ritchboy:

08/09: Arsenal's player of the season. Dazzled week in week out with some of the most brilliant in-the-hole displays English football will ever see. You must be absolutely mad for suggesting he was anything short of spectacular that season. 9/10

Naaa, He only needs to be dangled upside down for about a week, the increased blood supply to his brain should reenergize some of his atrophied synapses from their comatose state.  

tayoccu:

@ dudu
U know u can never fill a basket with water, regardless how hard you try.

True, but some people have made themselves into societal burdens and have to be treated as such. You don't stop sweeping garbage off the streets despite knowing for sure it'll be there again tomorrow.

Exactly, if he hadn't started with the 'Me against the world' attitude, the media could have provided the excuses to buy him time to execute the required surgery at Chelsea.
In reality, there are 2 losers here but one seems not to mind wasting money and the others are happy believing that this is a new beginning when in fact, the major problems remain unresolved.

Adieu AVB, the managers that last in the PL know when to talk and when to zip it. A manager who feels he can take on the English media while his team isn't doing well and win still has some growing up to do.

DK, please summarise the above in 1 bullet point. 

Arsenal nor get fans, all of us here are what again? Airconditioners?

manmustwac:

Good for you. Your short memory obviously forgot that i just reacted because you insulted me first

See his big mouth, you don forget your long apology? I never insulted you first, I only made fun of Tottenham. And the evidence of your 'Hate Mail' still dey my Admin messages and still makes me laugh occasionally.
I subsequently stopped so that I wouldn't have blood on my hands. The way you were going, I was afraid you would blow out your brains on live TV like Raoul Moat.  

He wept because had some foreign object in his eyes that needed to be cleansed. 

naijababe:

The voice of man is the voice of God

I disagree, the voice of 4ller can only be the voice of the Devil.

tayoccu:

I wonder why people bother arguing with couger

It serves a purpose, he needs to be reminded of his mental incompetence periodically. 

manmustwac:

Well its been 11 years since we last beat man united and if my memory i correct they'd already won the premiership then but i believe this is our best chance since that time to beat them so am predicting a home win.
Yeah and am sorry to if i offended you in anyway.Sometimes you guys go to far with abusive language and me who is fed up with it usually fight fire with fire to get even but i eventually got tired with that so tried a different strategy which worked.

Which strategy worked? shey becos some of us just took pity on you? abi you don forget wetin you do me?   
He come dey shout as if na him holy pass, as if him be innocent victim. Shioor, Yeye boy.   

Chei, dis akpako baaad, DK is left to console himself with a Mannequin. Dis wan na real spiritual warfare.

Advice to Chelsea fans, please complain only in whispers, you don't want to annoy your sugar daddy so he doesn't pull the life support switch.  

We've lost too many games where we deserved to win so winning one where we deserve to lose is just Karma coming full circle.  

Top performances by RVP and Tech9 and get well soon Arteta. Please Gazidis, give RVP whatever he wants.

Me sef I'm annoyed with Arsene. Gervinho and Ox shouldn't be on the bench when Walcott is playing as far as I'm concerned. His two goals in the past match hasn't suddenly turned him to Mr. Untouchable jare.

All is fine in gooner land and no one is throwing tantrums today.

@4ller
Mind yaself jare. Arsenal is better than moin moin and will soon surpass pounded yam and fine egusi soup sef.   

Robben: I'm facing Personal warfare

Which kain personal warfare be dis wan? spiritual or physical? DK, na you dey take Juju pursue the poor boy? 

proudly9ja:

^^^
Diaby is the new Messi!!

YEEEEEEES, now we will win the PL.
By the way, I'm still working on that brain transplant to create Vassiriky Abou Fabregas.

debosky:

What fact have you brought forth to show that Arsenal's board did not rooster up the kit deal? What fact have you put forth that they are not incompetent financially as their financial income compared to their peers show?

The fact I've brought up is that there is a deal in existence that limits what they can do in terms of the main deals. That is the explanation that has been given numerous times.
You have not proved that Chelsea's cancellation of their deal invalidates that explanation cue the comparison of apples to Jackfruit.  

debosky:

I am happy to be challenged - but saying that I should 'trust' the board is not a valid challenge. They have shown their incompetence and are thus not deserving of such trust.

