Here’s a list of Arsenal directors who have served since 1946. The just retired PH-W is the longest-serving by some distance at 51 years, with Robert Bellinger in second place with 36. Peter’s father, Denis Hill-Wood, managed 33 years, though Ken Friar will overtake him if he stays till 2017.

At the other end, in a blow for lovers of equality the shortest-serving director is the only female Board member Arsenal have ever had, Lady Nina, with just three years.

Richard Carr served 28 years before leaving the Arsenal Holdings PLC Board on 2009, but he remains a board member of Arsenal Football Club Ltd. His presence is the only difference between the two boards.

(List largely compiled by Andy Kelly @Gooner_AK)

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Peter Hill-Wood has left Arsenal, severing a connection that goes back to his grandfather joining the Board in 1922, before even the days of Herbert Chapman and the first great Arsenal side. The writing has been on the wall for several months, as he has not been in full health since last year. Even before that, many including me thought he would relinquish the role of Chairman last summer. Rumours abounded that Stan Kroenke would make his mark on the boardroom with a more permanent representation in London, possibly through his son. We should have known better. Arsenal remains a very conservative club, and the choice of existing Board member Sir Chips Keswick as new chairman is perhaps typical. It’s a surprise only because of Chips’ low profile over the eight years since he joined the Board.

PH-W’s profile has always been higher. He took over as Chairman in 1982, at a relatively young age, on the death of his father. Interviews with him during the 1980s and 1990s show a keen understanding of the football world and Arsenal’s position within it. He has presided over many of Arsenal’s greatest moments: the rise and fall of George Graham (including Anfield ’89) and the many successes of the Wenger years.

More recently his performances at the AGM and some ill-advised quotes to his mates at the Daily Star have somewhat tarnished his reputation. He’s had trouble sticking to the script at the AGM, and there is a good case to say that some of the meetings have been unlawful due to his poor handling of the resolutions. Never one to think too highly of the common fan on the terraces, this culminated in last year’s rather sarcastic AGM comment: ‘Thank you for your interest in our affairs.’ With hindsight he should perhaps have stood down a few years earlier, though his role has been purely ceremonial since the KSE takeover anyway.  

However, much as I think it was time Mr Hill-Wood stood aside, I don’t really agree with people attacking him for being only interested in money. Peter Hill-Wood was part of a culture that goes back a long way at Arsenal, where the club was expected to pay its way without a benefactor. That’s pretty much how it has always been, and the likes of Hill-Wood and Ken Friar were personally involved since the time that football clubs were valued in total in six figures, there was no such thing as a television contract and players were paid a maximum of £20 a week. Let’s not forget it was only three decades ago that Hill-Wood welcomed David Dein’s £292,000 investment for 16.6 per cent of Arsenal with the words “It’s dead money”. He never expected the club to be worth £1 billion in his lifetime, that’s for sure.

He was reportedly miffed that Dein made such a large profit from shares PH-W later sold him, and it’s unfortunately only human nature that he should want to profit himself by selling his last remaining shares to Stan Kroenke for around £5m. I’m disappointed he broke the family tradition and took that profit: what a gesture it would have been to forego a couple of million pounds he didn’t need and place some shares in trust for the fans instead of taking Kroenke’s dollars. It would also have shown up the greed of the other former Board members, who profited far more. So PH-W made some profit from Arsenal, but that can hardly have been his original plan when he became a Board member 51 years ago.

Here are links to other PH-W related posts:

Interview in the Arsenal programme from 1992

Message to fans after George Graham is sacked

Parody column for The Gooner

As a postscript, I fully expect new boardroom appointments that will lower the average age of the Board before the summer is out. I really wouldn’t like to guess whether these will be the traditional middle-aged and upwards English Board members we’re used to, or someone closer to Stan Kroenke. The only thing I’m sure of is that it’s going to take the sale of the club to get Red & White represented.  

Follow me on Twitter: @AngryOfN5

Around £80m by now.

