What a funny old world it is.
Josh Kroenke, son of the famously silent owner of Arsenal has given an interesting interview about the club.
It contains more words about Arsenal than his old man has managed in public in the last 10 years. And that’s only in the first paragraph.
Anyway, I’ll ‘bullet point’ a few of the things he’s said. It would be good to see what AA-ers think about the fact of the interview and about its content.
- Josh says our dismal effort in the Europa League final last season led to ‘aggressive’ methods in this summer’s transfer market.
- A major concern was that being out of the Champions League places would reduce our appeal to world class talents.
- Josh says: “As the second half of the match unfolded, understanding the position we were in and some of the targets as we headed into the summer from a transfer standpoint, we had to rethink some of our strategy based on that last 45 minutes. We knew we wouldn’t have Champions League football and that’s what those type of talents are after. My main message to Vinai [Venkatesham, managing director] and Raul [Sanllehi, head of football] coming back from Baku on the plane and then throughout meetings all day the following day with them and Unai [Emery, head coach], was: ‘Let’s be aggressive and find out what’s possible’.”
- He also hints that the Kroenkes may have injected money into the club this summer: “I’m not going to go into too much detail – people can read between the lines of being aggressive and what that might mean. It’s going to be a private matter for us here at the club, but I hope our fans understand that by being aggressive that’s exactly what we were”.
- He says the “aggressive” policy was NOT prompted by fan discontent.
- He says we will be “proactive again” in the January window.
Over to you…
RockyLives
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
He is saying all the right things, Rocky.
How much is hoop-la, and how much is honest word remains to be seen.
This summer was excellent transfer business, but if the rumours are true, payment has been spread over 4 or 5 years — makes me think the transfer fund might still be tight for those years,
Thanks Rocky, its about time we gave the Kroenke’s some recognition I feel. Josh (and Stan) were subjected to some unfair (as it turned out) criticism when some journalist or hack invented the £45m story.
Even if it turns out we only spent £45m in terms of down payments, surely we all agree that our transfer window business was spectacular – viewed by many as the best of all the EPL clubs.
What we know and have always known in the EPL era is that transfer dealings are always smoke and mirrors with the Arsenal … who foresaw the signing of Campbell or Ozil?
I doubt we will never know what happened to our transfer and contracts policy during Arsene’s latter years … my feeling is that Gazidis should take much of the blame, and that losing his services is one of the big plusses of recent years.
I think we supporters should learn from this summer and just be patient and trust the owners and executives to get it right until we’re proved wrong.
Thanks Redders
By far the most significant part of the interview (to my mind) is the heavy hint that the Kroenkes pumped some of their own money in to boost the squad.
Is this a departure from the ‘living within our means/balancing the books approach’?
Or has the extra cash been raised through loans taken out by the club?
If only we knew some qualified accountants who could hazard a guess…
Rasp
I also wonder if Josh K has been around the club long enough now that (a) he is starting to really care and (b) he is starting to like (maybe even love?) footy…
… that’s certainly the impression he’s giving Rocky. I know I’m getting carried away, and inevitably this season will have its highs and lows. So far, very good! I believe UE has been given a 3 year contract. I like what I’m seeing from him so it he continues in this vein, I hope he will be offered an extension.
What we know is inaccurate, Rocky is that he said the Club” have set their sights on winning the title”…this season. As papers and pundits have decided to say yesterday and today. That is as accurate as saying Arsenal are a “million miles away” from challenging Shitty, Liverpool, and Totteringham for the top spot!!
As stated many times before, be patient, be realistic, give Dick 3/4 transfer windows, back the Club and in the meantime….enjoy, whenever you can!
I must admit, I’m beginning to warm to Josh.. he said be excited, and look how that panned out – we absolutely smashed the TW!!
News coming out of new contracts to be offered to Auba, Laca & Guendouzi.. lets hope we can tie them down! We appear to be, not only thinking of now, but also the future!!
Assuming we’ll still have some money to spend (with bumper contracts & paying in installments) imagine what the team will look like in 2 or 3 seasons!! I, for one, am very excited about now, as well as our future!
Nice cufflinks, Josh 😉
Thanks Rocky.
I am still glad that the fans groups made their statement to the Kroenkes in a reasoned way. Whether the transfer dealings we saw were always planned, or were partly the result of that official recognition of the fans not being bowled over by their tenure to date we will never know.
Frankly I don’t care for the reason why anymore. I am just happy it happened, and they surprised me, so I will doff my cap to them.
