Arsenal AGM

Arsene Wenger says qualifying for the Champions League is winning a trophy



Stop saying that Arsene... please.

urbaNRoots wrote:Arsene Wenger says qualifying for the Champions League is winning a trophy



Stop saying that Arsene... please.

You know he has a point.

Wenger is the only one of the entire bunch present at the AGM who I have some respect left for.

He didn't say that tbf, he said that's his 3rd thing in the to do list. And CL over the FA cup sounds reasonable to me

However Why are we choosing one of the two ? Should be aiming for the both

For all that talk and pride we take in having CLASS, how much of it does the damn Board have? #PHW

Mind you, I am not calling it 'our board' for a reason. Its like the French bourgeois and royalty pre-revolution. Shocking.

srigooner wrote:

Wenger is the only one of the entire bunch present at the AGM who I have some respect left for.

Same

Hill-Wood said: "Thanks for your support and your interest in our affairs." That sentence shows why PHW must go ASAP. Out of touch, disrespectful.

He clearly thinks Arsenal is his private members' club and the fans are an unnecessary inconvenience. Shocking.

AGM over.

@10AkHill: "Spoke to Arsene who tells me that RvP was offered 300k by Man City. Wow."

"Wenger said he does not regret taking pires off in 2006 final but maybe taking Cesc off for Flamini was a mistake."

Thanks Sam for the updates.

I feel even worse reading what Shitan, DonkeyGazidis and Hell Worse had to say.

Now, suddenly everyone is against our board???

Iv sniffed this situation long before.

We need more noisy fans to wake these greedy bastards up.

FFP is a big failure and some people are taking advantage of it.

Lucky for us..

"Qualifying for the Champions League is a bigger 'trophy' than winning the FA Cup."

"For me there are five trophies: PL, CL,the third is to qualify for the CL, the 4th is the FA Cup and the fifth in the League Cup."

I know what Wenger trying to say, but he should have just kept this out for the time being.

Its going to be a long season, I know we are waiting for our team to be healthy again but when did we ever have a healthy squad? we are counting on Diaby and Jack to save our season?

We cant *bleep* score, we have 2 useless strikers. I dont blame Giroud, I blame Wenger for not knowing how to use him. We cant never figure out other teams but every freaking team can read us like a book.

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan

That #Arsenal AGM in full: Wenger downbeat (with good reason), Gazidis clueless, Hill-Wood offensive, Kroenke pointless.

The truth hurts.

Hope there'll be a full video of the AGM. Curious how the crowd/fan groups responded to Gazidis' and Kroenke's statements about "ambition".

Rev wrote:Hope there'll be a full video of the AGM. Curious how the crowd/fan groups responded to Gazidis' and Kroenke's statements about "ambition".

PHW: 'It's nice you're all so interested in our affairs.'

The worst part is, they wont give a shit about what any share holder says, they are like a legal mafia and no one can stop them.

Stan" I hope we had the power to sell all these fans, so I dont have to answer any questions"

Seriously, last year was no cause for rewards or bonuses. Sure it was good to finish how we did given how we started but that was supposed to be where we moved on to make a challenge for the Prem. Look at us now.

MJGunner wrote:Seriously, last year was no cause for rewards or bonuses. Sure it was good to finish how we did given how we started but that was supposed to be where we moved on to make a challenge for the Prem. Look at us now.

The board insists on not breaking Arsenals wage structure but yet get Gazidis gets rise.

I think the board takes us for idiots and thinks we dont know anything.

Did the board say we will not compete for trophies for another 2 years?

I expected them to come into this meeting and say the same crap they've been spewing every year at these meetings, but some of the shit said here was shocking...

he got a raise because he had a extremely good year? WTF? Good to know the hard earned money we're spending on this club is being thrown at a CEO who isn't doing his job...and if saying good wasn't enough, he had to throw in extremely good didn't he?

Kroenke's a fecking fraud as well...meeting with fan groups, who the hell is he trying to kid?

And PHW is a joke, we've stuck by this club through repetitive bullshit year after year and he says that lol

Amar wrote:I expected them to come into this meeting and say the same crap they've been spewing every year at these meetings, but some of the shit said here was shocking...

he got a raise because he had a extremely good year? WTF? Good to know the hard earned money we're spending on this club is being thrown at a CEO who isn't doing his job...and if saying good wasn't enough, he had to throw in extremely good didn't he?

Kroenke's a fecking fraud as well...meeting with fan groups, who the hell is he trying to kid?

And PHW is a joke, we've stuck by this club through repetitive bullshit year after year and he says that lol

He is a fraud, lol at his records with sports teams, wtf has his teams won?

He said he is not taking the club in debts, we are in debts and he is still taking money away from us to and give Gazidis.

I got sick watching Gazidis talk, he is a useless fraud, who is ruing Arsenal so he can suck Stan's ass.

I was following the proceedings during my break and wasn't surprised at what I saw.

Firstly, I would like to say that I understand that it's difficult for the board to meet the fans and even if what they're going to say is bullshit, at least they turned up.

Also, I understand that there is only so much they can tell us and that any promises at this stage are irrelevant since we're in October, not July or January.

I'm not usually an advocate for fans acting this way, but on this occasion I can't really blame them. Quite simply, what the board is telling us about being committed to success and being ambitious is not reflecting in the transfer market or on the field. The club signed Podolski, Giroud and Cazorla and things were looking good, but then van Persie gets sold to Manchester United and Song to Barcelona and the club signs nobody afterwards, subsequently making a profit yet again in the transfer market.

