Arsenal, I've had enough...

I'm having about 4 hours of sleep a night with the newest Junior Gunner who was born almost two weeks ago. It would be nice to bring him into a world where the club he will support - and there will never be a doubt about which club - were conducting their business in a way that honoured the supporters and showed the ambition that the fans, and even the players, have been screaming for. But it's clearly not the case and I'm profoundly fucking fed up and it deserved a rare Arsenal focussed blog.

To say I am livid is as much of an understatement as saying Charlie Sheen likes the odd line. All the transfer window has done for me is compound my fury at Arsenal Football Club. Everywhere I turn I see clubs that are proactively adding to their squads, quickly and efficiently, finding targets and doing deals. So far, we have signed ONE player worth a first team place, Gervinho. Not taking away from the potential of Jenkinson, I'm confident he'll become a class act if his efforts so far are anything to go by, but it is just potential and he isn't experienced enough to command a regular starting slot by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, and this makes me grit my teeth to dust, signing Oxlade-Chamberlain to play the Walcott waiting game for £12m is an outrage when he's not going to be starting games, we've got genuinely no idea whether or not he's going to have the required calibre and, most critically, we're screaming out for reinforcements in other parts of the squad. We've just sold two key players for about £60m and we've done nothing to replace them. It's a farce.

Juan Mata would have been an excellent signing. Yet we're going to see how much of an excellent signing he is - for the Russian gaff in West London. Sitting around wanking over a couple of million here and there is costing us the best talent. Looking back as far as Alonso when it was reported we could have got him for just another million. Another million. Then it wasn't so poignant as we had Fabregas and the midfield wasn't as depleted as it is now. Apparently Mata's release clause was £17.5m - what were we doing?! Chelsea have paid £25m, because they can, but whilst we're meant to be looking for the best value - why didn't we just get him for the early price?!

Today I've been reading that Phil Gartside at Bolton is kicking off that we've offered just £6m for Gary Cahill. Can you blame him? I'd laugh down the phone at Wenger or that plank Gazidis and tell them to piss right off. This is a decent centre half with Premier League experience, not cup-tied and who would hit the ground running. WHAT ARE WE DOING?! He's clearly worth over £10m and we've got all the coin from Cesc and that greedy French lesbian just sitting there, yet it's clear as a hermit's diary the plan is to waste as much of the remaining four days of transfer window by taking the piss and mugging people off with Netto level offers when we should, at least, be bidding at Tesco prices. Mind boggling.

So who's to blame for this pantomime? Arsene Wenger or the Board?

Has Arsene Wenger lost the plot and become stubbornly obsessed with trying to recreate a 1995 Louis van Gaal's Ajax style youth super team, rendering him utterly blind to what is currently required to be truly successful in the Premier League? Was it going the entire season unbeaten that tipped him over the edge- from responsive, intelligent team building to unbelievable, blind arrogance? Or could it be his never ending addiction to economics? The latter would sit very nicely with the Board...

I think the blame lies with both the Manager AND the Board. The directors at Arsenal so regularly and patronisingly informed us that they never took anything out of the Club - but they put in absolutely fuckall. Peter Hill-Wood inherited his Arsenal shares, so did Nina Bracewell-Smith. By instructing or humouring their employee's indulgence in his obsession with penny pinching, they spent the least they could, reducing the Club's debt and maximising their share value for when they sold to the likes of Kroenke and Usmanov (via David Dein, who bought most of his shares from Hill-Wood). Kroenke, being on the Board, is obviously keen to keep Hill-Wood where he is - the Club churns out profit and they never need to invest - EVER. Fuck the fans - what a blinding little venture!! Even better when you can turn round to the recession battered fanbase and ask them for an increase of 6.5% on tickets. Talk about taking the piss. On one hand you baulk at spending a fraction extra to sign players that can make a clear improvement to the squad and the other you make a net £4.5m out of the pockets of the public that already pay your hyper inflated wages. It's beyond an insult.

I love this club with every grain of my soul but it's beyond obvious we need serious changes or, in an ironic contrast to our new slogan, we're going to be going (further) backwards. Let's see what happens next week.