Following on the heels of Peter Hill-Wood’s vanilla announcement about “board restructuring” yesterday, Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith has made a little statement of her own:
I’m in total shock and very upset about the appalling way I have been treated. The board have no manners whatsoever and my views were ignored on many occassions. I can’t understand why I have been removed in such a ruthless fashion. I have had no proper explanation as to why they wanted me out so much. It is very difficult to accept especially after what my family has done for Arsenal for so many years.
The board removed her and she doesn’t know why? I hardly believe that. What did they do, wait for her to go to the restroom and vote her off the board?
Quick Pete, Lady Nina’s in the loo, let’s vote her off the island!
No, this sounds more like someone posing as the injured party so that when she sells her shares she can make a statement about her heavy heart and how she disagrees with the way the company is being run and wants to spend more time with her family, etc. I could be wrong about this, she did say that she has no intention of selling, but it is a mysterious statement.
Whatever the motivation, the facts are that more shares now exist outside the board than inside with Usmanov and Lady Nina holding more of Arsenal than Stan Kroenke and Danny Fiszman.
Frankly, this makes the board look increasingly hostile and insular. They fired two board members in two years and took an awfully long time to appoint Gazidis as the replacement for David Dein, the first casualty in this boardroom battle. An insular, disconnected, and hostile board is very concerning. No one knows what they are really fighting over with speculation ranging from selling shares to the appointment of Gazidis but whatever the issue(s) lets hope they settle them quickly. The last thing this team needs is disarray off the pitch — they suffer enough on the pitch.
Wouldn’t it be funny if the board were fighting over new signings? Honestly, given the vociferous debate here, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Champions League Draw
UEFA held their Champions League draw and Arsenal got paired with Roma. You’re going to have to forget about what happened last time Arsenal met Roma (4-2 on aggregate) because this Roma team is in top form. Roma have won 8 of their last 9 matches in all competitions, dispatching Chelsea 3-1 and Bordeaux 2-0 in the Champions League along the way.
This will be a hell of a clash and Arsenal will need to be in top form to move forward in this competition. But we knew that. This is the part of the tournament where every team is pretty damn good and some are downright frightening.
Transfers
Until the transfer window closes on February 2nd I will be keeping with my summer policy of not speculating or reporting on speculation. 99% of it is stupidity anyway, just look at what Valencia is asking for David Villa: £120m. Arsenal will never, ever, ever pay that much for any player, much less an overrated player like David Villa.
On a related note, this means I’m not going to be talking about whether Arsene should or shouldn’t “strengthen the squad” or any other Football Manager type of stuff. Frankly, it’s tiresome to hear the same things over and over and I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing me say the same things in response. I think we’ll all be happier if we stop arguing over who Wenger should buy, if he should buy, when the sky will fall, and all that pap until we see what actually happens this season.
I’m going to save it for the summer, when there isn’t any actual football to watch. You all feel free to argue away in the forums, I’m not participating.
Tomorrow there will be a preview of the Liverpool match. See you then.
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