This is a huge summer for Stan Kroenke. Arsenal are currently in desperate need of new players after a disappointing first season under Unai Emery.
The Gunners had a chance to get into the Champions League by winning the Europa League against Chelsea. However, they lost that final 4-1, reinforcing how weak this Arsenal squad is.
The only signing that’s been made so far this summer is young Brazilian striker Gabriel Martinelli. While he’s a very good signing for the future, Arsenal need players who are ready to compete at the top end of the Premier League in the upcoming season.
After seeing bids for Kieran Tierney rejected, supporters are now starting to get more and more unsettled.
Kroenke has not been a popular figure at Arsenal for many years now. Many fans have given him a chance this summer, as this is the first full transfer window he has had at Arsenal as 100% owner of the club.
Now is the time for the American to splash the cash. The club can’t carry on with the current business model that they have; they need to spend to have any chance whatsoever in reducing the gulf in class between them and the top sides like Manchester City and Liverpool.
Without these funds, Arsenal could easily drop out of the top six places with sides like Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton on the rise.
Arsenal need a complete rebuild in this summer’s window; that has not happened so far. It’s so obvious that a lot of those players just aren’t good enough at all. The fact that the club haven’t signed a centre-back yet symbolises the complete shambles that is ongoing right now.
In his tenure at Arsenal so far, Kroenke has arguably neglected the club. They did not have a structured team of staff in place until the start of last season.
Despite Arsene Wenger not being a fan of directors of football, the owner had a duty to put his foot down and implement a staff structure to help the club run properly. Instead, he was happy with a fourth-place finish and Champions League qualification.
While Wenger took a lot of the blame for the squad’s failings, Kroenke hid behind the former manager and allowed him to take that abuse from the fans. The main reason why the Frenchman failed was that no money was spent in the transfer market.
Whether that was down to Wenger or Kroenke, the latter is accountable in both scenarios because he should have forced the former manager to recruit more players for a quite obviously failing team. He has completely neglected the side – his absence from the Europa League final only emphasised that.
Fans have always been agitated by the fact that the owner never shows up to games. While I also find that frustrating, the fact that he has let players’ contracts run down has been a greater fault of his. The owner has no excuse for this one – he knows that player valuations will go down if they do not have long left on their contracts.
Aaron Ramsey leaving for free this summer is just one example of this. Juventus have now got themselves a world-class central midfielder in the Welshman without paying a transfer fee. This is unbelievably naive from Kroenke.
Although the Gunners still have over three weeks to complete any transfer business, it’s looking like it’ll be a very long season for the supporters, who have suffered over the past few years. Winning just FA Cups isn’t good enough for a club that was nearly always competing for the title before his arrival in 2008.
Stan Kroenke, it’s time to spend. If you aren’t willing to spend, sell the club, for the sake of the fans and the football club.