The point in dispute is whether they have shown incompetence or more importantly if you can indeed prove that they've shown incompetence. Accusations are very easy to make but proving them is a different matter entirely.

debosky:

Another pointer to your love of mediocrity. Being better than Wigan and Wolves is good enough for you.

Bruv, what is good enough for me is irrelevant. I can claim that only Banana Island is the only place good enough for me yet still live in Isale Eko. Words are cheap, facts are gold.  

debosky:

Because they continue to sign bumper sponsorship deals, as their recent renewal with Samsung showed. The proof is in the pudding, not some sentimental BS like 'honouring contracts'.

Answer the question. The fact that Chelsea have a better deal than Arsenal doesn't mean they have a better deal than everyone else.
I've explained the reason why Arsenal is incapacitated in that regards already.

debosky:

The greatest understatement yet.

The point is, as an external observer, the shoddy performances still earned him big rewards so it is obviously not a case of him having to do the best for Arsenal to get paid.

Well, external observers should not analyse issues with preconceived inflexible opinions. They should analyse issues impartially and seek for facts that will ultimately guide their opinion.
again I point out to you that the restraints on Arsenal's commercial income are already well publicised, your turning a blind eye to them discredits your assumed status as an external observer.  

debosky:

Again don't display your ignorance - executive directors call the shots - none of those oldies carry much decision making power.

Rather you don't display yours, its not the day to day running of the club we're discussing here. We're talking board level decision on issues like contracts where they have as much say as anyone else. To say that those people have no power to intervene while Arsenal shoots itself in the foot in terms of its commercial income is beyond ignorance of the principles of corporate governance.

Even if what you say is true, its still a moot point, you'll still have a hard time convincing anyone that it's of any benefit to Kroenke the majority owner to deliberately reduce the income to his own company, give Gazidis Bonuses for such gross incompetence as you say and then considerably remunerate the board to rubber stamp such silly decisions.
If the Arsenal board is full of such dunces, then I assure you I personally would have nothing to do with the club anymore and would have started my rival Arsenale club in my backyard by now and I'll be selling you shares.  

debosky:

Another disingenuous argument - did the previous board DECIDE to ONLY pay down debts and not invest in playing staff when we got property profits in 2010? We could have afforded to sign one £30m player AND pay down most of the debts in 2010, so this current board is culpable for our current ills. The current board is responsible for ramping up cash at hand and not investing in the side.
Stylish backtracking - your previous comments said we were at their mercy - how else can being at someone's mercy be interpreted?

Check your dates very well, if I'm very sure Danny Fiszman was still the main power broker on the board at the time you mention in 2010 and he was also the one who sacked Keith Edelmann in 2008.
Not the present board. And those two were very much in the know when the long term contracts and options were agreed with both Nike and Emirates at a time even pre-dating Stan Kroenke's involvement in Arsenal at all. I'll give you a detailed time line sometime when I've got the time.

naijababe:

Singing just so dudu can tell the Arsenal board of foggies

All we are saaayyyiing give us trophy

All we are saying, buy players now

All we are saying sack the deadwoods

Arsene and his band of arsewipes have turned me from a diehard fan to a plastic fan  

Go on Jare and tell them dear, I am solidly behind you.
Just let me know when the Unclad protests will begin so I can bring my camera along. 

agabaI23:

We call them fair weather fans. They were around when it suited them.
A story goes thus: A little fly wondered around the body of an elephant without a response from the beast. When it finished its tour of the elephant, it went up to the ear and whispered, 'I am leaving'. The elephant carelessly replied, ' I did not know you were here'

dayokanu:

If these argument between Debo and dudu areways of keeping me out of your thread, I would like to tell you that its working perfectly

Anytime I see Dudu space as the recent poster, I skip over this thread ;d

Who invited you here in the first instance?   
All other arsenal fans should be paying me and Debo for keeping you away. 

debosky:

What I have done is inference - Arsenal's commerical side is the worst performing in the top 6 at the moment. Based on that evidence, it very plausible that they bungled the renewal.

