by Salibatelli » Mon Aug 17, 2020 4:05 pm
Angelito wrote:Phil71 wrote:Kroenke knows that getting back into the CL is essential for the club's finances. It's why the owners kept Wenger in the job when a lot of fans were demanding change. If Wenger was still getting us CL football he'd still be in the job.
In Wenger's interview with beIN sports, he claimed to have left because "nothing was good enough." I feel Gazidis sold the "naive" Kroenkes a dream that was never attainable here—Man City/PSG's model. Naive in footballing terms.
When he received an offer, "too good to be true," from Milan, Gazidis left.
Any ambitious and competent professional wouldn't have left their job after having won a power tussle against the most important figure in modern Arsenal history.
We're more or less back to where we were under Wenger now. Mikel's the de facto manager. He will only share his responsibilities with Edu. Vinai is the unofficial Chief Executive a la Gazidis at Arsenal.
Essentially, the Kroenkes have gone back to Wenger's model with a powerful manager and an executive head of Arsenal. The only difference is that Mikel will share his responsibilities with a Technical Director, which wasn't the case under Arsene.
Think about it this way. The footballing operations at Arsenal will now be spearheaded by three professionals Wenger brought at the club: Mikel, Edu, and Per (as Academy Manager).
Wenger always knew. Unlike us.
I honestly believe that we would never be out of the UCL if Gazidis didn't make it his life purpose to thwart Wenger out of the club and adopt a "European model."
Wenger is the one that dropped us out of the CL with his stubborness and complacency.
As for Gazidis, he didn’t sell anyone a dream, he was poor for the 8 years he was here but the Kroenkes didn’t care and had no interest as the cash cow that is the CL was bringing in buckets of cash.
Anyone interested in the club would have got rid of Gazidis and Wenger a long time before and also brought in people who could set the foundations for success.
What’s worse is the complacency was carried into our commercial deals, something we’re paying the price for now with an over reliance on gate receipts.
As we’ve seen since 2006, success off the pitch doesn’t have to come with success on it and the owners are happy with this. Now of course if you win the big prizes your revenue increases massively, but it takes investment in the 1st place and requires someone to take an active interest to make sure things are going as they should.
Wenger knew nothing we didn’t, he caused a lot of what is happening today.
Let’s face it, this club is poorly run and has been for years due to lack of interest from the people that own it, the CL money for teams that come 3rd and 4th which is usually where we ended up (miles away from the champions) just masked the reality of the situation.