Now before all the Arsène lovers get up in arms about this and jump straight to the comments to insult me, let me first say that I’m presenting this only as a quirky fact (I won’t go as far as ‘interesting’). In terms of value, there’s a good case to say that the money paid to Arsène over the years has been well worth it – certainly was for the first eight, anyway. But let me tell you the full story.

A couple of days ago on Twitter, the subject of why Arsène Wenger is Arsenal’s highest paid employee came up (personally I believe a good manager being the highest paid in a club is justified), and @Invinciblog questioned whether anyone at Arsenal had ever been paid more than AW.

After five seconds’ thought, I’d say looking at each year individually only one person: Thierry Henry in his last year, when he got a £5m upfront fee for agreeing to stay.

Then it struck me that given Arsène’s wages and longevity in the role, he must easily have earned more money than anyone else in the club’s history – or to put it another way, made more profit.

So I tweeted this:

No single person in history has taken more money out of Arsenal than Arsene Wenger. Must be c£80m by now. (I’m not judging value BTW)

Note the last bit: this was not a judgement of value, just a numerical or monetary fact. Some chose to take no notice of that.

Immediately I got several responses regarding shareholders cashing in, but the fact is they only took money from each other, not the club. Lady Nina got the biggest profit – or certainly the biggest in one lump. David Dein and Danny Fiszman may both have profited more than Arsène as a result of their Arsenal dealings, but they sold shares at different prices and different times, and I haven’t done all the maths. Either way, none of them took that money from the club, which would have curtailed its spending in other areas.

Some of the other responses I got were:

What was Arsenal worth as a club when Arsène arrived and what is it worth now?

The monetary answer to that is probably that going by share price Arsenal was valued at well under £100m, whereas it’s now around £1bn.

The alternative answer is: Who cares? An increase in share value is only a benefit to the shareholders, not the club itself. The only possible benefit I can think of is that a business perceived as more valuable can borrow money more easily. In any case, every Premier League club is worth a lot more than it was 17 years ago – TV has seen to that.

I know you’re not judging value, but how else can Arsene’s earnings be judged?

Well as a direct numerical comparison with everyone else. When you compare goalscorers, you tend to just look at the number of goals. Mostly you don’t even bother with goals per game, never mind whether the goals won games or points. It’s just a numerical comparison, that’s all.

Arsène has made big profits on selling players – much more than his total pay.

This is true, but he does buy players as well, and pay them handsomely – sometimes too handsomely. He probably gives a better result than other managers at similar sized clubs, though.

Are you comparing the amount paid to Wenger with the amount paid to Chapman?

Yes. Yes I am. And also to the amounts paid to everyone else. That is the whole and only point.

Similarly:

Have you considered inflation?

No. Again, the point is I wasn’t doing that. Similarly, when a new movie breaks box office records and becomes the highest grossing movie of all time, do they take inflation into account? No they don’t, because it’s a simple numerical comparison.

By that logic the contractor that built the stadium has taken more out than any other.

They may have grossed more, but didn’t make more profit – and in any case I said single person, and they’re clearly not one.

My favourite response was this:
What a stupid post.
I’m guessing the responder is a big Arsène fan. He clearly infers I am attacking his hero, but that doesn’t make my tweet ‘stupid’. I replied:
Explain the logic underlying that conclusion please.
Him: He hasn’t taken money out as such he’s been paid wages. Do you consider yourself taking money from employer?
Me: Yes – everyone does. They [employers] have the money or I have the money. If I have it, they have less. Value, as I said, is different.
Him: He’s taken zero money out. It’s the way you’re wording it.

The conversation ended there, as I didn’t feel it was likely to develop in a constructive manner. To me it’s obvious that given a finite amount of money, the more a company pays to its employees the less is available for anything else (investment, repayment of debt, distribution to shareholders), so in every sense I can think of employees do take money out of the business they work for. I’d honestly have thought this was completely indisputable. In my case my wages are small change to my employer, but in the case of an employee who takes over two per cent of the turnover of the company as his wage, it seems even clearer. It’s up to both parties to ensure that value is given for the money taken out, but that isn’t the subject under discussion.

