No new faces as Le Prof still keeps the faith
Mind you that’s a misnomer nowadays considering the tender average age of our current reserves.
While other managers were busy studying YouTube videos of the few remaining mercenaries left on the market, our glorious leader was sitting in the stands at Underhill, maintaining a keen interest in the progress of his young prodigies, against a Chelsea reserve side that included Didier Drogba.
Yet in contrast to the current trend at most other top-flight clubs, ever since the departure of David Dein, the Gunners have been without the matching shirt & tie set, to conduct all the behind closed doors negotiations.
Thus it’s obvious that unless Arsène is at his desk (or at least on the blower), the Arsenal aren’t doing any transfer business.
It’s true that I might continue to covet a truly world class keeper and I might’ve been happier if our midfield had been fortified with an experienced enforcer (or two). Nevertheless I wasn’t disappointed and felt an inexplicable amount of hubris, as the club I love maintained a dignified distance from the shenanigans that have rocked football to its very foundations these past couple of weeks.
I might feel different if I’d suffered the ignominy of being a long-suffering supporter of an outfit that’s lived in the shadow of its neighbour for nearly 50 years (City or Spurs?), or who’ve spent almost an entire lifetime hankering after a slice of the glory. However I was listening to radio host Danny Kelly drawing some interesting conclusions the other day.
The bombastic bearded old goat, Ken Bates drove Chelsea so close to financial ruin, in his vain pursuit of a lasting legacy, that he was forced to flog the club for £1. Similarly, allegedly the Arsenal-supporting billionaire from Abu Dhabi focused his attention on Man City, a club fraught with financial trouble after Thaksin’s somewhat dubious fortune was impounded by the Thai government. Therefore according to Kelly, the moral of the story appears that in order to make oneself more attractive (than a relatively sound organisation like the Arsenal) to a sugar-daddy with bottomless pockets, clubs would be best advised to recklessly spend to the point of oblivion. As Uzbek oligarch Usmanov has discovered, the depth of ones pockets doesn’t make buying Arsenal any easier, with so many of the club shares in private hands. What’s more, I for one am quite happy the Arsenal are so reluctant to sell their soul but whatever your feelings about a billionaire backer, we Gooners can forget it in the immediate future, as our club would appear to be guaranteed a relatively stable short-term destiny, by nature of the lockdown agreement between all of our major shareholders, preventing them selling their interest to outside investors until 2012.
David Dein’s oft-quoted metaphor about the Russians parking their tanks on the lawn and firing £50 notes at us, seems ever more appropriate. I’m fairly certain that Arsène would’ve added to our squad if he’d been able to do the deals he wanted, to offer cover to ensure he isn’t forced into throwing inexperienced youngsters to the lions in any crunch games. Yet if one thing is certain, our manager is nobody’s fool and if he’s flying in the face of every pundit on the planet, I’ve got to believe he has good reason. Steve Bould believes there are 7 or 8 kids amongst his current Academy crop, capable of making the grade.
It seems evident to me Arsène has sufficient faith in an exciting vintage of homegrown produce that he’s convinced they can deliver.
Should le Prof be proved correct, our success will taste all the sweeter. And even if we fail, aside from all the entertainment we are guaranteed along the way, we’ll be safe in the knowledge the gaffer’s determination to play the long game is destined to foster a team spirit that might reward us with a successful dynasty, instead of putting all the club’s eggs into a single, increasingly elusive silver pot.
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