I hope this is just the start as Josh says, and I really hope that Arsenal has got under his skin and he has become a fan as well as owner. He is the heir to the throne and it would be so much nicer if we could really like him and see him to some degree as one of us.
It should be Jibbering not Jabbering….
@Rasp – my feelings entirely. They have been criticised for being passive so should get a little credit for being involved. I’m not sure if it’s a money thing because we should resign ourselves to the fact that that’s probably their main interest in Arsenal. maybe it’s more the intrigue or realisation that here you can actually buy the title instead of say the NFL where you are subject to capping. FFP is nothing relative to salary caps and draft signings.
Hopefully he’s becoming a fan but I’d imagine the conversation would have been along the lines of hey we’ve given you what you’ve asked for and the result isn’t good enough. What do you need? I think the answer would have been along the lines of a few better players to boost the squad. The response to that was likely well go see whats out there, see if you can make a few shrewd moves and if you find “the Player”, we’ll help fund him. Obviously Pepe was the player and the rest of the deals seem fairly shrewd to me.
The more Pepes arrive at the club the more I find myself warming to Josh, do that again in January my septic friend and my warmth will have turned into hot love.
Queue T Rex
Ian
As Mr T would say, enough with your jibber jabber…
jab·ber
/ˈjabər/
verb
1. talk rapidly and excitedly but with little sense.
“he jabbered away to his friends”
Hopefully Josh K is talking rapidly and excitedly with LOTS of sense…
Lol, that will learn Ian.
Haha love it, Rocky…. quit your jibber jabber!! He also said to get some nuts.. but we’ll leave that for another day 😆
As usual a very interesting post Rocky though I don’t think Baku made the decision to be ” more aggressive” as the discontent amongst the fan base and the realisation that AW, Laws and Gazidis had really messed up for a number of years was there for all to see.
Now we don’t have a majority shareholder talking frankly but in essence the owner with a new team behind them and a head coach not a manager with Edu working besides him.
A loan is feasable but if Stan had put his own money into the club it would have come out via social media or by himself.
This window has been more active than we ever thought and in all probability Elneny and Mustafi will go somewhere in Europe.
A true test awaits at Anfield and a narrow loss or a draw would show we are better equipped.If we get thrashed the doomers will be out in force.
IMO we need another good few windows to get amongst the real challengers and the fact Tierney and Bellerin are out until sometime in October still leaves us very vunerable down the flanks.
More consistency and a better Away record ant top 4 should be ours.
Fred.. Eddie scored the winner for Leeds tonight! Patrick Bamford – who’s he?! 😂
Yea now going to post it
Highlights hard to get though
Here we go again, until the they, the tightwads, actually spend some money out of their own pocket, this is all an exercise in smoke and mirrors.
After looking at the money spent, and how is was spread out over time, it is very close the the $45 mill that was bantered around.
The Arsenal are still trying to recover from multiple horrible transfer decisions, and it looks like tying up players for potential sell on value is the way forward, yet not any new money coming from the clown show.
Until the Arsenal are back in the EPL title race, and in the CL, I do not believe anything that comes out of corporate.
Aaron
Usual cheerful self! Hope you are proved wrong for everyone’s good health. COYG
Rasp I think you are right about Gazidis, much of the running of the club was his domain contrary to popular belief, and his own PR.
Onto the Kroenke’s we will see, pretty sure as you say some people have done the sums and when all is weighed up we spent about £45m net, with possibly more to come in with sales of other unnecessary players either now or in January, also in terms of wage bill we are probably net zero in terms of ins and outs.
But hell we have some exciting new prospects within the team so all good it would appear, now the question remains how do we get the best out of them as I have not been overwhelmed by the opening performances.
My only concern is that Josh specifies the second half of the Europa League final as being the defining moment, whereas for us fans I would imagine it was the seasons run in where we could and probably should given results of others secured CL automatically through the league.
I am somewhat disappointed that Rocky’s excellent Post and the mention of Jabber did not entice a reference to the Jabberwocky.
Surely even a teeny weeny bit of the Jabberwocky poem? A smidgen?
OK, I have to give a tiddily widly smatteroony of it.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Ahh – lovely. And there are so many Jabberwocks in the marbelous wirildy of ridumpelous Blogdombom.
GiE, if you’re wondering why your very challenging last comment has disappeared … it’s because I’ve stolen it for today’s post … I think it deserves wider readership …
Morning Redders …
… and good morning all ….
… New post …