I did get some support too. For example:
The ability to read something to suit own bias amazes me.
It used to amaze me too.
You can’t say anything about Wenger without someone jumping down your throat.
Yep. It’s another example of people hearing the same information and projecting their own emotions on it to reach a different conclusion. Just because I point out that Arsene has received more money from Arsenal than anyone else doesn’t mean I don’t like him or don’t appreciate what he’s done.

For further intellectual debate and petty nonsensical disputes, follow me on Twitter: @AngryOfN5

This is a kind of Part 3 of my Ivan Q&A review. I’m going to focus on two particular questions to highlight the problems of communication and understanding between supporters of the same club – who in this case were in the same room listening to the same information from the same person! As it happens, the main subject is my old favourite, the Arsenal wage structure. I expect I’ll get a few comments about how obsessed I am with that.

So as an example of where people hearing the same words can reach different conclusions, Tim Stillman (aka @LittleDutchVA) wrote in his own Q&A review on Arseblognews that Ivan confirmed the ‘socialist’ wage structure for players no longer exists. I know Tim, and our views on the state of Arsenal often coincide, but I disagree with his interpretation of Ivan’s words. The problem is Ivan did not just give a Yes or No answer.

Slightly unnecessary graphics just to break up the text

The full wording of the question addressed to Ivan was this (I have it in full because it came from the AST and I saw it beforehand):

“In previous Q&As you have suggested that the club was aware it needed to restructure its relatively flat wage structure so that it can afford to pay enough to persuade the top players to join and stay. Yet just a few weeks ago Arsène stated that he decides the wages paid and favours what he describes as a more socialist approach. Can you reassure us that this is your lead area of responsibility and that the necessary changes are being made to make our wage spend more effective?”Guess which answer is closest to Ivan’s:
a) “Yes I can confirm the ‘socialist’ wage structure is being abandoned.”
b) “No I can’t confirm the ‘socialist’ wage structure is being abandoned.”
c) “Where we start with every player is an assessment of talent. Arsène makes decisions on what talent he wants. Once he identifies the talent he wants then we talk wages. The right decisions on wages inevitably follow the talent assessment. Arsène is not scared to pay top wages to top players. We need to evolve our pay structure. We have never said that there’s an absolute structure and I’m not sure I know which comments from Arsène you’re referring to. Thanks to Arsène we’ve competed against clubs that have spent much more than us and we think he’s done a good job.”In case you’re not sure, I can tell you it’s c). As you can see, there is room for interpretation. But the upshot is this:

• Arsène is given a budget to spend
• He can spend it on wages or transfers
• He, and only he, decides the split between the two
• If he wants to pay every first team player exactly the same wage, that’s what he’ll do
• If he wants to pay one player £20m a year and all the others £10,000 a year, that’s what he’ll do
• Ivan can ‘encourage’ him to do differently, and Ivan is careful to give the impression of being involved without ever stating that he’s actually the man making the decisions. But Ivan can’t force Arsène to do anything unless and until Stan Kroenke decides Arsène is no longer the best man for the job
• If that point is reached, Arsène does what he’s told or gets sacked; that point has not yet been reached.

(You are free to not believe any of the above, but I assure you it’s all true.)

So to answer the question for Ivan: The wage structure is what Arsène wants the wage structure to be. If he wants to buy a player for £25m and pay him £12m a year (eg Rooney), then if it fits in the total budget he can do it. If he prefers to buy players for £8m-£12m and pay them all £3m-£5m a year he’ll do that. At the moment he does the latter; if he does the former, the wage structure has changed.

Example 2 of different stories from the same information: The headline on Le Grove on Tuesday morning was: “Ivan Q&A: Players haven’t joined because they’re at big managerless clubs.”

For Pedro this was the biggest talking point of the night, and he said as much to me immediately after the Q&A finished. I replied that I wasn’t so sure that’s what Ivan was saying, but without referring to my notes I couldn’t be definite – and anyway Ivan said a lot of stuff, some of which contradicted his other stuff.  

