AST Gazidis Q&A
I’ve read through the 957 comments posted up on Thursday afternoon and the truth is I’m really struggling to pick out one question out of so many fantastic entrants. The best questions fell into the following groups.
- What the hell is going on with commercial revenues and why are the fans being made to pay for poor deals despite an expensive commercial team?
- What are the minimum expectations of the board with regards to the manager and is he indispensable?
I haven’t decided which question I’m going to ask yet, I will work on that this afternoon, but I’m pretty confident I’ll have a good one by the close of play. Remember, he’s a politician, so the question has to be asked in such as way as to elicit a response that’s worth while.
Tonight’s AST Q&A with Ivan Gazidis is going to be full to capacity, I think around 300 members are due to turn up and from what I saw at the last meeting, the people who turn up are no shrinking violets. I don’t mean they’re violent thugs, I mean they’re generally intelligent people who can articulate themselves in a respectable way. They’re the type of people who aren’t taken in by what Arsene Wenger has been feeding the public and they’re they type of people who have been watching us lose the summer in the newspapers over the past week.
Make no mistake, tonight is going to be very interesting. Also don’t think the feedback from the meeting isn’t going straight back to Arsene Wenger. In a club that owes 60% of its revenue to the fans, the fan is king. With rumours of a 20% churn in season tickets this year, this meeting really does come with a lot of importance to the board. I’m not sure what the strength of that stat is, but what I do know from my LG experience is that there are a hell of a lot upset fans with season tickets they don’t want to buy but can’t loan out.
The AST asked in their recent questionnaire whether the sustainable business model was still favoured by fans since the introduction of 2 billionaires, one at the extreme end of that elite club. I wouldn’t want to predict the answer… but I’m guessing people won’t be in favour of the word ‘prudence’ this summer.
I’m really looking forward to tonight and I’m really impressed that Gazidis is taking this on. I once had to sit in front of the top management at a cardboard box factory after a driver had been caught defecating round the back of his truck at a big name fresh food factory, apparently when he was collared, he vomited. True story. For me, the pressure of today’s event will be similar for Ivan… except hopefully his presentation won’t be quite as gruesome.
In the news, the Daily Mail reckon Stan Kroenke has broken his 2 year silence to sanction some extra Samir Nasri funds. He’s offering him some free Bikram Yoga as part of his deal and he’s going to get a free kitchen utility upgrade from Indesit for his apartment, Tom Fox’s flagship sponsorship deal. The fact is, the cost of replacing Nasri, the pain of watching the replacement bedding in and the fan disappointment outweighs the extra £20k a week we’d need to secure him… and hey, Wenger earns £7million a year, he never goes without does he?
Arsene Wenger had this to say on Cesc.
‘I will be pretty clear about this. For me, Fabregas is with Arsenal for a long time and he will stay with Arsenal,’
Gutted Cesc… I had the same problem when I tied myself into a 5 year finance deal for a Citreon C2. Suck up my friend, suck it up…
Rumour on the web had Cahill going to Manchester City yesterday, rumour this morning had him not moving to City, but possibly to Arsenal in exchange for Miquel on loan. Now, I’m no football manager, but if I had a relatively good player and someone wanted to soften the blow of my losing that player by giving me a Spaniard who had played 2 games competitively… I’d tell them where to shove the deal. I do hope we haven’t seriously proposed that move.
Tim Payton of the AST reckons he has it from a top source that Arsenal are on the verge of moving for some players…
Now, I’m pretty sure that when Tim talks of a top source, he doesn’t mean Arsene Wenger’s gardener and seeing as he hangs out with people like Ivan, I’m sure he does have a good source.
Only trouble is, what is a top quality signing with Arsenal these days? 3 Koscielny’s? 3 Silvestre’s? Or 3 players returning from injury who will be like 3 top signings? Only god knows this… god, and whoever this source is… anyway, I’ll be sure to root out some gossip for you tonight at the AST meeting.
The English boys did themselves proud yesterday by securing a point against the gods of world football. It really irks me just how much everyone likes to give England a pasting. Everyone loves our league but just loves to bemoan everything that surrounds it. The fans, the national team, the youth set up, the media… it’s so boring to listen to. I spent half the game watching people from countries with very poor footballing heritage slate our players and our style without taking a moment to actually point out that we were playing the country with the best youth set up in the world.
Everybody looks poor against Spain, that isn’t a revelation. The Dutch, renowned for total football and all the trimming had to try commit mass GBH to win the World Cup Final last year, not because they’re rubbish technically, but because Spain are just so incredibly good. Instead of investing in their economy over the past 20 years, they’ve been ploughing all their resources back into motorways and football. That’s given them a superb style of football, but a country near bankruptcy.
