Arsenal try to calm the storm but it may be too late

It’s been an eventful few days for Arsenal.

Yesterday, the Athletic’s David Ornstein reported that the club were “100%” behind Unai Emery and called the fan grumblings around his performances this season “noise”. As in the song by the Buzzcocks, Noise Annoys.

Then someone else, or maybe the same people, hit Orny up for a second pure gold Athletic article in which it is alleged that someone at Arsenal has asked P-E Aubameyang to stop being so friendly with the AFTV personality named Troopz. There are also concerns about other stuff with Aubameyang and frankly at this point, meh, I’m losing interest.

And amid all of that controversy the club hierarchy held a pre-planned meeting with staff in which someone said:

“We are as disappointed as everyone else with both our results and performances at this stage of the season. We share the frustration with our fans, Unai, players and all our staff as they are not at the level we want or expect.

“Things need to improve to meet our objectives for the season, and we firmly believe Unai is the right man for the job, together with the backroom team we have in place. We are all working intensively behind the scenes to turn things around and are confident we will.

“We never take our fantastic support for granted. We hope we can all stick together and get behind the team in this challenging period, as together we are stronger.”

According to James Benge it was Raul and Vinai who made the statement. It’s not a coincidence that this was leaked to at least two Arsenal reporters.

Anyway, that settles things. Arsenal don’t take the supporters for granted and we aren’t just “noise.” Oh but however, Unai Emery ain’t going nowhere.

I don’t like the soap-opera aspect of sport. I also don’t like the Jerry Springer aspect of sport. And I’m not a huge fan of corporate cheerleading. I’m “Arsenal till I die” but that doesn’t mean I need to give them my attention when the whole gang is acting like babies and it also doesn’t mean that I need to give the company my money and admiration just because they exist.

Arsenal is a club in that I have a lot of friends who also support Arsenal. I like those people. I like talking to them. I like sharing wonderful moments with them, like when we beat Tottenham in the “sit down he said” match. And sometimes I even like sharing in the misery of our football.

But Arsenal are also a multinational company owned for the private profit of a billionaire. I can’t turn a blind eye to everything they do or don’t do and endlessly support them. That doesn’t make me a fan, that makes me a lackey. If they want me to be a brand ambassador, if they want me to sing their praises, they need to give me something to cheer about.

If I was a fan of Pepsi and all the sudden Pepsi started to taste different, you can bet your butt that I’m going to say something! I’m not going to switch to Mr. Pibb but I’m going to complain.

So, yeah, sorry guys, one of the parts of the deal is that you get to hear our “noise”. In exchange, Raul, Vinai, Edu, Josh, and Enos all get to get very rich. Seems like a small price to pay considering the reward.

And why are we complaining? It’s not like we are complaining because the packaging changed, though that wasn’t great when they changed the badge. We are complaining because the product SUCKS.

Sport is simple, it’s an entertainment business. We want to be entertained. If we aren’t entertained by the results, we want to be entertained by the process, and if that all fails we will entertain ourselves with misery and anger. Sorry! That’s how it works! Philly fans booed Santa.

Obviously, none of that is inducement to violence against players either in real life or online. It’s just an explanation of why fans act the way that they do.

Actually, there is one further step: apathy. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. We are only angry about Arsenal because we care.

Now, there is a possibility that our expectations are out of whack. Anger is the outcome of unmet expectations but sometimes your expectations can be too high. But I’m not sure that’s the case with Arsenal right now. I don’t think anyone expects Arsenal to be Liverpool. I do think most of us would like to see us progress toward that goal. Get better, build on our strengths, start to look like a cohesive unit that is well coached and knows what it is doing.

We would all gladly accept Arsenal getting unlucky and losing games by close margins but as I outline in my piece on Arseblog News today, we are losing by bigger margins, more often. Sorry, but I don’t think fans are stupid. We see what’s happening at the club with this manager.

What is perplexing about all of this is that the club are staunchly behind Emery.