The question that caused this talking point was the one about whether Arsenal had missed a trick by not doing business early, while our three CL rivals in England didn’t have managers so weren’t doing their own business. My notes gave me this (paraphrased) response from Ivan: “I don’t think the situation of other clubs has made a difference. We are competing for a very small group of players at the top of the game. We are in discussions, but all parties have to want to do a deal.”

Tim Stillman took away something similar on this one, but Pedro heard “the reason we hadn’t made any purchases was because we’re going after top end players at clubs that lack a manager.”

To be fair, Ivan does talk a lot, as he openly admitted, and it’s hard to keep up and summarise everything accurately. But I think Pedro misheard that one.

I think I will suggest Jeremy Paxman to ask the questions next year. That way we might get closer to a Yes or No on some subjects – or at least some more entertainment while Ivan tries to avoid being unequivocal.

Still, it’s easy to see how disputes on social media can come about when three of us in the same room don’t hear the same story. As Pedro also said: “I always like the fact that in real life, people have opposing views and still get on. Social media, you have a lot to answer for.” Amen to that.

Notwithstanding the limitations of social media, follow me on twitter: @AngryOfN5

Here’s part two of my review of Monday night’s Supporters’ Q&A with Ivan Gazidis.

We rejoin the action at question 10, with Ivan still at the crease, manfully batting away googlies and the occasional full toss (Q8). Apologies to Americans who now think I’m talking another language.

Q10 – The AST recently put forward two independent reports looking at how the club could strengthen its corporate governance and boardroom. Have you had time to review these and what thought is going into strengthening the boardroom so that there is succession planning and so that new faces can strengthen the expertise that already exists?

IG: “Yes we have read the reports. We acknowledge the age of the Board. We’ll make changes, but we’ll do it quietly and in good time.”

Today’s Evening Standard had several paragraphs based on this question.

This is a question where all parties already know the answer, but having commissioned the reports the AST is duty bound to get it stated for the record that the question was asked, the Arsenal Board has stated they’ve read the reports and has promised, however vaguely, some action. Honour satisfied on both sides, we move on.

Q11 – Do you and Arsenal support the safe standing initiative that some other PL clubs are pushing?

IG: “We need the government to change its stance on standing; lots of issues; no sign of political will to change; emotional as well as practical issues.”

In other words, we don’t really care, as far as we can see it’s more trouble than it’s worth. We’d rather everyone sat in neat rows and ate three course dinners. (Note to self: can we make whole ground Club Level?)

Q12 – Alisher Usmanov owns nearly a third of the club, and is offering cartloads of money to spend on the team. Why not invite him in and take his money?  

At this point there was a shout of ‘He’s also mafia!’ from a youngish gentleman close to where I was sitting. Ivan ignored this.

IG: “It doesn’t matter whether anyone wants to give us money now, because FFP prohibits new money coming in. Spending money just leads to increased wages, and that’s not a good idea. Football needs regulation, not a free for all.”

Er, hold on there a minute Ivan. So now you’re saying being able to spend extra money is NOT a good thing? But earlier you couldn’t wait for us to have a bigger turnover so we could spend more money!You want to be like Bayern, remember!

In any case FFP does not prohibit all spending, it reduces it. There are ways of allowing some new money in.

You know what, if I were the suspicious type I’d think they have something against Mr Usmanov.

Not one of Ivan’s better answers.

Q13 – You want to be like Bayern, so why can’t we follow the example of the Bundesliga and have much lower ticket prices?

IG: “The German clubs have low ticket prices and very high commercial income. The commercials also take their toll on fans. We need to diversify revenue streams. It’s true that additional TV money and from commercial deals will take a bit of pressure off ticket prices, but our model is different to the Bundesliga.”

Sorry Ivan, I’m not happy with this one either.

a) How exactly is having high commercial income a problem for fans? Can we have the choice of buying things with an Arsenal crest on them rather than being forced to pay sky-high ticket prices, please?

b) How is our model different to the Bundesliga? It’s only different because the ticket prices are so high! That IS the difference! If you think their model is better, change to their model. What’s stopping you?