Still, the funny thing is that we still came out of the game with a point. We also didn’t have two world cup winners in our squad, a player who has 160 games under his belt for his top flight club and Manchester United’s next goalkeeper.
Gutted world. Beautiful football is no good if you can’t win games, the Spaniards eh, they don’t like it up em’ do they? Mugs…
Spurs forward man Kyle Walker looked Theo-esque bombing up and down the pitch and Jones and Smalling at the back looked ok if not a little laboured. Javi Martinez looks like he’s a bit of a player and Alcantara looked very good as well. I really find under 21 football and incredible bore though. The talented players lose their edge a bit because generally they’re surrounded by dross! Still, Ukraine up next… give me a woo hoo!
So remember tonight, if you want to read all the action as it happens, I’ll be manning my phone like some sort of pervert who discovered what a smart phone is really for. You can click the below follow button and you’ll receive a steady stream of my nonsense about the Q&A, while it’s going on… my only fear is my spelling will be off due to me doing this on an iPhone. If you’re at the meeting, I’ll be the chap with a note pad looking like a geek rinsing the free Peroni I put on my rider for the AST.
Just kidding, I only drink Appletiser when it’s business…
I'll take mine on the rocks...
P.S. If I haven’t responded to your e-mails it’s because I’m under the kosh big time at the moment, I will get round to that sharpish and apologies for the delay!
Oh… and this…
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There’s always a way to turn everything on wenger
making up racism issues for example
Dale
Thats because Arsene is a coward and a fucking Liar.
He knew very well it was his fault that we went another season potless but let Ade out as a scape goat and did fuck all about it.
Lost alot of respect for Arsene after that season.
TahsinOvTahsin Bazzi by GoonerTalk
Wenger: “next year there’ll be the introduction of financial fair-play, which will limit transfers, so this summer is the last busy summer”
GoonerTalkGooner Chris
Lille’s director of football has revealed that no club has made an “official offer” for their in-demand forward Gervinho.
Ivan-The-Mouthpiece still spinning like a top. Human bromide chosen by Wenger.
tiaranun,
http://tinyurl.com/3nbw4qr
Arsenal are stepping up their interest in Blackburn Rovers defender Chris Samba, skysports.com understands.
Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has made defensive reinforcements one of his top priorities this summer and he is eyeing a move for Samba.
Wenger is thought to be a fan of the Congo stopper and sees him as the right man to add a bit of power to the Gunners’ rearguard.
Arsenal are believed to have made an enquiry for Samba during the January transfer window and now Wenger is keen to rekindle their interest.
Arsenal lost out to Manchester United for Samba’s Blackburn team-mate Phil Jones and Wenger has now focused his attention on Samba, who is under contract until 2015.
Blackburn would be loathe to lose both Jones and Samba, but they could find it hard to reject Arsenal’s overtures should they make a bid for the 27-year-old with Samba thought to be interested in a move to the Emirates.
so city would get sanchez. so thats
hart
richards kompany cahill kolarov
dejong
yaya silva
sanchez tevez
baloteli
thats pretty much the scariest team in the league, who would stop em?
transfer news.
barcelona blog are putting in a promising bid for G Star
Arsenal have not made an official bid for Gary Cahill as of today #AFC #BWFC
fourthofficial twitter
incesc says:
June 13, 2011 at 22:17
transfer news.
barcelona blog are putting in a promising bid for G Star
—————————-
Can we throw in Dale for free?
G STAR rejects Barcelona, rather go Tottenham
Welling FC Blog are in for dale, Geoff and Pedro are having to remunerate them a fairly large amount for taking him on, so talks are stalling at this time
Exciting stuff the ‘ITK’s’ fighting each other.
I wonder how much truth is in what Gazidis says about talking to players already and players going out? How much deadwood will be sold?
This twitter lark drives you nuts (need to lay off)
I’ve just received a lot of tweets about Gary Cahill. Good sources a few days ago said he could be an Arsenal player as early as Wednesday.
fourfourtwo
G STAR runs twitter
Apparently Lille want £15m for Gervinho, NO THANKS.
OPG
Is it joke friday already?
twitter
Major decision needed to be made. Real just offered 40 million for Hazard and Arsenal have put in a 22 million bid for Wilson #fm
Would that be 15 Million Turkish LIra??
That is according to wearethenorthbank who isn’t ITK but get’s his stories before the papers. There should be a link later, City and Newcastle might just pip us if they are really interested.
who’s Wilson
gervinho isn’t coming to us, he just won the double why would have swap it for a trophyless season, nah just kinding
Love to see this team play the current Barca;
Rossi Tassotti Costacurta Baresi Maldini Donadoni Rijkaard Albertini Massaro Gullit Van Basten
Sick.
is that bob wilson? apparently the bicycle ride did wonders in rejuvination.
sanderson says the cahill stuff is not true.
