Reassuring but risky
In the midst week of good news for Arsenal, chairman Peter Hill-Wood has aired some typically forthright views on the club. Fans seem to be in two camps over our chairman: Some are loyal to him given the history his family have at the boardroom level, while others think it's time for him to step aside and allow a wealthy businessman to pump money into the club. Personally, I'm more inclined toward the first group of people, and those in the second group will be disappointed with what Hill-Wood said in his interview with the Evening Standard.
A lot of what he said was risky, because of the potential backlash of some fans. However, some of the quotes are reassuring. We do want the team to be successful, although I think it's good that the chairman is realistic about the finances of the club so as not to leave us in the lurch in the future. However, some of his predictions for our season do seem out of touch with his quotes about our finances.
On the club finances, Hill-Wood said to the Evening Standard "At a certain level, we can't compete. I don't think [majority shareholder] Stan Kroenke is going to put the sort of dollars in that [Roman] Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour are putting into Chelsea or Manchester City. That's not the way he thinks clubs should be run."
That isn't news to most Arsenal fans, but I still think some supporters will be disappointed because it shows that Hill-Wood isn't planning on changing the ethos at Arsenal. To me, that's reassuring because I personally don't want to see the club spending irresponsibly. It has worked hard on the self-sustaining model, and it's produced Emirates Stadium. As with most things Peter Hill-Wood says, there's a sense of ‘take it or leave it' about his approach. If you don't want the club to be self-sustaining, go somewhere else. It's the Arsenal way, and it's not going to change.
Where I think Hill-Wood has been risky in his quotes is talking about what the team can achieve this season. In one way, if he'd come out and said that the team have no chance of winning the title and that Tottenham were going to finish above us, then he'd be universally criticised for not believing in Arsene Wenger's side. But going the whole distance in the other direction and saying we can win the league and that Tottenham won't be a problem to us is also risky. Whichever attitude he chose, Hill-Wood would have been open to criticism from supporters, and I think of the two, backing the team was the right option to choose.
However, I think there needed to be some more realism from him. His quotes make Hill-Wood look slightly blind to the fact Arsenal have sold some big players this summer, and that he's setting himself up for an embarrassing fall should Tottenham finish above us.
Of everything that Hill-Wood said in the interview, he is opening himself up to a major backlash to the following statement: "It is not a worry to the board that we haven't won a trophy since 2005. It would be lovely to win, but it's not that easy."
I'm a supporter of the self-sustaining model, and generally consider myself to be an ‘Arsene Knows Best' fan. However, I'm concerned that the board aren't worried that we haven't won a trophy since 2005. Ultimately, a football club's business is mainly dependent on what happens on the pitch. If you're not successful, there isn't an Arsenal brand to sell.
I'd like to think that the board are very concerned that the club haven't won a trophy since 2005, and should be actively looking to do something to change that. It doesn't require drastic changes or knee-jerk reactions, and judging by Hill-Wood's comments we definitely won't be getting that.
But for the club to succeed as a business, it has to succeed on the pitch. So while it's reassuring that Peter Hill-Wood doesn't want to overhaul many aspects of the club, what he said risks a backlash from fans for not being ambitious enough as a football club.


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