…?
Talk about back to reality with a big fat bang. Should we be concerned that things are being left to drag on as they have with the players listed above, or bearing in mind we’ve already made a number of signings, selling those above is just a sign of the club getting things the right way around for a change?
We can debate that in the comments.
Just as we can in relation to the news which broke this morning about Stan Kroenke making Alisher Usmanov an offer for his shares so he’ll become the sole owner of Arsenal Football Club. Apart from the odd share here and there anyway:
In the statement to the stock exchange:
‘KSE were “moving forward with this offer, leading to 100% ownership of the club” and they “appreciate Mr Usmanov’s dedication” to Arsenal. The statement added: “KSE’s ambitions for the club are to see it competing consistently to win the Premier League and the Champions League, as well as the major trophies in the women’s senior game and at youth level.”
KSE said that under “its stewardship since 2011 the club has invested in major transfers, player contracts, analytics, senior non-playing football management employees” and it “expects the club to build on those investments”.
Kroenke will be raising the capital to take control of the club with £45m of his own money and borrowing £557m, which he says will not be against the club.
“The offer is not being funded by way of any debt finance (bank loans, payment in kind loans or other debt or quasi debt interest bearing obligations) for which the payment of interest on, repayment of, or security for any liability (contingent or otherwise) will depend on the business of Arsenal,” said the statement.
All foreign to me I’m afraid so I’ve got a lot of reading to do. I want to find out what this sale means for the club, the fans and of course, the future so on this news, I can’t make much of a contribution towards it as far as an opinion goes. Having read many of the headlines on NN though, I feel this move isn’t necessarily a good one.
See you in the comments guys.
Good Morning to The Lady of the House and all fellow Gooners.
Rico – It means that Stan or his company KSE are assuming the liability of financing the takeover. It is not a leveraged buyout like the Glazers did when they bought ManUre (i.e. the cost of the buyout became a debt on ManUre’s books, not a personal debt of the Glazers or one of their other companies).
However, once the takeover is completed Stan can do as he likes. As the club will be a private company, he no longer will have to publish a statement of the club’s accounts or hold an Annual General Meeting. He can also declare the club pay him dividends, if he so chooses.
Good morning Rico, good, bad or indifferent the Kroenke buy-out news is beyond us (the fans) to have any influence on it.
I read this morning that Arsenal have invited offers for Welbeck. Not sure if he’s returned from holiday yet, but he may find his locker has been cleared out when he does. Could we swap him for Rashford or Martial?
Morning Rico and all am not overly concerned about kroenke taken over. We sold our souls to the devil the day nina bracewell and Keith Edelman brought that moustache wearing twat into the arsenal. We ‘re doomed from the onset but look at it this way since 2016 we ve spent over 450m on players. Heck just last year alone we blew 120m on 2 center forwards. With gazidis leaving and Josh taking over I think we ‘ll be in a better position. I have listened to Josh when he speaks about arsenal. Think he’s not just an” owner’s son” he’s also a fan. This was the same guy that wanted titi to take over from big wengz. It ‘ll be better to have a direct route and access to syrup via his son than anybody else. I think we are all going overboard for nothing. The club stagnated way before stan became majority shareholder. The invincibles were broken apart too soon. Paddy v went to juve, kanu and Lauren left for pompey,and edu went to celta vigo etc. That was in 2005/06 way before stan kroenke’s involvement with the arsenal. Am not worried Wenger kept us stagnated. He’s long gone and I expect us to do well henceforth. Expect a club record fee for dembele soon. Come on you gunners ☺
Morning Cg, I got the bit about how he’s funding the purchase of shares, I kind of meant what it means for the future of Arsenal FC. I guess we’ll have to see what he says once the sale goes through.
As Kev said on the last post though, Kroenke is no fool, neither is his son so they must understand what the club means to the fans and what owning the club means for him and his company.
Once Kroenke has full control, he can register Arsenal FC in Delaware, where there is no State Corporation Tax for companies registered there but not trading there.
As to Usmanov, I guess he just got fed up with having a ton of money tied up in shares that were effectively valueless, he also knew Kroenke would never sell out to him. £800 odd million worth of good reasons to sell.
Ciao Alisher!
Morning Cicero, Goonie.
Nice thought about Welbeck, however… 😉
Good point about Josh Goonie, he wanted Wenger gone a while back, if he gets the CEO job, maybe all won’t be as bad as first thought. Who knows really..
Your 11.06 is spot on ma’am. He’s surely no mug.
Hahahahah as soon as I typed expect a world record fee for dembele here comes metro publishing a story about us bidding 89m for dembouz🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂 you can’t make this stuff up.