Another day of my tomato sauce says. when will our first real signing be?
have we signed reo corker yet? I want my arsenal back!!
WTL my money is on Capello’s AC line up over the current barca. They have the players to contain messi et al and also cause threat up the other end. A strike partnership of Gullit and Van Basten is simply ridiculous
Sounds like Gazidis’ meeting went as expected.
Bullshit, plattidtudes, being taken for granted, fobbed off, patronizing answers
- par for the course at AFC these days.
Fans well and truly told they dont matter. Wenger and Gazidis will carry on regardless. At least we know Gaz has nailed his colours to Wengers mast. They both need to go.
If Real have bid £40m for Hazard we can officially kiss goodbye to that then. First option on hazard my arse!
People are arguing over Twitter over the rumours.
I predict a long summer particularly how Wenger perceives as value as, the players he may want won’t come cheap..
hitman, have you watched the recordings?.
I think we can only expect so much from them to be honest, but Gadzidis I felt, did a pretty good job of absorbing the angst in the room and acknowledging room for improvement on many levels.
Nothing from the presentation gave me the impression that we as fans don’t matter, take it with a pinch of salt sure but as a cynic I feel those concerns were addressed fairly well.
im only halfway through so about to watch the 2nd recording…
I were thinking about the Q where Gazidis was talking about the lack of experience towards the end of the season. What impact does he really have on Arsene Wenger? I would say none. He doesn’t cara a shir what people at the club think about him. Wenger was chasing Phil Jones, a nineteen year ld boy at the same time as Gazidis talks about the lack of experience.
Very brave of Gazidis to attend, but the only thing I did figuere out were that he’s open for safe standings and that we usually don’t pay the wages of the players out on loan.
Pedro, you were younger than I thought, at least you looked younger!
lol Pedders you really got under his skin with that question, he was visibly aggravated for a good few minutes after it, nice one.
yeah nice one pedro
when gazidis says hes accountable to the fans theres quite a big grumble.
the question after pedro was fairly kick ass too!
about nasri and how we cant afford him apparently but we spend money on shit players.
gazidis doesnt really answer it but he better have got the message
Just saw the complete Q&A on arse.com…. nice question Pedro…
wonder if it was in the job description when ivan applied for the job
yeah Incesc,
that question was great as well, clearly a fan of Suga’s comparisons to Marxist economic policy.
trailing off with ‘our money financing a finishing school for the top 10% to just be sold off to elite clubs so as to facilitate high wages for a mediocre bunch of cunts….
pmsl
loved the one one bring back tony adams and never have I seen such a gutless squad in my 40 years…
IG was on the ropes towards the end…
haha
superb! did he say cunts?
he said we spend all the money we have which means it must go to denilsons bonus!
yup definitely said cunts, ivan did as well… a few times
nah he admitted that we kept a healthy reserve in the transfer proceed account, highlighting that to use it all would be too risky…
expect more squillaci level signings!
he is still saying we are the balance sheet champions all the time.
yeah we’re the holders of the trophy for ‘efficient expenditure’ and we are constantly referenced by other clubs…
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/free-video-gazidis-qanda-session-part-one
DDDDOOOOMMMMMM
seen em both Kush,
mixed feelings, proud of the club for conducting itself in a classy manner, Gadzidis carries himself exceptionally well as a diplomat, but irritated that he effectively talked for an hour and said nothing, am I surprised? not in the least.
The benefit of the exercise is that it records in hard fact the discontent across the fanbase, not one question (i don’t think) was innocent of hard criticism.
some positives though, standing facilities looked into, and squad is getting a fine tooth combing, arsene isn’t blind and doesn’t cuddle the squad after shit performances.
also thought it was interesting that most of the questions could have been lifted from LeGroves school of thought.
Lurch yep Arsenal the only classy club…..just hope we stop poaching from Barca and start producing our own
yeah Kush, that would be nice but it’ll take another 10 years I recon before we regularly start generating players near the standard of JW every few years.
don’t forget barca have the benefit of access to the pool of talent in latin america in the way we don’t because of Visa’s & they aren’t restricted by age either, don’t feel too guilty about offering pro deals to 16 and 17 year old’s before they can be tied down by barca.
anyhow the suns rising here… later.
The new Arsenal player looks like something out of star wars.
Over an hour of video footage and all you can say is that the player looks like something out of star wars. ROFL.
Says it all doesnt it.
