Big 6? More Like “Big 3″

So we are just shy of being one-third of the way through the season and we’re already at our third (!) interlull. When we return, it will be crunch time with 11 matches in the next 42 days, including Chelsea at home, Liverpool away, the final CL group stage fixtures, and, of course, City away in the Carling Cup quarterfinals. While most Arsenal bloggers are taking this opportunity to look back at Arsenal’s season-so-far, and Arsenal Station will likely do that as well over this break, I’d like to say a few brief words about the Premier-League-so-far.

Big spending by City and Tottenham, £150m in 16 months, had the pundits predicting that the Big 4 would now begin turning into a Big 6. Not quite. Rather than having seen the competition at the very top open up, the opposite has happened. Instead of a Big 5 or 6 or 7, we appear to have a Big 3. Now, I know it’s not early in the season, but a “season-so-far-review” can only take into account what has happened “so far.”

Arsenal have confounded the critics with their performances so far this season. So have Liverpool, but in a different way. Chelsea appear to be very strong, but hardly invincible having lost the same amount of matches as us. United are somehow level on points with us, mostly thanks to their most important player this season, Lucky McLuck. But for a few slightly different bounces, they could be fighting with Liverpool for 7th place right now.

Chelsea are easily the favorites at this point. They have squad depth, though that will be seriously tested in January when they lose Drogba, Essien, Kalou, and Obi Mikel to the African Cup of Nations. Though the temporary suspension of their transfer ban means that Chelsea can now buy in the next transfer window. A perceptive comment was made by one of the writers on Sunday Supplement last week, he said something to the effect of, “Chelsea are right now playing to their maximum potential, but Arsenal, despite their fantastic form and results, have not even come close to their potential.”

Rather than opening up the very top, a second Big 4 seems to have come together beneath Chelsea, Arsenal, and United. Tottenham, City, Liverpool, and Aston Villa sit between 8 and 11 points off the pace already and it is hard to imagine any of those four sides making up such a big deficit.

City are lucky to only be 10 points behind Chelsea with a game-in-hand considering their run of 5 consecutive draws in the league. That’s 10 points dropped in 5 matches… the points-equivalent of having won 1, drawn 2, and lost 3. And it wasn’t an especially hard part of their fixture list, including the most uninspiring draws with Birmingham, Fulham, Wigan, and Burnley. The novelty has worn off and City fans are now looking down the barrel at a diabolically shambolic defense which cost almost as much as Arsenal’s starting XI, not including Arshavin and Vermaelen.

When it comes to Liverpool, only two words suffice: Gerrard and Torres. And that’s it. Criticisms of Benitez, I feel , have been totally justified. The man has had five years to build a side, brought in over 50 players in that time, and still has a two-man team. Carragher has lost a step and a half and the entire club, especially Mascherano, has not been able to deal with the loss of Alonso. With no bench as well, and very few youth prospects, Liverpool supporters are in for huge reality check this season as the side appears to be in need of massive rebuilding, something neither Torres, nor Gerrard, nor even Benitez may stick around for, and something that the owners can’t afford.

In Arsenal news, Jamie at Young Guns is reporting that negotiations have concluded on a new contract for Carlos Vela and only the John Hancock-ing remains to be done. That is fantastic news considering all the ridiculous rumours of lower-level Spanish clubs deluding themselves into thinking he was even the slightest bit available.

Yaya Toure rumours have cropped up once again, but they are even more ridiculous this time around. His agent has asked why Barca gave him a new contract, “just to sit on the bench?” Well then, why would he come to Arsenal where he obviously would not walk into the first team ahead of Alex Song? Nicklas Bendtner will be out for 6 weeks or so after his groin surgery, likely much to the chagrin of his 34 year-old baroness girlfriend. Also, Gilles Sunu’s desire to go out on loan to the Championship is being stifled by Arsene until the youngster signs a new deal with the club.

Right, so that is my take on the Premier League season so far. On Arsenal Station over the break we will have a look at Arsenal’s season-so-far as well as a guest piece from Ted Harwood on Alex Song and possibly another from Comrade.

