Boardroom Spat Leaves Arsenal Fans Further Detached And Depressed

As Lady Nina Bracewell claimed absolute bemusement at the rest of the boards’ insistence that she should leave the board, Arsenal fans slid into a bigger slump in their chairs.

We are finding it difficult enough to deal with the lack of backbone and leadership on the pitch but to have it from the board as well leaves us with very little to hang on to. In fact there is only one person Arsenal fans can look at and smile and that is Cesc Fabregas.

The young veteran is showing what happens when you give a player of his attitude the responsibility. He has played a lot better while wearing the armband and though Arsenal performances haven’t picked up, the lack of quality is more a reason for that.

Arsene Wenger himself provides no comfort as he will publicly defend everyone and everything Arsenal but by doing that he alienates the fans by not recognising the problems that even the average fan can see.

We can only pray come January that what he says in public is just a way to protect the club from bad press and not his true beliefs. A lack of buys in January means 4th place becomes a tough target to get. Aston Villa are a better outfit than Arsenal right now as team and maybe even individually.

Arsenal as a team does not function on any level that is acceptable right now and Villa are an amazing unit. Nevermind how much more difficult it is to qualify for the group stages next season as there will be no seeds in the qualifying stages, Arsenal vs. Real Madrid anyone?

The words of the rest of the players mean very little if they aren’t performing themselves. It doesn’t sit well if they make comments about how things are wrong and they aren’t playing well. Manuel Almunia is an excellent keeper who gets unfair criticism because he has a bad defence.

I guarantee he would keep more clean sheets than Edwin Van Der Sar if he had Man United’s defence ahead of him but he still has to prove himself a bit more before we will accept his comments. Gael Clichy is well loved but his comments won’t be worth anything until he cuts out his moments of stupidity in crucial times.

So we move onto the board for a safe haven of the fact the club is stable and well. However, the boardroom split is a large one and it’s all over a proposed takeover. If David Dein wasn’t in favour of it he would probably still be here even though he wasn’t greatly liked anyway. We can only think the rest of the board got rid of Lady Nina because she wasn’t completely onside and didn’t want to do the share lockdown with the others and it’s the same story for Richard Carr who also departed yesterday.

However, the man whose proposed takeover caused all this is now getting exactly what he wanted and that really annoys the fans. This man Alisher Usmanov was never going to be liked because of his support of Manchester United in the past but every move he has done has been with no regard of the damage to the club.

Stan Kroenke who was another man looking to takeover Arsenal is now a non executive director because he has shown he just wants to do what is best for Arsenal. He has resisted any offer from Usmanov to sell his shares to him for an inflated price and sided with the current board.

Alisher Usmanov has pulled the oldest trick in the book. Divide and conquer and he barely had to do a thing. If he buys Lady Nina Bracewell’s shares then he will have to make an official takeover bid. It doesn’t have to be accepted but it’s just another step towards his goal. Arsenal fans may not like him but Alisher Usmanov doesn’t seem to care.

So Arsenal fans really have nothing to hold on to at the moment. The only thing that will lift us is the signings of some real quality in the transfer window because we cannot believe we were ever invincible just a few short years ago. Despite all of the antics, this all started on the pitch and it must end there and then the boardroom just won’t matter.