Oh wait – their model puts things in the supporters’ control – that would never do. Bad enough that you have to “take an interest in our affairs”.

Q14 – What happens if FFP is not properly applied? What is your Plan B?

IG: “It’s a good question and I have a good answer for it. We hope, expect and will push for FFP to work, but we’re not relying on it. What would we do differently without FFP? Nothing – we are doing what is best and would do what is best anyway: working within our budget, increasing commercial revenues.”

Oh dear. Three in a row.

a) So your good answer to ‘What is Plan B?’ is that it’s the same as Plan A.

b) This is a big change from previous years, where FFP has been held up as THE THING THAT WILL SAVE ARSENAL AND ALLOW IT TO COMPETE WITH THE BIGGEST CLUBS IN THE WORLD. Suddenly we’re not relying on it. Interesting.

Q15 – The squad balance has got worse and since about 2005 the defence has been poor, though we have good attacking quality. It seemed to take until March this year for the manager to suddenly notice and improve the defence. Who is deciding the coaching strategy, and does Arsène listen to other coaches?

IG: “A good football question – finally! This season we had the second best defence, and in the latter part of the season it came good. Was this down to form or personnel changes? The midfield form is also important because the midfield helps the defence. The coaching staff are certainly not shy in coming forward with opinions.”

Not shy in coming forward? Does that mean there was a bust up with Steve Bould? (There was.) Did Arsène finally agree to do things differently after the debacle of the home leg performance against Bayern? (Almost certainly.)

Q16 – When you arrived here you talked of applying your laser focus to underperforming members of the squad. We seem to be getting rid of a few underperformers at last. Will you be applying your laser focus to the rest of the dead wood?

IG: “Yes.”

That’s the short answer. I’m considerably paraphrasing, because the word wasn’t actually used, but there was a good deal of waffle about not talking about individuals (fair enough) and the need to always improve. However, given Arsène is in charge of signing and releasing players and also paying them, it’s difficult to see where Ivan applying his laser focus is going to be of benefit. So the whole answer was not convincing. In fact I think it was at this point that @DarrenArsenal1 next to me gave up just tutting and started calling out ‘Answer the question!’

Q17 – There’s been an underlying atmosphere of things not being acceptable at Arsenal for the last couple of years in terms of transfers and performance. Why have we not taken advantage and acted quickly this year, with other clubs changing managers?

IG: “I don’t think the situation of other clubs has made a difference. We are competing for a very small group of players at the top of the game. We are in discussions, but all parties have to want to do a deal.”

Okay, but nevertheless other clubs seem to manage to sign players more quickly than we do. Even clubs without managers sign players more quickly than we do! Is it because Arsène like to haggle down the price to his own perceived value level, and also be really really 100 per cent sure he’s getting  the right player, so he takes his time? Is it Ivan? It is, isn’t it? Go on, I won’t tell anyone.  

Q18 – Can the ground capacity be increased, and what can be done to improve the atmosphere?

IG: “I think we have the ground capacity about right for our needs, and in any case the design makes it very difficult to change. In terms of atmosphere, we have done a lot with the concourses, decoration, etc to make it feel like ‘home’. Getting like-minded fans together helps, but that is also difficult. There’s a long tradition of fans going to the pub before games and I wouldn’t want to stop that – I used to do it myself. We need to get food prices right, but we do have one of the cheapest pies in the league now.”

I have always understood that the proximity of the railway lines prohibits us from building the stadium any higher to increase capacity – not to mention the inevitable opposition from local residents. The comments about food and drink were interesting – Ivan encourages fans to go to the pub rather than drink in the stadium! The fact is that the deal with Delaware North has not served us well, and it’s of little or no benefit to the club to get people buying their produce in the ground. So Ivan says let’s go to the pub! Then he remembered his corporate responsibility and tried to sell us a cheap pie. I expect we’ll have the munchies after a few pints, so that could work.