Rico – My apologies, I misunderstood you. However, as far as what it means and where the club goes from here, it is all up to Stan or his delegate(s). Stan is driving the bus and we are all passengers on a ‘mystery tour’. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Hi Stan, how’s it hanging?
The Metro is owned by those nice people who own the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, so basically it’s full of shit….
Don’t forget the Rwanda smear job!
As for London.Football, that is basically a click bait site run by the Daily Mirror, they periodically repeat the same headlines, you know ‘Emery’s starting XI vs Man City’ or ‘5 players Arsenal must sell’ or ‘5 players Arsenal must buy’ shit like that.
Give them a swerve Stan…
Fear mongering? You’ll have to judge for yourselves;
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/arsenal-supporters-trust-kroenke-takeover-14998614
No need to apologise Cg, I didn’t make myself very clear in the post..
Rico, the Welbeck situation is a joke, surely the club knew whether he was gonna be made available for transfer or not whilst he was on holiday. Surely they made Welbecks representatives aware of this, so I cannot believe Welbeck has just been told…
If he has then that is poor, but that leaves the best part of three days to move him on.
Looks like we’re going with just Aubameyang, Lacazette and Nketiah, unless the club have a nice surprise for us – Rico… 😉
Fear mongering I’d say Cg.
Well said Kev, all a pile of poop.
CG, all Football.London do is read the blogs and get a feel for how the fans feel, they never report anything original, it’s all made up or recycled fake news.
Rico, NewNow is going to be a shit storm today of lies, made up news, fake news, recycled shit, all from the usual suspects.
Funny how none of these wankers reported anything in advance of the Usmanov news coming out, that’s because they know feck all.
I won’t believe anything until Cocker tells me…. 😀😉
I’m with you re Welbeck, with all of them actually. Emery said he’d done extensive research on all the players so I suspect he’d made their situation clear to the transfer team.
The Ramsey thing is just a joke..
Dembele Kev, Dembele… 😉
🙂 Kev.
Just think of all the money they’ll earn though on the back of the rumours/rubbish.. 😉
I know Rico, all these adverts, it’s shameless. 😀
Kev – How is it driving cab in a heat wave?
The same statement from the AST has been posted on numerous websites.
As for Wellbeck, I’m with you. If they definitely wanted to move him on I think the club would have contacted him or his representative(s) long before now. It would leave us a bit light up front and Welbs is a versatile forward. That’s not to say that they wouldn’t sell if a team made a big offer.
Kev – The financial press were reporting that Usmanov was looking for a buyer days ago.
Your all too right about NewsNow. It’s handy for scanning for headlines, but so many of the articles are just quoting or recycling articles from other sources.
You wouldn’t catch me doing it Kev.. 😉
CG the whole world is warming up, you’ll be growing oranges and peaches in the NW Territories soon.
I’ve not read the AST statement yet, but a full Kroenke takeover will make them defunct I guess as Enos will hoover up their shares, so it could explain why they’re pissed off – I assume they’re pissed off…
The AST don’t really carry any weight do they CG, only the fans staying away, as was the case last season, have any impact on these billionaires and their investments.
I trust your integrity completely Rico… 😃
It’s not a surprise is it CG, as you said it’s been leaked for a couple of days, but there’s very little we can do about it, Arsenal are just a rich mans plaything, Arsenal FC are defunct, we’re just like a KFC now….
Do you ever watch Cardinal, it’s quite good?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/08/07/stan-kroenke-qa-does-takeover-mean-arsenal/
Good to know Kev. 🙂
Ak am familiar with their work 😂I just have the impression that maybe they browse the arsenal blogosphere and maybe an ardent ready of highbury house. They probably stumbled upon my comment and then a headline dembele to arsenal for 89m. 😂😂😂😂
Rico, the deal for Dembele could be linked to Barcelona getting Pogba because if we had £92m to spend on Lemar a year ago, it’s not improbable that we could get Dembele?
Man Utd need funds to sign defenders.
Kev – KFC? That usually gives me indigestion, but it is true the club have just become another commodity. Hopefully Stan treats it with respect.
I don’t know about growing oranges in the NWT, but I’m glad my province had the foresight to put most of the best farmland into an Agricultural Land Reserve. More and more people here are buying local produce, More so since the arrogant, bombastic, ignorant, narcissistic, vindictive buffoon south of the border started to bully and threaten Canada over trade.
These last few years I’ve grown the old Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times”.
P.S. Mr. Trump would not be happy with your alternate facts about climate change.