Arsenal Are Just Never Good Enough

Despite getting off to a start that has gone beyond all expectations, the football pundits continue to dig around for any reason to stick to their idiotic pre-season predictions of Arsenal’s impending doom and gloom. The club is 15-2-2 overall having scored 55 goals, 10-0 at home having scored 33 goals at the Emirates. In the premier league, the club is averaging 3.27 goals per match, a higher amount than any other club in Premier League history at this point in this season. However, the criticism continues… Let’s take a look at the two main criticisms coming from the punditocracy:

Defensive Frailty

Okay, Arsenal have conceded 20 goals in 19 matches. But, in this case, the numbers are a bit misleading. A more important number to look at is goal different

ial, which overall stands at +35 overall, +22 in the league. Yes, Arsenal have conceded goals but how many of those goals have come when Arsenal have had multi-goal leads. How many of those goals came late in a match that was already effectively over? While, it is disconcerting to not be keeping clean sheets, a goal in the last 5 minutes of a match in which you lead 3 or 4-nil is just not the same as an equalizer.

The late goals to West Ham and Alkmaar were quite a different story. These are concessions that matter, but it looks as though we have learned from those mistakes with the first team winning their next 3 matches 3-0, 4-1, and 4-1.

Perhaps our biggest defensive frailty this season has been the keeper. Mannone deputized well but could not avoid some youthful mistakes and Almunia doesn’t seem to be the same keeper he was back in early 2008, when it looked like he could be the long-term number one. This is the one position which differentiates us from Chelsea and United. I believe Fabianski is the long-term solution but his recurring injuries this season have proved frustrating and forced him to miss a prime opportunity to lay his claim to the spot.

Weak Schedule

Of all the criticisms, this one gets me the most. As the old saying goes, “You can only beat the team that’s in front of you.” Pundits point to the two losses in Manchester, but even they must admit that both were unlucky results and Arsenal were the better side on the day. Certainly there is no shame in losing either of those tough away matches, but the fact that the fixture gods deigned to put them on successive weekends made Arsenal appear, to the pundits at least, as a club in crisis.

However, I would submit that Arsenal’s results even over these smaller teams show much improvement and maturity. Last year, we ignominiously lost at  Craven Cottage but this season we came away with a hard-fought 1-nil victory. We also beat Everton away on the opening day, whether they showed up or not, it was a tough away fixture in which Arsenal secured all three points. And, while traveling up north and getting results may have proved problematic before, it really hasn’t been much of a problem in the last 2 years. The only people that think so are lazy pundits who can’t be bothered to check the results and so spew 3 year-old criticisms.

The league is not won in the Big Four mini-tournament. It is won in all the other matches against lesser sides and Arsenal have struggled a bit to get up for these matches in the past. That seems to be behind us as we continually dispatch smaller clubs by multi-goal margins, unlike United who continue to get by by the skin of their teeth.

So Arsenal have only lost to United and City, but have beat the clubs they should have done. What about United and Chelsea? Well, Chelsea lost away to Villa, certainly that has to be more problematic than Arsenal’s loss at City, earlier on when Hughes’s side was actually playing well. But they also lost away to Stoke City. Meanwhile, United have lost to Burnley and Liverpool. What I am saying is that any criticism made of Arsenal at this point surely applies, if not more so, to Chelsea and United.

Arsenal will face its sternest test at the end of January when we play United at home on the 31st and then Chelsea away a week later. The ACN is scheduled to run from January 10th to the 31st. So unless Cameroon go out early, we are likely to be without Song for the United match. More troubling, if Cameroon get to the semifinal or final, he will also miss the Chelsea match. Depending on how their respective players’ international sides fare, Chelsea could have some of their African players back by then. Both of these matches are proverbial six-pointers and they will set the stage for the last 3 months of the season and the run-in.

The Intentions of Stan Kroenke

Last week, Stan Kroenke increased his stake in the club 29.9% and I’d like to speculate, along with others,  on what that will likely mean for the future of the club we all love. Mostly, I’d like to respond to an article by David Tully that was posted on Football FanCast this past week. Sadly, fear-mongering has been a great feature of this struggle for controlling interest in the club initiated by David Dein in the wake of his exit from the club. Arsenal Station has already covered the dynamics of the original squabble and subsequent developments, but with Kroenke only 0.1% away from launching a required takeover bid, the plot has thickened even further.

In Tully’s article, he writes:

Only a few Arsenal fans, if any, would argue that a takeover by Stan Kroenke would be beneficial to the club, that he would spend a greater deal more on players than the current board and bring the trophies back to the Emirates.

My issue here is that a takeover or new owner does not need to spend more money on players to be “beneficial to the club.” Even if Kroenke made more money available, it is clear that Arsene would not all of a sudden change his philosophy and go on a Middle Eastern-style spending spree. What could be beneficial is that stability in the board room would return and, most importantly, the prospect of an Usmanov takeover will be over. There is no doubt in my mind that an Usmanov takeover is the worst thing that could happen to the club.

