A long article appeared on The Athletic yesterday concerning Arsenal’s recent history, written by well-known journalists/fans James “Gunnerblog” McNicholas and Amy “Amy “ Lawrence. It’s well over 3000 words, the length of a short story. I guess a turkey takes a few hours to cook and Christmas TV ain’t what it used to be, so why not? But does it tell us anything new? The short answer is ‘not a lot’.

I take immediate issue with the opening statements about Stan Kroenke getting to 100 per cent ownership of Arsenal. Buying out Usmanov “took the Kroenkes beyond the critical 90 per cent threshold and triggered a compulsory purchase of any remaining small shareholders, most of them Arsenal supporters.” No, no, no. Firstly it’s not ‘the Kroenkes’, it’s just Stan – he owns 100 per cent of KSE and therefore 100 per cent of the Arsenal shares. Josh doesn’t own a bean. Secondly and far more importantly, getting to 90 per cent did not trigger a compulsory purchase of anything, it just gave Stan Kroenke the opportunity to buy out all the remaining shareholders. There’s a big difference. He did not have to take that opportunity. Arsenal had been fine in multiple ownership since 1886.

“It’s not my fault”

Then the article gets into some minor re-writing of history from Arsène as to what was available to spend. Apparently Kroenke didn’t want to ‘invest’ in Arsenal as long as Usmanov had shares. I imagine Arsène was probably doing a mime of having his hands tied behind his back when speaking these words. We’ve heard it all before, but it can be summarised as “I did my best under impossible circumstances – no one could have done better.”

Then we get David Dein’s viewpoint. This can be summarised as “I sold my shares because I wanted the money and my decision on who to sell to was based on the most money I could get”. But of course Dein doesn’t believe he ever put a foot wrong or did anything to harm the club.

Then there is some talk of Arsenal falling behind through lack of investment, when in fact the problem was that Arsène (an innovator in the 1990s, a truly great manager till 2006) was a decade past his best and everyone from Alex Ferguson to Sam Allardyce had sussed him out completely.

They also make the point that Arsène repeatedly turned down the chance to spend, and also opposed a rights issue proposed by Alisher Usmanov that would have given him £100m. But hold on – this contradicts the earlier claim that his spending was restricted until Usmanov sold up. Both these things can’t be true.

“It’s not my fault either”

The article skims right over the numerous mistakes in backroom appointments once Arsène was eventually shown the door. I mean, Raul Sanllehi, signing Nicolas Pepe for £72m, agents becoming richer than Bill Gates… Tim Lewis (not on the Board at the time but lurking in the background doing Stan’s bidding) wasn’t so much running a tight ship as donning a red suit and white beard and rewarding everyone however good or bad they’d been.

We get a claim that Kroenke would have restructured the debt earlier if Usmanov hadn’t owned 30 per cent of the club. There is zero proof of this claim and the restructure wasn’t done as soon as Usmanov was gone, it waited until Covid affected cashflow by locking fans out of stadiums for over a year.

To be fair the piece does end by saying there was a decade where Kroenke sat on his hands and didn’t have the best interests of the club at heart. No shit, Sherlock. But they basically give him a free pass for this because things are ok on the field now. I’ve made this point 100 times before, but Arsenal is a football club. Clubs are supposed to be run for the benefit of members, not billionaire owners. Call me naïve, but I am never giving up that ideal, even if Stan oversees Arsenal winning the quadruple every year for the rest of the century.

“Well it’s not my fault – I’m not even him”

Finally, Jim’n’Amy quote Usmanov: “I love Arsenal, but I failed. What can I do?” Oh, poor old Alisher. Well what you could have done was offered your shares to supporters, or put them in trust to stop Kroenke taking 100 per cent ownership. But the rest of the shareholders were no use to you, so sod them. Thanks for that.

So Kroenke gets a free pass, Usmanov gets a free pass, David Dein gets a free pass, Arsène gets a free pass. Even Tim Lewis gets a free pass. It must be Christmas.