Stan, I think you could well be the source of all these rampant NewsNow exclusives…. 😄
Gee Twitter is awash with all kinds of negative tweets. You ‘ll think it’s the end of the world. Everyone needs to calm their tits down. I remember he witnessed firsthand how volatile the emirates could be if things don’t go right. What we should do is just watch what he does this season then make the emirates a ghost town all over again. Hit him where it hurts. His pocket. No one likes to lose money not even billionaires. He ‘ll sell out in a flash if we all come together and don’t buy no merchandise, don’t go to the games and just generally boycott the whole club. Trust me he won’t want to risk the wrath of a unified fan base. In the past we had AKBs and WOBs now he ‘ll just have arsenal fans all howling for him to leave. Nah we ‘ll be fine ladies and gentlemen.
That should be “These last few years I’ve grown to appreciate the old Chinese curse”.
Anyway, the sun will be up soon. So, I’m off to bed. Have a great day everyone.
Tbh CG, it shouldn’t be much of job to make a country like Canada purely self sufficient in everything, in fact what do you really from the US anyway?
Coca Cola?
McDonalds?
Hersey Bars?
Cocaine?
Guns?
The Mafia?
Ak you know me😁😁😁😁 I love a story.
But wasn’t the Lemar offer based on getting £60m for Alexis Kev?
I’d love Utd to lose Pogba and we get Dembele off the back of it..
Stan, your our very own newshound. 😃
Kev – Spot on! Drugs, guns and an seemingly endless supply of bovine excrement.
Stay cool.
Night Cg, sleep well and don’t going dreaming of Stan and Josh.. 🙂
True Rico, maybe the Dembele deal is based of getting £40m for Ramsey?
Night CG, dream of the great outdoors.
Kev the uproar we ‘re presently witnessing could be a blessing in disguise. Hey who knows we might just wake up with dembele modric and koulibaly draped in the arsenal attire. I think they ‘ll want to appease the fan base with a marquee signing. This is happening too fast and so close to the window. If I didn’t know any better I ‘ll say it was planned all along.
And a few pounds from the other sales too Kev, it all adds up.
I’ll be glad when 5pm Thursday arrives…
Goonster
Adamant 😁😁😁😁 how are you sir?? Peeved too huh??? What’s your take on the usmanov selling out??
Stan. We’re ok mate and hope that you and the family are too. I can see it makes sense from Kroenke’s point of view and I doubt he’s doing it so he can run it into the ground as some silly people would suggest. It’s a big business that will depend on success on the pitch, like other clubs. Personally, I can’t say I’m that bothered but then I am an unrefined soul who cannot see the nuances that may spring from it. I am more concerned with assembling a squad strong enough to compete this year – and the transfer deadline is approaching fast.
Adam a wordsmith 😍😍😍😍 you be got too much suave Adam. Proud to call you friend.
Why, thank you Stan. Very kind of you and you know I have always had a soft-spot for the Dutch, especially since I visited Arnhem and crossed the John Frost Bridge. 🙂
I’ll be looking up your sister in October too. In Amsterdam.
Yes Stan I can back you up on that, Mr Adam is very suave indeed, in fact he is well known among the suave circles of Kensington, Chelsea, Holland Park, Homerton and Mile End.
Pass me a bucket….. 😜😜
Let’s not forget, a few years ago it was Usmanov calling for the club to pay dividends to share holders and it was Kroenke who refused.
So far Kroenke has only taken a few million in administration fees out of the club. Wenger wasted far more than that by paying wages to the deadwood in his squad. Kroenke has always stated that he’s in for the long haul, he has never sold a single share in any of his other sports franchises and has stated that Arsenal FC will not bear the cost of financing the buy out.
Okay, it’s likely that there will be no more AGMs, but did they ever produce anything but a considerable amount of hot air anyway?
We have no choice but to sit tight and wait and see what happens. In the meantime it might be an idea for the various blogs to get together as a way of representing the fans in a united front to question the board, raise issues with it and, if necessary, coordinate protests when of if things happen that could harm the club.
Our AGM’s have been a joke, embarrassing actually and no other club goes through anything like that.
All they’ve done is feed the media more ammunition…
Rico. They’ve given a few bloggers the chance to shout their disapproval though. To little effect.
Very true Adam…
Has anyone visited the micro site on arsenal.com under the heading KSE Update?
The conditions of entry seem pretty daunting.
I may look at it later when I have more time
I did Cicero, one look and left. Not sure what that’s all about…
Evening all and thanks Adonis Kev.
A dark day in the history of Arsenal Football Club, which is now dead ! RIP Arsenal.
Killed by Kroenke and if you boys and girl think KSE FC will be any good then look at KSE`s other sports clubs ! not exactly spending a lot of money on Brasso are they !
The Chuckle Brothers for a defence and The Krankies, please let me wake up and it was all a bad dream !
