By Myles Palmer
Ipswich are bottom, so Arsenal should win there on Saturday.
Juventus beat Leverkusen 4-0 this afternoon, so they are starting to score goals when it matters most.
And Arsenal are hoping to get planning permission for the new stadium on Monday December 10th.
The Juventus game is an exciting prospect. If Arsenal lose they will probably go out of the Champions League.
Has any team has ever qualified for the quarter-finals after losing the first two games?
Big as the Juventus game is, the stadium decision is bigger.
Arsenal are engaged in an epic expansion plan.
You have to admire their ambition and tenacity in getting this far.
The manager has a vision for the club and the board are boldly going where no board has ever gone before.
To build a totally new stadium within London, and sort out re-location of businesses, environmental and transport problems, and convert Highbury into housing, along with everything else,will cost £300 million.
It will help hugely if the public face of AFC is that of the smoothly telegenic French manager who has become the defining personality at Arsenal over the last five years.
I’m not gonna predict that the team will beat Ipswich 2-1. And I cannot predict that they will beat Juventus 1-0.
But I predict that Arsenal F.C. will announce that they have planning permission for Ashburton Grove and that they will simultaneously tell us that Arsene Wenger has signed a four-year contract.
They might form a new company and float the club.
Although rumour has it that some directors want Arsenal to remain a private company.
Could a private company raise £300 million? We shall have to wait and see.
The club was founded in 1886.For many of us it is the most important sporting institution in England and the only one we care deeply about.
For the directors, the custodians of this world famous institution, the new venture is a serious responsibility.
Arsenal has been there for a very long time and it will continue to be there for a very long time.
As I say,the club now has an epic expansion plan.
Expensive,complex, very testing for all involved, but, if it can be pulled off, a move which might put Arsenal up there with the European establishment, with Bayern and
Real and Barcelona and Juventus.
Guided by two exceptional managers, George Graham and Arsene Wenger, the club has punched above its weight since 1986, but now it needs more money to move forward.
On December 10th we will know a lot more.
29th November 2001.