Yaya Diaby + Thoughts on The Peter Hill-Wood Interview

Top of the morning to yall

The dust seem to have failed to settle on last weekend’s win over Liverpool and everyone seems to be patting everyone else back after the victory with Carl Jenkinson is feeling like a soothsayer while also reserving special praise for Mikel Arteta’s defensive abilities and Poldi believing hecan win games for the team while Mertesacker took a laid back approach and just let the belief and confidence flow through. Yeah such talks are to be expected when a team has just won their first game of the season at Anfield and its not Liverpool but its abou Diaby that has gotten me most interested this morning when he talks about his roles at the club and says he sees himself more likeYaya Toure than Alex Song.

In our teams, Yaya Toure and me have very similar roles,

"I am not like Alex Song. We have many players who can take his place like Francis Coquelin or Mikel Arteta, who likes to play deep. I want to get forward - that's me.

He may not be very far off from the truth. The performance against Liverpool showed his true potentials as a classic box to box midfielder are coming to the fore. His ball retention, breaking up the opponents play, good passing ability and stamina were excellent and these are the abilities that the Toure has epitomised at City. Though I the Ivorian is a more complete player, I think Diaby is not very far off, and I believe if he stays fit, he can become that player the manager has always portrayed him to be.

Peter Hill-Wood granted an interview to the Evening Standard yesterday and all the talk since then has been on his so called shocking conclusion that Arsenal can’t compete in the transfer market and I wonder why anyone is surprised. He says

Arsene has money to spend but there’s a limit. We can’t spend £50m on one player.

“At a certain level, we can’t compete. I don’t think Stan Kroenke [the American owner] is going to put the sort of dollars in that [Roman] Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour are putting into Chelsea or Manchester City. That’s not the way he thinks clubs should be run.

I have been wondering why people are bothering about the chairman stating a club policy that so obvious and everyone knows. We all are aware of the clubs transfer policy, wage structure and a preference to develop future stars from within the club. Methinks the bigger cause for concern should be more use of the clubs resources, management of player contracts and of course the unsettling situation between our biggest shareholders Kroenke and Usmanov.

  

Theo Walcott is in the last year of his contract and has refused to sign a new deal. The club was forced to sell Robin van Persie to Manchester United because he was allowed to see his contract to the final year and he refused to sign a new contract. Someone has to be responsible for such things at the club and those are the things we should be worried about.

When asked about the lack of trophies for the past seven years, he said

It is not a worry to the board that we haven’t won a trophy since 2005

I wonder if there is an Arsenal fan in the world that would agree with that statement. The Arsenal board seem to be the only group of people that don’t seem to be bothered about the lack of silverware in the club. I recognise the good work that they have done in securing a new stadium and funding its construction and subsequent repayment of outstanding loans, but the joy of every fan is to see the team challenge and win trophies every season or at least more regularly than once in seven years and for the chairman of the club to say that the board are not bothered by the clubs lack of silverware since 2005 is very unsensitive at the nicest. It only confirms that champions league football and the money that comes from television rights is more important to them than silverware and since Wenger has continued to deliver that, he remains their darling.

Another interesting thing that was talked about was the long standing of Alisher Usmanov on the Arsenal board and he had this to say

“It’s not entirely in my hands. I don’t think Stan Kroenke wants anybody else on the board. I have met Usmanov but I don’t think he would fit in, that’s all.”

He has all but confirmed that the board do have an issue with the second largest shareholder at the club and I really wonder why. while he admits its not entirely out of his hands, he concedes that Silent Stan won’t want Usmanov and he doesn't think that he would fit in. it really baffles me that we are run by men who don’t like each other. If Kroenke who owns two-thirds of Arsenal won’t see eye to eye with Usmanov who owns the other one-third, then something has to give and am sure Usmanov is as close to releasing his stakes at Arsenal as Lionel Messi is to signing for Stoke City. 

They have to find a way to relate with each other for the benefit of moving the club forward.

I have always insisted that those men are businessmen and their sole aim is the profits that they would make on their investments in the club. Both parties’ claiming to love the club is definitely false and the board aren’t helping issues. I wonder what if Usmanov gets to purchase the required number of shares of the club that is necessary for him to be offered a compulsory seat on the Arsenal board, are we going to have a full scale cold war between the two men in power? Or will the likes of Hill-Wood look beyond their thoughts on how he would fit in or not and try to find a middle ground between the rifting men. Like I said earlier, they would have to find a way to work together because Arsenal has thrown them both on the same boat and it’s up to them to either let their personal feuds rock the boat or row it forward.

That's all for now folks. Be right back on Friday for another edition.

God bless the Arsenal. Iree o