This is obviously where the divide between club and fans starts. They're citing ambition and whatnot but not doing much that backs that up, while the fans have to watch the club sell its best players every year and not win anything.

Then, you get all this talk about FFP. Fans don't want to hear anything about a policy that may or may not work. It's foolhardy to expect Gazidis to turn around and say "okay, screw FFP" but at the same time it just seems like an obligatory soundbite that instills little to no confidence in anyone. Then they have the balls to say that Gazidis got a payrise because he had a good year. I've no idea what the board thinks constitutes as a good year, but it's yet another example of the difference of mindsets between the board and fans.

Stan Kroenke really didn't cover himself in glory. Good that he actually showed up and was at the match last night, but he wasn't particularly convincing about his supposed meetings with fan groups and the fact that he may be considering having the board pay dividends is disconcerting. If the club has failed for seven or eight years, and is already milking the fans for cash, how can they even think of lining their own pockets at the end of the year? Understandably that's not going to go down too well with the fans.

I've defended Kroenke a lot and don't dislike him, but the guy has to start doing more otherwise he's just pointless.

Peter Hill-Wood was an embarrassment. Patronising, completely out of touch and flippant about fan's concerns. Sums up our current board, really.

I'm not going to sit here and say that we're in a crisis or anything like that, but this current board, as much as I might have defended it before, is currently showing itself to be outdated and probably in need of some fresh faces. Great, they've built us a new stadium and have kept the club afloat. Remarkable achievements of which they have duly received praise for. But they seem stuck in their ways and that's not going to aid in the club going forward.

A few other things:

I feel sorry for Wenger, having to be caught up between the fans' anger and the board. I'm still 100% behind him.

If fish and chips really costs £13, then that's a disgrace. Consider that you can buy the same meal for about £2-3 in any local chip shop...

Somebody mentioned we had the highest ticket prices in the world. The silence after that was pretty damning.

/rant

Well, there are a few more things I'd like to say:

I do believe that the club is in a good position. It's hard for many to see right now, but it is.

The frustrating thing is the direction it's heading towards. We're at a good level now, but what are we doing to get to the next level? As it stands, you'd have to say nothing. The priority seems to be consolidating.

But do we need to consolidate now? Can you get to that next level like that? Unless we stumble upon a batch of immensely talented youngsters and bargain buys, you'd have to say "no".

What needs to happen is for the club to really push hard in the transfer market; keep ahold of your best players and sign a couple of certified stars who you know are going to bring quality to the side. These £10mil players like Giroud, Gervinho, Podolski, etc. are good, but they're not the sort of players who are going to win you trophies. You can't always get a Cazorla-esque bargain.

It's plain to me that the club can do that. It has the money to do so, and if it sorts out some internal issues (contracts, player wages, commercial deals), it could afford to spend that money. We don't have to turn to a billionaire to accomplish this, we just have to be willing to take a chance.

We've all said this before, of course, but this is currently where I stand with our club and the direction it's going in.

Agreed 100% Jay

and wenger doesn't deserve this board. Perez would treat him like a king

RealGunner wrote:Agreed 100% Jay

and wenger doesn't deserve this board. Perez would treat him like a king

The only thing that was good today was Wenger's speach, made me sad and smile, what a legend.

Urban you beauty

Jay has summarized what was largely a frustrating AGM and I don't want to go into that bit.

I personally agree that CL qualification is more important than domestic cups, bar the league. This is again well debated now. So I will not delve into that either.

I see the club trying to reassure us with facts borne of history. 43 games unbeaten, 15 season in CL, etc. etc. etc.

We have handicapped ourselves in certain ways. Including relying on injured players returning. Fundamental policy failures include a large squad of players of mediocre quality on relatively high wages. Also well publicized is the trouble we have in moving them on.

I have been unequivocal of my support for this board on the basis of the said laurels. But there comes a point when laurels aren't enough. There is a point when statistics cease to matter. My views on the lopsided nature of any statistic is well known to posters on this forum.

Statistics and laurels built over the years are good. But I do not wish to rest on them. The question is, what comes next?

For one part, it is a relief to assume that an effectively implemented FFP policy will change the nature the business is run. There is also hope of more cash flows coming in the coming seasons with better sponsorship deals. The stadium debts are well managed and I admire Arsene Wenger for being the only man on this planet who could sustain and consistently deliver with strong financial handicaps.

Now the question arises, what happens when his tied hands are freed. We know the jazz about investing right and the market being inflated with hype, largely down to agents and media outlets looking to bump up their own revenues. We also know that we have a brilliant scouting network and Arsene has unsurpassable footballing knowledge and experience and an eye for talent.

The said handicaps drove us to a policy of investing in younger players. This has largely been a failure, with key departures. The board, and the manager, have failed in securing the deals at the right time with these players. Consequently, it painted a much maligned image of selling key players to increase an already healthy bank balance.

The proactive start to the previous transfer market gave everyone a sense of belief and renewed hope. Then we shot ourselves in the feet with inexplicable player sales, the 'footballing reasons' behind which are still incomprehensible.

Except a handful of games in the interim, I am not happy with the way this season is progressing. Players returning from injuries providing a shot in the arm is a gamble we have relied on far too long.

The answers I seek are in the 90 minutes of football that is played. Not with the board and not with the manager. I will search for these answers when the game is played.

The fans that were at the AGM do they own shares at Arsenal? if they do how much do they own?