And there the meeting ended. Naturally a group of people immediately crowded round Ivan to try and get their questions in, including Darren with his question on why reserve team matches aren’t screened by Arsenal. Apparently the demand is not there to justify it, the club has decided.

So what did we learn? Very little that Ivan said on Monday night was new. It’s rare you get a startling revelation or a dramatic shift in policy; things change gradually and evolve, and news trickles out piecemeal. If you’re already well-informed then you don’t learn much from these sessions. In this case the press were briefed last week as well, making it even less likely we’d get anything new here.

What you have to keep an eye on is how the overall message changes over time. There may be only the most subtle shift from one month or one transfer window to the next, perhaps even one year to the next. But if you look longer term then you can discern the changes in tone, the different messages on how much money there is available and who is guiding things. Following the narrative is not an exact science, and it suits the club (and all organisations) to have a little bit of mystery. But it does mean different fans hearing the same information focus on different parts of it and reinforce their existing beliefs. Next thing you have the Acronym Armies springing up, attacking or defending the Board, manager and team from all angles, before starting on each other.

Ivan is as open and honest as he can be, but he’s in a difficult position: he’s not the owner, he’s a paid employee, and his most high profile subordinate, Arsène Wenger, is in practice at least his equal. I’m assured that it’s true that Arsène had a hand in approving Ivan for his role, and while this doesn’t mean that Arsène tells Ivan what to do, it’s indicative of the power that Arsène has after so many years in his job. The manager has, deliberately or not, carved out a position for himself where he has absolute discretion over all playing and team matters, including finances, for better or worse. I don’t believe Arsène particularly set out to do this, but a combination of his longevity in the role, his early success and his ability to maintain a relatively competitive level with the biggest clubs (compared to others who have risen and fallen during his reign), coupled with key boardroom changes – the death of Danny Fiszman, departure of David Dein and waning influence through age of Peter Hill-Wood – mean that that’s where we are.

Ivan compared Arsenal to Bayern Munich several times in the course of the evening: the German club were held up almost as the Holy Grail of how it’s possible to compete with the billionaires by being smarter and most importantly by having a turnover in excess of £300m. With increased turnover through better commercial deals, and wage increases capped by FFP, the future is indeed brighter for Arsenal, no one can dispute that. We will be in an elite of clubs that will be very hard to dislodge. However, if you listened very closely there was a bit of a contradiction from Ivan, as he talked about the increased spending power now, but tempered this with the familiar ‘wait two years’ line that we’ve come to know and love. In this case, ‘wait two years and we’ll be doing what Bayern are doing.’ Well I look forward to that, but I won’t be overly surprised if the story mutates a little before we get there. 

Ivan also stated more than once that there are clear divisions of responsibility for him, Arsène and Dick Law – and presumably the likes of Ken Friar and other Board members and executives. He said that his role includes ‘supporting’ the manager. Couple that to the repeated references to the ever-improving financial position and the availability of funds to spend on the team, and the message is clear: if Arsène doesn’t spend and things don’t improve next season, it’s his fault and no one else’s. Everyone else has done what they can.  

Follow me on twitter: @AngryOfN5

This evening was the annual Q&A with Ivan Gazidis and members of various fan groups and small shareholders. There will be many blog posts about this – quite a few were on laptops during the event – not to mention the tweeting. Personally I was writing notes on paper, tweeting and listening to @DarrenArsenal1 tutting next to me at the same time, with occasional outbursts of indignation from Pedro of @LeGrove in the row behind me. It was a sensory overload.

Here’s my summary anyway. There is some paraphrasing.

As last year we had a short film of season’s highlights (no comment), followed by a personal video message from Arsène, who loves every one of us and values our support (translation: he’ll be signing a new contract).

Ivan’s intro was also shorter than last time, as he attempted to head off criticism of him using all the allocated time before a question was asked. He also said “I’ve been told to keep my answers short,” at which point Darren applauded and several of us laughed.