My gut tells me that they are solidly behind him because they don’t want to have to pay his contract for another 18 months plus another new guy and all of his backroom staff. The club just shaved nearly £50m off the payroll with personnel changes this season, plus getting rid of Arsene’s contract.

But even if you go down that route and say “ok, so Emery is going to cost £9m for the next 18 months, and all his staff probably another £4m, then the new guy is going to cost, let’s say the same amount” that’s, what, £26m? The club then ask how much is the difference between Europa and Champions League? How likely are Arsenal to get that 4th place? How much money are they going to lose because we slip league places? How many players are going to demand to leave this toxic situation? Like Xhaka is now doing? How much money are they going to lose to television revenue? Advertisements? So on and so on.

My guess is that there’s a number out there and once we pass that number they will fire Emery. Until then, we got him for the foreseeable future. Probably until summer.

Qq

25 comments

  1. I’m at the point of apathy already. No more more merch, no more of my dollars go to the club in any way. I have YoutubeTV just to watch Arsenal, so that’s going out soon too. And more importantly, I don’t get to be miserable each weekend watching the mediocre performances. It’s easier to just read about the shit show than have to watch it.

    My Arsenal fandom started because they were the ‘non Glazer’ type of team, had values and then continued because of Wenger, even though it was a hard sell with Arsene’s last season. Well now, we might as well be Man Utd.

    1. It will cost us more to keep him. If that isn’t obvious to them, we have an executive team every bit as gaumless as when Ivan was still here.

  2. Don’t you think that if there was a clear and obvious upgrade on Emery they’d do it? I don’t think there is one out there that makes the RVEJ quartet satisfied that they’d be able to re-enter the top 4 chase, and also have a manager they could carry on with for the next two+ years. Like I wrote on the last post, most likely they carry on with Emery until the Europa League run is finished, and if that’s short of the final then Freddie is interim for the last few games a la Ryan Giggs taking over for Moyes at the end at United.

    Here’s a nightmare scenario as a thought experiment – we finish anywhere from 6th to 17th in the PL… but win the Europa League. Mission accomplished? Emery gets to stay? Auba and Laca now have CL football to play for and sign extensions? I would argue no, but how does that look? It’s shades of van Gaal getting turfed the day after he wins the FA Cup with United.

  3. Your last two paragraphs nail it. Brilliantly summarized. There is no room for emotions with these decisions.

  4. I’m reminded of another Buzzcocks song: ‘(Ever fallen in love) with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with.’

  5. The club is staunchly behind their best financial and sporting interests, not Unai Emery.

    I think your sums make great sense, but I think there’s more to it. It’s more than the cost of sacking him. It’s also the opportunity cost of not doing so. Josh Kroenke made clear in the summer that they do not want to be stuck with the tag of a Europa League club. One, you lose your best players, like Aubameyang. Two, you fail to recruit players you pursue hard, like Griezmann and Mahrez. It’s a cycle. You cant improve because you cant keep or attract world class players. World class players won’t come to you because you are not progressing or challenging for anything.

    If you want a worldie to come, you pay through the nose, and you get them for perhaps not the right reasons.

    As for Auba and Troopz (Aubama-bloodclaat–yang), that’s just a a stupid distraction. Auba gets and acknowledges fan support. He does not go dining with Troopz or DT or Robbie… he does so with Laca, Ousmane Dembele, Matteo Guendouzi, Samuel Umiti and a small circle of black French footballers.

    You WANT a good relationship between players and fans. See Xhaka, Granit. A smart hierarchy builds on that, not stops it. Maybe those yardie boys are the “wrong” kind of fans.

    1. Aubameyang, with a reputation for being a disruptor at Dortmund, is a much liked member of the dressing room who goes out of his way to create harmony. Letting low on confidence Laca and Pepe take pens, instead of inflating his own golden boot claims (try taking the ball off Harry Kane). A positive, sunny, cheery influence around the club, beloved by players and supporters and who gives the love back. A world class player squad shot through with ordinariness.

      So what does the hierarchy do? Brief against him. Unbelievable. It’s almost like they know that, nudging 32, he would not stick around for another Europa campaign. What ugly people these folks are.

