Arsenal need five experienced players.
Danny Fiszman will sign a CEO and a CFO.
He needs someone to run the business. And he also wants an experienced accountant guy who reports to the board, not to the CEO.
So Danny is hiring two guys to do the work that Keith Edelman did. There are names in the frame, as you’ve read, as Ian Grant has already indicated on ANR.
On the playing side, Arsene has twigged that he can’t go on selling us the future.
Because fans have been buying the future for three years. Football fans live on hope and Arsenal fans live on hope and spin from the greatest spin-doctor football has ever seen. But he knows his spin has been wearing thin, that fans are exasperated, that there is a rising tide of discontent among Gooners. A lot of people do not believe him any more. They want action, not spin. They want names, not teenagers.
All of that puts Arsene Wenger in uncharted territory. He is now in a place he has never been before. No trophies for three years and thousands of Arsenal fans doubting him as never before. He is not deaf or stupid and he knows, deep down, that if he orchestrates a photocopy of last season, he’s gone. If 50,000 regulars think he has lost the plot, he’ll resign.
That’s why I’m sure he will sign players who are 24 or over. He wants to stay as Arsenal manager, he wants to go on running the show, wielding the huge power that he wields, and enjoying the colossal status that he has.
So Arsene will sign more kids but he will also sign three experienced players. He’ll get them in the next month.
That is my gut feeling after a spell of looking at what is not happening, a spell of trying to read between the lines.
At the end of July, I’m usually in the Algarve. So I often miss the Community Shield and the first game of the season. But this year I will be here at the end of July and I’ll be in London for Arsenal’s first game.
And I’ll be up for the new season. I’m not tired, not jaded. I’m really looking forward to next season.
It’s the third season in the Emirates and it has to be an exciting one. And I think it will be an exciting one.