Plausible? YES, Definite? NO
my argument is not about conjectures but fact. There is a massive difference between saying I think this is how things are and saying this is exactly how it is.
If you're willing to accept that you're only making conjectures, then expect those conjectures to be challenged exactly as you challenge other's conjectures and leave the space open for the evaluation of other factors and fact that you might not have considered in arriving at your conjectures.  

debosky:

Let me put this silly confidence another way. You need to change your meds if you're trying to convince me that Arsenal would employ a coach like Wenger earning more than any manager in England then stupidly sell off Nasri and Cesc without getting replacements and be totally ignorant of what you and I know even as laymen.
Arsenal's recent management reeks of incompetence - whether it is ignorant or simply foolish stubbornness is immaterial.

This is a different discussion and is subject to a lot of other factors. Human nature is the most difficult thing to predict in life. But even then as it is, if what they did was silly, then you still have 16 even more silly clubs in the league as Arsenal today is still in the top 4 of the league and that has nothing to do with my meds which by the way is 'agbo'.  

debosky:

How come Chelski's reputation has not taken a hit? This is the utter stupidity I keep talking about - 'keeping terms of agreements' that doesn't give you anything in value just to be able to say we honour agreements. What value have we gotten from keeping agreements? Oh wait - the same company gives our rivals 5 times what we get paid. What fantastic value from keeping terms of agreements.

How do you know Chelsea's reputation for keeping to contracts haven't taken a hit? I'll paint you an analogy, if you were the one negotiating a contract on behalf of Nike today to be given between say Manure (who haven't broken any contracts) and Chelsea who have been known to, and one of the factors to consider in taking your decision is to appraise how each club have stuck to the terms of their previous contracts to date, who would you score higher?
Not everything is about money, integrity also matters mind you and not everything is about Arsenal as well.

debosky:

Well Gazidis got a big fat bonus last year even with our poor commercial performances - I don't think any of the current board's wages are affected by any bad decisions they make for Arsenal FC. It paid Arsenal to keep Fabregas, yet the board stoopidly sold him for less than he was worth - I see no reason to expect competence in financial management when there is clear evidence of bungling incompetence on the football side of things.

The question you should ask yourself is what exactly his deliverables are, unfortunately I can't help with that cos While I'd like to think I know everything, I really don't know much. 

debosky:

Stop repeating this foolish nonsense - THE BOARD RUNNING ARSENAL NOW ARE NOT THE SAME BOARD THAT DELIVERED THE EMIRATES. If you can't understand that simple fact, you might as well stop now. The three main drivers are now gone - Dein, Edelman, and Fiszman, not to mention Bracewell-Smith. We all know P Diddy Hill has been going senile, so that's nothing new either.

Chelski's deal made them more money - they could get a much better deal because they had a better commercial team. The only idea our commercial team has come up with is increase ticket prices.

Fair enough, there have been changes in the board but the general trend has been largely the same i.e. sustainable spending and there are still a good number of major actors who have always been on the board i.e PHW, Ken Friar, Lord Harris and Chips Keswick.
Arsenal today still generates more revenue than Chelsea (due to its stadium) the cost of which has tied up commercial revenue for a time period which will end in 2014.
If the commercial department is then unable to get a better deal than others currently have, I'll then agree with you that they have better commercial departments.
By the way, Arsenal have been trophiless for this past 7 seasons and didn't just become trophiless yesterday so its nothing about recent management. If you should blame anyone for our current situation, then blame the board that negotiated those deals with little room to manouvre and mortgaged our future (if you so choose to view it that way) to build the emirates. You can't really have it both ways.  

debosky:

I see you've now backtracked from your earlier patently asinine assertions that we were 'forced' into signing an extension. We chose to go into it when there are clearly better deals out there. The only proof I need is that there are bigger deals available (from the SAME sponsor no less), and clubs have ended contracts to get bigger deals.

I don't have to have the details of the contract to prove we've been incompetent financially. We've had this new commercial team since 2009 and we can count the number of additional deals Utd has signed in that period compared to what we've done.

Be it on this deal or the general commercial side of things, yeye dey smell.

Nowhere did I say we were forced, at least not in the sense that a gun was stuck to the temples of those who signed if that is what you assumed.  .
The fact is that Nike had a prior agreed option tied into a previously agreed contract and took up their option and if I were in their shoes I would do exactly the same (from a solely business point of view). If in your opinion, that amounts to being forced then that is what it is.
And you do have to have the details of both the prior agreed and new agreed contracts as well as Chelsea's cancelled and new contracts cos then you'll be stating facts rather than your 'plausible conjectures' stated as fact. If you don't have those details, then you might as well be comparing apples with Jackfruit.  