      1. ‘is a much liked member of the dressing room who goes out of his way to create harmony.’

        i dont think coming out in defense of associating with people that abuse players openly like what Troopz did to Xhaka creates harmony in any way as Xhaka is his teammate. Remember this is a person who is famous for making obscene rants about the club he claims to support and these AFTV guys were clearly called out by Bellerin as not being real fans. i don’t think associating with such fans makes you a dressing room favorite

        1. Troops has not abused Xhaka. In fact (and this might surprise people who dont want h the channel) Xhaka was strongly defended by a few of the contributors, and actually had a supporter in DT. And Troopz actually, despite his potty mouth, actually reads the game reasonably well, and tends to be supportive of our players. He makes more sense than a some people who regularly comment here.

          This is an incredibly stupid road to go down by the board, and by supporters. If you have a legitimate problem with associations, have a quiet word with the player.

          You or Hector dont get to decide who are not so called “real fans”. Clearly the club captain disagrees.

          And you have offered zero evidence that the dressing room as whole disapproves of AFTV.

  6. My take: top 4 is gone. We won’t recover the gap to the current top 4 teams. I think we’ll also fall behind the other 2 under-performers. I can easily see us finishing the season 7th placed (at best).

    Gambling on CL qualification via the EL is a crazy gamble. And a misnomer as this season was supposed to be all about league performance, not back door qualification.

    I’m a businessman and I’ve studied Swiss Ramble’s posts and can’t see a business case for keeping Emery on. The single largest risk of continuing with him is the diminishing squad resale value; because be in no doubt we’ll be selling our stars come season end.

    I can only assume we can’t find a suitable managerial replacement (who’d want to take on an under-performing, demotivated squad with an angry fanbase?). And Freddie would be mad to take the reins as there really is no upside so why tarnish his managerial career before it’s begun? The board is simultaneously in damage limitation mode and burying their head in the sand.

  7. Emery will be fired when Arsenal mathematically can’t make the CL, exactly the same as David Moyes was. That’s the out clause for the club in his contract as reported last year shortly after he was brought on. They’re not willing to pay him to not coach the team.

    1. Whoa – is that true? There’s an out-clause that Arsenal do not have to pay Emery if we’re mathematically eliminated from top 4 and Europa League? So, could they have dumped him at no cost after the team lost the Europa final last spring?

      1. I doubt there’s such a clause. Previously we thought it was a 2
        +1 contract but Ornstein has recently said it’s actually a solid 3. If it has actually been a 2+1, maybe.

  8. There has been a bit of fan-blaming lately, Emery, Xhaka, Ornstein’s unnamed debriefer. Too much for it to be coincidence. It all adds to a growing sense of discord between club and fanbase, a lack of empathy and connection. The idea that fan negativity could be the only thing holding the team back is the kind of deluded hauteur I’d have expected from Peter Hill-Wood, presumably while muttering darkly about ‘those ghastly poor people’.

    The damage control statement does at least say a lot of the things that fans wanted to hear. Yes we know things are bad, no we’re not happy about it either, you guys are fantastic and not just noise as was previously indicated. however the one big thing they really wanted to hear was missing and I don’t envy them the job of managing this.

    The key will be in communication and transparency, as much as that is possible. Fans concerns are immediate term, Emery Out Now. The front office must consider all terms, short, medium and long, all probabilities and monetary permutations. The decision of when to sack must be based on something concrete and less on gut feelings, false loyalties and the desire to not be Man Utd. The costs of getting it wrong (again) are simply too high.

    Regardless the message seems clear, no matter the pressure you bring to bear, we’ll make this decision without your help. Rightly so perhaps. But that’s cold comfort for us poor souls on the frontlines who must endure Emeryball week to week with no recourse or power to change things.

  9. While some struggle to get beyond the childish and cheap comedy value of Emery sounding alarmingly like Manuel from Fawlty Towers, I fear that his impenetrable wordy soliloquy’s pre and post-match give a sense of the confusion inside his head.

