Blaise Matuidi looks like becoming an Arsenal player, with the club hopeful that the 22 year old St. Etienne midfielder and French u-21 international reportedly in talks in London over the last few days, will sign for between £2.5-£3.5m.
Arsenal board member, Stan Kroenke, increased his stake to 28.58% by buying a further 160 shares yesterday at £8,500 each. He now has 17,787.
As David Conn points out in the Guardian, Kroenke still hasn’t put any of his money into the club itself and has said almost nothing about why he is buying up so much of Arsenal, and what his intentions are. [Unless he is readying to pounce.]
In fact some press have gone distinctly pro-Usmanov, following the rejection of the rights issue.
Conn argues that with the current state of finances (re-negotiating the loan, and property completions dragging), the club needs a rights issue. And it gives the major shareholders a chance to develop an alternative model to the sugar daddy, by putting their cash in directly for shares
Steven Howard in the Sun says once Manchester City replace them [Arsenal] in the Big Four, the fans will turn on the men who run the club, so far better to take the Usmanov money now, give him a place on the board and circumvent the trouble that is surely heading towards the Emirates. [That’s too much of an assumption. City have to overcome a terrible away record and there’s no guarantees the players will gel into a team.]
I personally think the property situation will turnaround, so the self financing model is a legitimate approach.