4llerbuntu:

Accountant dudu, no go the law direction o.

Its not your forte and there are some who do that for a living who will be quick to put you out.

Besides u yarn tripe as usual.

There is no sense in that contract and it only goes to show that certain interests exist in that board to undermine the club. Prolly a case of brown envelopes.

Bes!des is this stadium worth this slavery and penury? It was built to earn us more money and make us competitive, that's not happening and won't happen anytime soon.

Arrant nonsense

Any lawyer would back up what exactly what I've said because its the Unclad truth. Infact any Judge would deport Debo to Homs with his unsubstantiated accusations of the board. 

Ask Debo if he thinks the stadium is worth it, you already know my answer, but personally I don't think it was built to compete or capable of competing against the likes of Abu Dhabi and their bottomless pockets except if the lowest grade ticket possibly becomes something like £100 instead of the current £35. Before that happens, I'm sure people like you would have assasinated Arsene and the board or started another London riots. 

debosky:

How exactly do you know it was?

This is a ridiculous question. The basic principle of law is that you're innocent until proven guilty but it seems you've turned this on its head.  Is this an attempt at inventing law too? 
You're the one who made an assertion here not me and the burden of proof lies with you. In case you've forgotten, this is the assertion I disputed:

In contract law, what you have is right of first refusal - the intelligent thing would've been for the board to negotiate a higher deal with someone else and then approach Nike saying they should match the existing offer. That's how you maximise your revenue. However the daft board didn't even assess the market before meekly signing away 15m by tamely signing on with Nike.

Your question is akin to someone asking How exactly do you know that you are not stoopid?   

Seriously Debo, you need to change your meds if you're trying to convince me that Arsenal would recruit an entirely new commercial department to drive up revenue in the company and then stupidly sign such a deal if they had a way to get out of the contract and still end up with more money in their pockets and be totally ignorant of what you and I know even as laymen.

debosky:

Rubbish - we are not at their mercy because contracts ALWAYS has a penalty clause for exiting a contract, it is never simply binding with no option of exit - the issue is whether you deem it worthwhile to take a hit to get out of the contract.

Exactly my point. Until you've ascertained that this penalty is one worth paying i.e. one that would be an improvement over what we have already then the question of getting out of the contract with a penalty doesn't even arise particularly when the club's reputation for keeping to the terms of previous agreements will also take a hit and consequently become a factor in future negotiations.

debosky:

You have not shown anything that indicates we were not allowed to get out of the deal if we wanted to. The difference is that Chelski had the balls to take the hit and gain the extra revenue they would be missing out on. Arsenal did not do that.

This is a ridiculous standpoint to start arguing from. I think any rational investor would watch out for their own pockets first of all and then the interest of the company next, there isn't much of a decision to be made here. If it pays Arsenal to terminate the contract, the board would have done so. Like you always say, no fan would share the extra revenue with the board after all.
Except you're hell bent on proving that all the members of the board that delivered the emirates have gone bonkers overnight and are now acting against their own interests along with the interests of the majority Owner of the club.
Chelsea breaking their contract has nothing to do with balls, it has to do with either them getting a much better deal, a deal so good they were even willing to pay a 25m penalty to break it or just sheer stupidity which I wouldn't put past an owner and club who seem intent on running a club against every business principle known to man. 

debosky:

You are quite naive to make a comparison with bonds or season tickets. The fact is that Chelski has already done so, making a precedent for us to do so if we wanted to. Unless you have proof that our contract even with front loading is different from that signed by other kit makers, there's nothing to suggest

There is a very valid comparison there that currently eludes you, Arsenal took a lot of the money for the contract upfront (frontloading), they must have made certain concessions to be able to get the money upfront which included the option clause for an extension by Nike.
If you're arguing that we can break it because Chelsea broke theirs (a point I don't dispute) then you've also got to prove that its profitable for the club to break it but how can you prove that when you don't even have the full details of either this contract or chelsea's contract?
What is in the public domain is that Nike had an option to extend the contract which they took and Arsenal didn't dispute or consider worthy of litigation. Any other rambling by anyone with regards to what they should or shouldn't have done should be taken at face value for what they are i.e postulations of a creative solution to a generic conundrum of which the specific application to Arsenal's peculiar circumstances are mostly unknown at present.  

debosky:

Are you minding Dudu?