    His insistence on weekly changes in formation and falling out with some players while favouring others, have created confusion on the pitch. This has possibly disguised the reality that apart form our attack and Leno, we are pretty ordinary.

    If we let Emery him go now, the new guy would need a proper centre back and CDM in January to stand a chance of CL. I thought Ndidi looked different class to LT against Leicester but maybe I’m being unkind and he needs time. I agree that this looks like a financial decision probably made at the end of the season but a loss against Southampton would test them.

  10. Well I’m just thinking back over my last 40-odd years as a gooner, and I certainly can’t remember any time when I felt this dissociated from my club.

    When Kroenke came in I guess saw it as inevitable and better than Usmanov. I wasn’t happy, but at least Wenger was around to provide continuity and a sense that the club was dedicated to maintaining its identity. Since Wenger left, each facet of the Arsenal identity has been slowly stripped away. I regard the people in charge right now as opportunists. I don’t doubt that they want to succeed, but their criteria for success are not necessarily mine. They are not guardians of anything except profit.

    If Arsenal becomes a permanent fixture in mid-table, profitable but synonymous with failure and lost glory, the execs will move on to other clubs, wryly shaking their heads and sharing stories at dinner parties about how tragic it is that Arsenal became a uniquely unmanageable club due to the mismatch between the expectations of the fanbase and the self-financing model, and how even they could not save it.

    We are now in the full-blown, corporate-style, safe, defensible, executive-ass-covering mode of decision-making at the club.

    The appointment of Emery as manager confirmed that, especially given the riskier available alternatives. Emery was an executive’s dream, someone with enough credentials and a CV to justify his appointment to the boss / the board, and yet someone with no political clout or standing, with an inferiority complex, who will obediently get fired when his time comes. I have no doubt that they will sack him, it’s just a matter of timing – they will do it whenever it makes them look decisive.

    In all of this I feel as much sorry for Emery as I feel annoyed with him for what is beginning to look like a clear lack of competence. I think that he cares, and cares deeply, and for that at least I am prepared to thank him.

    1. You are too kind on Emery. This is a guy who self-aggrandizes as the Maestro and has an autobiography already even before a proper coaching legend like Wenger.

      He has a full fledged PR team, and has a career trajectory of an opportunist journeyman. He is obviously a job interview expert and he knows how to communicate in idealistic Football manager meaningless waffle because he thinks it panders to audiences and employers . The man is only interested in his own brand, and the damage his lack of current success is doing to it.

      Stay/Go, I don’t really care. He is just a club employee.

  11. Several things and people the arsenal board is aware they can’t achieve or
    have for long and NOT interested in.
    1) top four. (CL)
    2) Europa league winning
    3) Auba, Ozil, Laca except for Ozil, the other two are marked big money shots next surmer.
    4) Being competitive. Position 7 is no failure to them. Stan’s biggest target was not to own arsenal but to build the Emirates and he couldn’t do that without buying arsenal. He’s revenues are sure onwards. All the sponsorship deals have been signed and they are long time. Emirates is the big attraction not arsenal football.
    5) Emery. He’s serving a purpose to show that they can change things. When he will have threatened to drop below 7(and surely that is end of the season) they will let him go. Bring in a new manager raise a bit of optimism and watch position 7.
    6) Xhaka. He will be let go to make a statement. Being on a long contract, negotiations to let him go will be long, protracted and hard. Just for the gallery but going he has to.
    All these players seem to have ready made academy replacements. Obviously we will not make another signing like Pepe. Free or very cheap deals just to keep us interested. We’ll have. A perfect ground for excuses…. Project youth “we decided to go a different direction with the new coach. This is long term and will require patience” Pals we’ll be firmly a middle table team without fear of coming out as having failed. Just punching our weight.
    All arsenal had achieved will only remain what Wenger did in his miraculous years without much spending. The fan better forget those years. They are not coming anytime soon. In 15-20years, The arsenal will be sold to a new owner.
    Better get something else to do than have expectations in Arsenal.