IG stressed that AW has “seen us through what could have been a very difficult period”; “We (the Board) don’t believe there is anyone better than AW for his role”; talk about a new contract for the manager “will be done quietly”.

After just a few minutes we were into the questions, firstly from shareholders.

Q1 – Since you have been employed here Ivan, our first team has turned into a second rate team. Will super quality players want to join us? What evidence is there of us being able to make super signings these days?

IG: “We haven’t got better or worse in the last few years we have held steady.”

Well, we’ve managed to cling onto top four, but I think most would agree we’ve got a bit worse. Ivan continued his answer with comparisons to Bayern as our turnover increases. To be fair, there was no direct way of answering the question unless he was going to bring Wayne Rooney out from behind a curtain.

Q2 – Why did we ‘hand the title to United’ by selling them RvP?

IG: “There were no good choices in that situation. It hurts everyone, me included, to see him score for Man U. It is possible to hold players to contracts, but they all react differently, some you can do it with, some you can’t. Now we need to look forward.”

Question dodged really. Personally I don’t blame RvP for going to Utd, though his statements rankle. But why Utd? Sell him abroad or keep him a year.

The questioner seemed to think it was all about money with RvP, so why not incentivise him with £10m to get to a cup final? Ivan disagreed that it was all about money.

Q3 – Can you guarantee AW will spend big this year?

IG: “AW isn’t scared to spend money, but it’s up to him to get the players he believes in. AW has done a very good job with this overall. He wants a cohesive squad that he believes in.”

So basically IG can’t guarantee anything about spend, because it’s AW’s job. Which anyone who listens to anything I say would know already.

Q4 – You’ve previously said the wage structure needs attending to, but AW has come out this year talking about how he likes the ‘socialist’ model – are you doing anything about it or not?

IG: “Where we start with every player is an assessment of talent. AW makes decisions on talent. Once he identifies talent he wants then we talk wages. The right decisions on wages follow the talent assessment.”

To translate: In my years here I have not managed to wrest an ounce of control of team spending from Arsène. He does what the hell he likes and will continue to do so, whether anyone agrees with it or not.

Q5 – Why can’t we seem to do any major business early in the transfer window?

IG: “We strive to do business early, but have a disadvantage compared to the clubs with basically unlimited funding. There is less uncertainty this year on funds we have available. With several top clubs changing managers it’s unclear how transfer business will go, and also most clubs are taking FFP into account, and the effect of that is unknown.”

Again, what else can he really say? He’s waiting for AW to make a decision.

Follow up: Do we need to wait to ensure we are in the CL group stages?

IG: “No – no player has made that a condition.”

But he avoided the club angle here: is the club prepared to spend before it confirms the CL place?

Q6 – How long will it be before FFP takes effect?

IG: “The wage cap is already in place (wages can only go up in line with commercials). We are okay because our commercials are increasing and can cover wage rises.”

Q7 – What is your role, and that of Stan Kroenke and Dick Law?

IG: “I’ve been asked this question rather less politely! I am responsible for everything off-field, including developing revenue streams, the reputation of the club, supporting the manager however he needs it. SK as an owner is mindful of not treating the club as an extension of his ego, is respectful of tradition. Some of our commercial successes have been as a result of SK’s vision. Dick Law has decades of experience in professional football. He speaks five languages and continually flies round the world negotiating deals. The division of responsibilities is very clear: AW is in charge of everything on the field, but we help with analysis of what he needs.”

Everything you would expect him to say, plus Stan is apparently helping us win commercial deals! Is he? What exactly is he doing then?

Q8 – Some fans turned against you and AW mid-season; how does that affect you?

You have to ask if this question is for real. Darren next to me nearly fell of his chair, and the explosion of air from Pedro behind nearly blew me onto the stage.

IG: “We all give everything we have to put this club at the top of world football. All our time and energy goes into it. We all get frustrated with losses, and angry – particularly matches like Bradford and Blackburn. We are building a football club to compete at the top of the game.”

I think this answer went on a fair bit longer without telling us anything useful.