If Krankie has any ambition for his new toy then after many years of not investing a dime in the team and maybe part of that was because he didn`t own all of the business formerly known as AFC, then as full owner of KSE FC he surely can now invest his own money in the team ! sounds reasonable doesn`t it.I shall now hold my breath as I wait for him to invest his own money in his own team !obviously I`m now going to die, so I`ll just say thanks for lettting me air my views on this subject, Rico, it`s all going dizzy and dark.I shall haunt you Krankie oh ! and the biggest irony of the transfer window is that Krankie spent the most money £600M ? and we sorry him.didn`t get any any more players.
I’ve snuffed it.
Good luck with holding your breath Lc. 😜
Chelsea are in talks for Kepa, £71m – he’s meant to be good isn’t he?
That’s Courtois gone then…
Booo !……………………..After dying from holding my breath I can only post by holding a seance with Rico !
My spiritual thought`s…………………………..
Never heard of Kepa until you posted that Rico !
Cocker, I have heard that the LA Rams are favourites to reach the Super Bowl, I kid you not.
Also his basketball team are playing really well, so maybe the input of Josh is having a positive effect.
I just hope that all this negativity surrounding Kroenke, doesn’t impact on the team this weekend as Emery is going to need the whole stadium behind our boys when we take on City.
Maybe a good signing or two over the next couple of days will help the mood?
Rico, how much do Chelsea expect to get for Courtois from Real Madrid..?
The Chavs might make a profit on the deal.
Is that right, Willian is staying at the Bridge?
It’s been* reported that Arsenal are close to a £60m per season, 5 year deal with Adidas for our kit.
That’s double the £30m we got from Puma.
Morning Kev, all.
It’ll be sad, annoying even if the negativity surround Kroenke becomes an issue on Sunday. Him buying out Usmanov has nothing to do with Emery, the coaching staff or the players and at the end of the day, they are the club, as are we fans.
Kroenke will buy the shares regardless and he’s here for a long long time yet imo so personally, I think it’s best to see how things go before getting too worked up about in. As many have said, the day all this takeover stuff began, the club as we knew it started to change, just as so many others have since the big money and overseas ownerships came into the game.
We’ll probably never be a club which spends like City, Chelsea, Utd etc etc, but we’ll never be a club in fear of collapse or FFP either.
As you, Adam etc have said, the Kroenke family are no fools. Who knows, under his sole ownership, with the changes he’s overseen and no doubt sanctioned one way or another and with the knowledge that anything other than a competitive team on the pitch will see the poop flung 100% his way, Arsenal might just be on the rise.
I know I’d rather think that way than wallow in all the negativity which seems to be floating around on the Internet.
Hope all that makes sense, it did in my head as I was typing… 😜
I’d imagine around £80-90 million re Courtois Kev, much of which they’ve already spent on Kepa, and yes, William is staying put. I hope Hazard moves though…
Morning Rico. I think you’re right. Kroenke is doing what billionaires do so there’s no surprise there. Usmanov had adopted the role of potential saviour, waiting in the wings when the evil Stan had been driven from the club by the fans and those that had the good sense to invest in a few shares. Putin’s UK escapades ended that dream, or could it have been a nightmare?
Everything, including football, is changing around us and it’s all very disconcerting. From Brexit to the awful political situation in this country, there seems very little that feels like solid ground beneath our feet.
If the Kroenke family don’t preside over a serious resurgence in Arsenal’s fortunes and it’s perceived that they are failing, then the fans always have the option of emptying the stadium and putting pressure on, as they did with Wenger. I imagine it’ll be more effective than a few shareholders asking questions at the AGM.
There’s a lot to be said for success on the pitch, even for a multi-billionaire like Stan.
Morning Adam. My thoughts too, although you made more sense than my comment did. 🤣
Rico. Well it is a bit cooler this morning. 🙂
It is Adam, not much though. 🌞
On the surface nothing much changes as Kroenke has called the shots for a long time now. It’s all in the background where things might happen . 100% sole ownership has changed the dynamic completely, there will be no checks and balances. Kroenke rejected paying dividends at first no doubt to keep Usmanov at bay but now ? we will never know . He says that the debt will not be levered against the club , easy to say but in the future he can take a player purchase to his Colorado ranch a season behind the closed doors.
I understand the argument that he will need to keep competitive but in terms of success that means qualifying for CL rather than winning it.
According to the mail over the last 6 years we are the third highest spenders which means we have underachieved if you take spend to finish as a yardstick inevitably we need to see improvement from Emery or else he will be gone. I just hope that KSE’s ambition doesn’t stop at just getting back into the top money earners.
Leicester are hoping to sign Soyuncu, I thought we were after him?
But wasn’t it Arsene Wenger only who brought in the ‘Champions League place being like a trophy’ saying? Competitive to me means competing in and winning for every competition we are in. Surely that’s Emery’s interpretation too?
New post up now.