    1. I agree. I don’t think we’ve talked enough about the owners this time. Managed decline. The Ornstein briefing was stunning for its clear statement of inferiority to Leicester.
      Here’s the thing though : I could even deal with 7th every season if we played fun football. This shit is just hapless, there are never any passing angles in midfield. And Emery has begun to repulse me for some reason. He looks so scared.

  12. Nine years ago, baseball fans of the Houston Astros– watched as the front office dismantled the team in short order. In the course of 12 to 18 months. All veterans, anyone making a scintilla of money was traded for whatever could be had (draft picks the preferable coin).

    Probably the best pitcher on the team, Bud Black, was traded to the Orioles during a series in Baltimore. Black just stayed in town. Didn’t return with the team to Houston.

    While Houston burned the team down– in order to rebuild it the right way? They took grief from all corners. Rightfully so. Baseball execs, agents, other players, their labor union– all denigrated the club– and those doing the deeds. The team lost over 400 games from 2010-2013. Without relegation as a fear– finishing last was little different than any other place.

    And it worked. Houston won the World Series in 2017 (lost this season dammit!)– and is now considered among the best teams in MLB. The Astros model became the method that many sports organizations have tried to emulate to ‘start over’. By getting rid of all remnants at the club– and rebuilding with youth (high draft picks awarded from low finishes).

    +++

    The differences in how U.S. sports leagues are configured makes ‘tanking’ a possibility. An example, the NFL Miami Dolphins publicly announced their intentions months before this current season started. The process is accelerated starting from scratch– or as close to it as possible. Selling or trading off assets for whatever can be had. Spend as little as possible on whatever is needed to field a team.

    The difference? In world football there’s relegation. You actually can’t just burn a club down. Or you go down. This adds time to the equation of a rebuild. A club has to retain a semblance of mediocrity– competitiveness.

    +++

    There is no more captive audience than football/soccer fans. We love our club– (almost) no matter what.
    If Arsenal– is– moving to sell off their assets? To effect a non-relegation tank-job? With the experience of having seen it done, this, is what the beginning of it might look like. Making moves and decisions that simply make no sense short-term.

    Like sticking with a terrible manager– no matter how poor the results, how negligent the tactics, or droll the team plays.

  13. Look Santa got boo’ed because he got stuck in the mud. Also because it’s Philly.

    The short and long of it….which I think you hit on the head with this today is that Arsenal are an investment vehicle for a billionaire and his fail son to make more billions because what else are they going to do with that money? Like any well run business (by business school or private equity dopes) if you can’t add to the positive side of the balance sheet (which was maxed in terms of TV revenue and ticket sales) you have to cut cost. That the product doesn’t entertain is a time honored Kreonke tradition that I believe you yourself wrote about several years ago (the Denver Nuggets and Avalanche even the Rams but NFL is a whole different stupid thing).

    As it was the ‘revenue’ side was pretty much tapped out. You can only sell so many tickets and with dropping into Europa well that isn’t as profitable, but your outlay for a matchday doesn’t change. So you cut services or reduce payroll (both on and off the pitch) and all this fancy business school bs which improves the bottom line but hurts the product and experience. If this goes on you’re going to see less and less people at games which will hurt their bottom line more and more, but ticket revenue isn’t the driving ‘value’ behind Arsenal. It’s the PREMIER LEAGUE tv deal money and the brand. Well the brand is being devalued and you’re losing butts so….better make more cuts!

    The equation is simple as you also state: lost revenue from match day + tv deal + table finish + missing Europa + ‘damage to the brand’ = Emery fired. We are, and I do not think it has been quite so honestly or pointedly stated for a while, dollars to be exploited and nothing more. The proles who want our bread and circus who should sit down, shut up, and support regardless of all circumstance. Capitalistic corporatism knows no bounds and that’s as depressing a thought as I’ll probably have all day. We commit to teams and sport to forget some of that drudgery in day to day life, yet here it is rearing itself so obviously.

  14. Not renewing my subscriotion to hotstar, sony liv, etc until Arsenal start playing the Arsenal way again.

    If only my subscriptions would telecast awfc matches, i would watch those instead.

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