Ivan Gazidis - