Kroenke / Usmanov / van Persie / Injuries

October 4, 2007 on 6:21 pm | In Arsenal FC | posted by Jack |

Following our 9th successive win in all competitions, and our 11th of the season, sadly the talk is back to the ownership issue.

The Times report that Kroenke was in London yesterday, and Edelman gave him a tour. Kroenke’s 12.19% holding could be vital in the club’s efforts to stop Usmanov taking over - with the boards shares, that would put a stop to any move by our favourite Russian. Several people cite good sources saying Kroenke sees Arsenal as a long term investment, and being in sport, understands the Arsenal fans attitude towards Usmanov, and thus is not interested in selling. Whether Kroenke attends the club’s annual meeting on October 18th will be very interesting - it would be a good sign of his support.

Usmanov says he is working to improve the relationship between Dein and the board. Also, there have been stories of journalists who have been flown out to see Usmanov, and put up in a 5* hotel, presumably on some sort of a charm offensive.. I haven’t found any articles from any of these journalists yet, but it would be interesting to read their thoughts on him.

In the football, Robin van Persie says he is not surprised by Arsenal’s start to the season.

“At the start of the season I said we will surprise - and everyone was laughing.

Now 12 games into the season, everyone says, ‘Ooh, look at Arsenal, they are a good team’. This I knew before and my mind has not changed.”

Fair enough, but I’d prefer the team didn’t say too much about how great we are at the moment - we have achieved nothing yet, and there’s a long long way to go to the silverware.

Robin also spoke about rotation, something that Liverpool fans are understandably pissed off about at the moment.

“I like the fact that we play together week in, week out. Some teams switch - for example Liverpool - that is OK if they choose that.

But when Cesc gets the ball I know what he is thinking about. When Ade gets the ball I know what I can do for him. Everybody knows their part.”

That’s good to read. Hopefully the team will be able to keep the pressure up without as much rotation as Liverpool and some other teams, and be challenging for the top trophies come April, May.

A final good piece of news is an update on the injury status of Lehmann, Willie, Rosicky and Song. They are all set to return to full training either today or tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what happens with Almunia and Lehmann.

That’s all for this evening. I’ll put up a preview of Sunday’s game with Sunderland sometime soon, and anything interesting that happens inbetween. Have a good one.