Arsenal fans fail to get answers

It was the sneer that said it all. “Thank you for your interest in our concerns,” said Peter Hill-Wood, the Arsenal chairman, as the club’s stormy AGM ended in typically fractious circumstances.

The point Hill-Wood had so spectacularly failed to register was that he was speaking to the club’s shareholders, people to whom it very much was ‘their concern’.

They had wanted answers from Arsenal’s secretive majority shareholder, ‘Silent’ Stan Kroenke. They had demanded that Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive, explain why the supporters pay the highest ticket prices in England without a trophy in seven years. And they had called for clarification on why the club has around €62m to spend but allowed Robin van Persie, their captain and top scorer, to join Manchester United last month. They left sorely disappointed.