The boy is blind to anything that doesn't support his view.

In contract law, what you have is right of first refusal - the intelligent thing would've been for the board to negotiate a higher deal with someone else and then approach Nike saying they should match the existing offer. That's how you maximise your revenue. However the daft board didn't even assess the market before meekly signing away 15m by tamely signing on with Nike.

True analysis of the right of first refusal as different from the right of first offer which would give us a way out, in this instance they have clearly chosen to exercise their right not to refuse. 

How exactly do you know that the above was not done?

To show you that Nike has previous history with issues like this involving options to extend contracts, just see their case against Rosicky and Puma in 2007 here:

http://www.5rb.com/case/Nike-European-Operations-Netherlands-BV-v-Rosicky

If I'm not mistaken, Nike owned up to the fact that they were ripping us off and their justification was that we did profit by the initial front loading which looked wise at the time and did help us get the emirates.
Infact, did we even need to prove anything to them? are they not the same people paying Manure almost 3 times what they are paying us? The values of deals aren't exactly secret and everyone knows what the prevailing rates are. We were at their mercy and they chose not to show any mercy.

That is exactly why I said there was a difference between our deal and Chelsea's which allowed them get out of their deal with Umbro (with a penalty of a 25m fine which they had to pay by the way). We got most of our money upfront to pay for the emirates but they didn't as they had no major capex needs to necessitate tying themselves into such a deal.
Arsenal forcing a way out of the deal would be like a Government refusing to pay its bond creditors just because it was issued by an initial government or Rangers arguing that their 3 year pre-sold season tickets are no longer valid and asking those who have already paid for them to pay more cos they were sold by a previous board and general ticket prices have risen in the interim across the SPL. I'd like to see you argue that in any court. 

Moodie:

^^^^ the quote read January and [/b]Summer. Since you are stressing on grammatical correctness, you should know there is a difference between ''[b]and'' & ''or''

Well, this is English and not Mathematics, the time periods linked together by the use of the conjunction 'and' can be taken either as different discrete entities or as one long continuous period punctuated by the intervening 'season' period in which as you obviously know, no transfers can be made. I think a less mischievious person who is also an excellent connoisseur of the language in question like your self would rather seek for clarity in the statement or wait for either of both interpretations to pass before jumping to irrational conclusions. 

The Dutch coach was wise, I was prepared to go to Wembley with a gun if RVP had come out for the 2nd half of this match. 

Doki, which kinda ethnic discrimination u and Debo dey perpetuate so? Emile Heskey is also a tall, black strong striker and so is Carlton Cole.

debosky:

Why won't you dispute that with your slavish agreement with foolish decision making by the current board in hope of getting some dividend/share price appreciation?

On the contrary, I dispute it cos I'm not a dunce who accepts false statements as fact only cos they support my position when all the other evidence indicates otherwise. 

debosky:

The Nike deal was due to expire this year and didn't have to be extended and we could've started getting an extra £15-20m NOW by signing a new deal. This particular decision has nothing to do with frontloading but is sheer stupidity by the board.

You obviously know nothing about contract law or are choosing to sound like a deaf mute on the subject. Nike had an option built into the original agreement which they chose to activate. Do you really think the board would negotiate a new deal for 8m when Tottenham is negotiating one for 12 and Liverpool for over 20m?

debosky:

Like I said, the board is largely made up of duplicitous two faced liars. Listen to Gazidis:

[i]“We deliberately kept some powder dry… There are funds available to invest in a significant way in January and [b]next summer.”[/[/b]i]

January has come and gone, and the only 'significant' investment was paying TH14's wage for a few weeks. The summer will come again and if we don't sell any big players, don't expect any purchases of note.

Not to sound like Gazidis advocate and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but the man who invented English should be well aware that the portion in bold is yet to pass aint it so? 
If summer passes and nothing happens, I'll be the first to acknowledge that you were right.

For anyone who wants a clear picture of our finances, I'd suggest the swiss rambler's recent post, I think its more objective than earlier ones. There are points of accuracy I'd dispute like the so called renegotiation of deals by chelsea but his writing creates a better picture of things than I could.