Think what Ivan was saying about the media is a complete and total cop-out.
He looks genuinely shocked at the anti-Arsene questions.
The majority of the fans back Arsene?
Im not so sure.
Lets see which shite player from the french league we get this time around.
Ivan said a lot without saying anything, really, but this was to be expected…
we need a proper CEO, not a Wenger puppet, he seemed to be the former when he joined, but turning him into the latter took the board about six months…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAEnPi59VTk
You mug, I haven’t even watched it yet. I just saw it on Arsenal.com.
I’m going to watch it later today.
Pedro……FACT
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.contactmusic.com/newsimages/mackenzie_crook_1131224.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/mackenzie-crook-walks-the-plank_1131224&usg=__679ZpfEUlCHJRFx1X0gobuZE4EE=&h=300&w=300&sz=12&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=XP8dtpWkl3BCnM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=147&ei=dgn3TbDgB8GHhQel5vGiCw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmackenzie%2Bcrook%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D627%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0&tx=100&ty=64&biw=1366&bih=627
Pedro on Sky sports news fame at last.
So here we are trusting Gazidis to know what needs to be done and how to do it…. while at the same time we have wenger lambasting folks who “Havnt worked half a day in football”. Is it just me or is there a certain irony here?
I don’t know why we are letting Bolton and Blackburn hold us to ransom over Cahil and Samba, we should put a cheeky bid in for the Birmingham boys Dann & Johnson. We always struggle against them, at a good age, good in the air and English.
Pedro does have a slightly dodgy haircut.
A&N
Are we being held to ransom?
Or are we just being typically Arsenal?
Gazidis: I would like to bid for Cahill
Bolton: The price is £15m
Gazidis: I will give you 6 shillings my boy
Bolton: Goodbye
————————————————————-
Gazidis: I would like to bid for Samba
Venky Boy: The price is £12m
Gazidis: I will lace your palm with 3 pieces of gold
Venky Boy: Laterz
—————————————————————
Gazidis: Arsene, these commoners wont do business at sensible prices
Wenger: I would like a payrise
Gazidis: £15m it is
Wenger: Shall we go to Lorient to buy someone?
Gazidis: Allons Y
gambon, it just makes business sense to look elsewhere if negotiations with one supplier are not going anywhere. Even if we don’t want the Birmingham boys, our interest in them may help us in negotiations with Samba or Cahill.
A&N
I dont like the “with one supplier” line, as we are not buying a commodity that can be bought elsewhere.
If there is a specific player that can address a weakness in our squad we need that player, too often wenger goes for a cheaper french version hoping he can mould it into what he needs.
Because the requirements in football are specific, clubs can holod out for as much as possible.
This is what annoys me about Arsene. He was more than willing to hold out for £25m for Ade (anyone that thinks City just called and offered £25m are stupid), but when he is in need of a player he runs a mile if he has to pay £200 more than he wants to.
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/free-video-gazidis-qanda-session-part-one
I understand your point and agree that there are some footballers out there that are just one-offs with no alternatives. However, I don’t believe Cahill and Samba would give us anything that a Dann or Johnson couldn’t.
gambon
Haha i was going to say Pedro looks like one of the characters from Pirates of the carribean……lol
BlakesOne BlakesOne
by TahsinOv
Paquet : « Gervinho en contacts avancés avec Arsenal » bit.ly/lcwfOh RMCSport
13 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
——
We’r in talks with Gervinho…I guess that’s not surprising….
I think Pedro is going to post a hell of a piece today…hence why the delay…
Does Pedro appear in Part 1 or 2?
Part 2
Agreed…KM…….Agreed
One Gareth Keenan!!! There’s only one Gareth Keenan…….
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/864/legrove.jpg/
same as last year KM
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/oddballs/865966-german-u-20-womens-team-pose-for-playboy-ahead-of-world-cup-finals
We could buy modric. He might be alright in a proper team.
telarse
that German womans team is a dream
Where the fucks the new post?
selina wagner is hot!
This is the best blog around, the comments are top reading too!! LMAO!!
Arse&nose, Miss wagner is my wife………..FACT
We’re in talks with Lille regarding Gervinho
Looks like its a done deal.
Larry, can I sleep with your wife?
Arse&nose, you can sleep with her, but promise me you won’t shag her, coz she means everything to me…..
Gazidis is a LIAR….FACT
Larry if I sleep with your wife she will get cocked …FACT
Arse&nose, you can sleep with her mate……but promise me you won’t shag her,coz she means everything to me….
Gazidis is a fucking LIAR……FACT
Arse&nose, may i please go to bed with your wife?
I hate french players…………surrender monkeys the lot of them…..
Larry, NO.