Tully also wrote:

Both Kroenke and Usmanov have been used as pawns in a bitter power struggle within the Emirates, but one of them, Kroenke, to the surprise of both Fiszmann and Hill-Wood, will soon be in the position to buy the entire club under their noses. Up until this point it has been assumed that Kroenke did not have the finances to buy Arsenal at the £375m it has been valued at, but with the sale of the NFL franchise St Louis Rams which it holds a majority stake in, he will be able to buy the club out. As with both the Glazer family and the Gillet-Hicks partnership, the large assets that Kroenke owns, such as the Denver Nuggets, will allow him to borrow the required amount to buy and put the debt on the club.

You can hardly say that David Dein, in his struggle with the Board, has used Usmanov as a pawn. In fact, it would be the other way around considering that Dein was relieved of his duties at Red & White once he had sold his shares to Usmanov and it became clear that his relationship with the Board was holding Usmanov back. So, while there may have been a power struggle between Dein and the Board two years ago, once his relationship with Usmanov soured, the whole dynamic of the affair changed.

Second, Tully seems to think that Fiszman and Hill-Wood are now “surprised” that Kroenke is almost in a position to launch a takeover bid. That makes no sense. Hill-Wood just sold Kroenke shares to help him get to 29.9%. Once the club decided that Kroenke was the lesser of two evils, I believe they became resigned to helping him secure the necessary 30% before Usmanov. Kroenke has been, in effect, an insurance policy against an Usmanov takeover. For a more in-depth analysis of this statement, see my pieces on Dein and Usmanov from last year.

Rob Shepherd, in a News of the World piece entitled, “Arsene Wenger In Arsenal Quit Threat Over Takeover,” writes:

I understand Wenger has made it plain to the Gunners board he will not work under Usmanov and would move to Real Madrid instead.

And that is one of the reasons behind Stan Kroenke’s stealthy takeover at the Emirates. The American billionaire has taken his stake in the club to just less than the 30 per cent needed to spark a takeover bid, leaving Usmanov puzzled at his motives.

However, senior Arsenal sources believe Kroenke’s attempt to push Usmanov out of the picture is to help protect Wenger’s position.

While I highly doubt Wenger has given the Board an ultimatum about going to Madrid (he could simply not spend the money that Usmanov would supposedly make available), it at least seems that Shepherd has the dynamic right. A takeover became inevitable and the Board asserted themselves the best they could in that situation by choosing which suitor seemed the least threat and then enabling him in a bid to stonewall the bigger threat.

Tully ends his article with this:

Kroenke cannot win for the sake of Arsenal’s future. He would saddle the club with an enormous debt which has burdened both Liverpool and Manchester United and squeeze the club for greater profit to reduce the debt’s size. A message to the Arsenal board: learn from the mistakes of other clubs, don’t allow your petty rivalries to allow an outsider in through the back door, think of the club first.

This is fear-mongering in the extreme. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Kroenke would do what the Glazers and Gillett and Hicks have done at United and Liverpool in saddling those clubs with the debt they incurred to buy the club. Firstly, Kroenke doesn’t need to buy the entire club outright to assume control, he only needs a majority interest. Second, unlike Usmanov, Kroenke has never called for Arsenal to begin paying dividends to its shareholders. Dein is out of the picture and what is going on is not a rivalry between him and the Board. It is a rivalry between the Board, with Kroenke, and Usmanov.

Kroenke’s quietude at the AGM has aroused suspicion, however. The laws do not allow potential buyers of a club to make ambiguous public statements, otherwise they could be barred from buying the club for six months. This is obviously why Kroenke was careful not to say anything regarding his share buying or his intentions. If he did and was sanctioned, it would give Usmanov a six-month window to engineer his own takeover.

Rather than try to scare Arsenal supporters about a Kroenke takeover, we should be welcoming any development which neutralizes the Usmanov threat. That is what must be done “for the sake of Arsenal’s future.” To rail against a takeover at this point is useless, a takeover, while not imminent, is inevitable. It will happen. But let’s also keep in mind that even if Kroenke reaches 30%, he is required to launch a takeover bid by law, it doesn’t mean that he wants it to be successful. It also doesn’t mean that the other shareholders MUST sell him their shares. He is only required to make an offer for them. So even the magic number of 30% is not an absolute. The other shareholders could stay on and Kroenke could have more than 30% without having bought the club.

I believe that a Kroenke takeover will not mean radical changes to the club, on or off the pitch. Kroenke is, above all, a smart businessman and he knows not to mess with something that is working. Arsenal are in great shape both on the pitch and off and a smart businessman doesn’t try to fix what ain’t broke.