For those who can't be bothered, the summary is to expect more of the same in the transfer market until our commercial income can get a major boost in 2014 with the renegotiation of our major commercial deals in which we are currently losing up to 40m per annum compared to rivals due to the frontloading ofcontracts to fund the construction of the emirates as I'd previously pointed out to Debo.

By my estimates, we are about 5m richer in cash than we were at this stage last season, and in terms of creditor/debtor analysis of receivables within the year, we should be expecting a surplus of 11m, coupled with the fact that we usually get more cash in the 2nd half of the year due to PL and UCL payments I'd say we should have between 20 and 30m for investment into playing staff at the end of the season, but remember, RVP's new conract will also come from this. If we're able to offload the likes of Arshavin and Bendtner, I see no reason why we can't get Podolski and a 15 to 20m MF provided we can get Podolski for under 15m.

In the interim, it is very important but not absolutely critical to finances to ensure continuous UCL participation.

proudly9ja:

^^^
Hopefully, Campbell will get a work permit (or does he have one already) which is prolly why Arshavin may not return for next season. I don't think Ryo will be ready for first team action next season. Do you see how teams have learnt to double team on Chamberlain and he's finding it difficult to adjust? Ryo has to do all his learning at Bolton (if they stay up).

BTW, a certain Diaby still plays for Arsenal o, and we have a brazillian currently on loan at Sao Paulo

I think Campbell will definitely be here next season, he should have made up the required quota of international games by now. A pity my boy Wellington will still be in the cold.
I think we should be looking to sell Denny as soon as possible as his loan deal has been underwhelming and I think he's damaged goods, Diaby should be kept around but he might have to settle for a pay as you play deal when his current contract ends, he should be willing to accept that considering how long we've persevered with him.

proudly9ja:

I agree as per Ramsey but Il not be quick to change his name yet. I just think he needs to stop thinking he is Cesc and play his normal game without the flicks. Asides that, maybe Arsene has heard about the one Ramsey goal, one reknowned figure ish going around  

I wonder who is worse between the English media and Arsenal fans at hyping young players and then destroying them very quickly when they go thru patchy form as you would expect from developing players. The same sites like Le-Grove were hyping Ramsey last season are now seemingly hell bent on destroying the poor boy's confidence. Ramsey really is brilliant for his age and will only get better. For now, he is not the ideal player for the Cesc role he had to play this season but when people put things in perspective, they will know he has done for a 21 year old having his first full season in the top flight. I hope he now gets used sparingly in that role and probably find his best position in the future in the Arteta role.
The strange thing is that when they were younger, he was preferred to Wilshere in that role but I think Wilshere would play that role perfectly now.

proudly9ja:

There's hope for Chamakh at least he knows that in any situation where we are leading comfortably, he will still get his 5 or 10 minutes.
As for Park, unless he suddenly becomes a LB I doubt that we'l see him play for Arsenal again.
Meanwhile, half year fin results are out. Where's dudu to break it down for lay men  

The one thing Arsene has to sort out for next season is team rotation, the supporting cast of players like Benayoun and Chamakh weren't adequately utilized this season IMO, not sure if its got to do with trust or how the last transfer window impacted pre-season. Whichever one it is, I think some heads will roll in the summer. We have to utilize our big squad more if we're to go far in all competitions.

ritchboy:

Besides Jack, Ryo is the only LANS I'm really looking forward to. Which reminds me, ow is LANSbury faring at West Ham?

Lansbury is better known at West Ham for his goalkeeping exploits.  
Agent Ryodinho didnt do the biz over the weekend jare, I hope he redeems himself when Tottenham come to Bolton and maybe still give us a St. Toteringham day this season. I'm making plans to go and watch that and I hope it turns out to be a good day.  

ritchboy:

Pre-tax profit: 49 milli. . . That's almost enough to cop Hazard and Gotze in the summer

With all these LANS we're expecting? Dont hold yur breath o so yu dnt end up with one of those embarassing A&E incidents. 
Still going through the results but if I'm not mistaken our commercial income has already increased by around 2m in the half year returns compared to last year, so the commercial team is starting to deliver results.

Thank yu boiz. Back in 4th, North London supremacy reestablished and a free lunch this week courtesy of the office scummy who who was confident enof to bet with me that they would win.