Q9 – Do you and will you actively support initiatives to help away fans and stop them getting ripped off?

IG: “We’ll do all we can, in conjunction with other clubs, though this isn’t easy to resolve.”

In other words, “I can’t promise anything”.

And that takes us to halfway. Join me tomorrow for the conclusion. Feel free to leave a comment, but preferably not the one about me banging on about the wage structure (as though I’m the only person who thinks there’s something amiss with it).

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• Rooney – still definitely not coming
• Cesc – not going anywhere this year
• Fellaini – possible
• Higuain – possible
• Jovetic – most unlikely

That’s about it. To be honest you may as well chill, because we know Arsène’s methods by now:

• consider every player very carefully, particularly how he will fit into the system Arsène likes to play
• consider the effect on the development of other players in the squad
• consider the value you’ll be getting and don’t pay over the odds
• keep everything really quiet for as long as possible so those buggers at Chelsea don’t get a sniff
• negotiate as hard as possible on fee, but give the player what you think is a fair salary compared to his peers already at Arsenal, regardless of whether he’s on anything like that now and would be happy to sign for 10 bob and a packet of pork scratchings

All this means that if Arsenal sign someone before the end of June it is unlikely to be the star name we all seem to crave. More likely it will be someone from the French second division we’ve never heard of. Said Frenchman may turn out to be brilliant, of course; it’s happened before. All I’m saying is the big names won’t be along just yet. Maybe later in the summer.

On the subject of transfers I was reminded the other day on twitter by @yorkshiregunner of the story of how Igors Stepanovs got signed. According to Ray Parlour, who was there at the time, Martin Keown used to get really wound up if he thought another centre back was going to be signed and potentially displace him from the team. So Ray and some of the others started talking about Stepanovs, saying how great he’d been when he came for a trial, and how they thought he’d fit right in at Arsenal. This wound Keown up no end, but no one was more surprised than Parlour when Stepanovs actually turned up as a new signing. When Arsène was questioned about it by the players, he said he’d heard them all saying how good Stepanovs was so decided to sign him on that basis!

Make of that what you will.

One of Arsène’s former clubs, AS Monaco, are the source of a lot of transfer rumour right now. Having just won promotion back to Ligue 1, they seem hell bent on challenging PSG in a Chelsea/City style spending war. I can only assume that either their owners haven’t heard about FFP, or are thinking, “We’ll qualify for the Champions League first, then we’ll worry about whether they’ll let us in.”

On the plus side they are rumoured to be interested in John Terry, which would at least get rid of him from my view.

Monaco and their players have just had a bit of bad news though: they need to pay tax. No one has paid income tax in Monaco since 1869, except for French citizens who have moved there since 1957. However, the French FA decided that was giving the football team an unfair advantage so have ruled that all French league clubs must now have a ‘tax residence’ in France, meaning all employees of the football club are now liable for income tax. Harry Redknapp is said to be no longer interested in taking over as manager.

Back at home Ivan Gazidis has given a long interview to various journalists, the full transcript of which is available on the Daily Mirror site. It’s an interesting read, if you can get past the feeling of having heard it all before. The difference this year is that Ivan is really pushing the ‘We’ve got money to spend’ angle, in a clear message that if it doesn’t get spent it’s down to one person and one person only, the manager.

Ivan said so much that it’s possible for any Arsenal fan of any persuasion to point to bits that support their own views and say, “I knew it! There was/wasn’t money to spend before! It’s all the Board’s/manager’s fault we didn’t spend last year!” You can cut it any way you want, but whatever the message you take, it’s still just talk. Ivan doesn’t decide which players to buy, he doesn’t decide how much to pay for them and he doesn’t decide how much to pay them. (Though he carefully used words to give the impression that he is very much involved in all those activities, without actually claiming that he makes the decisions.)

Anyway, I think we’ve all had enough of talk. I want to see transfer action. But with Arsène at the helm, I’m not holding my breath. And that’s where we came in.     

Twitter: @AngryOfN5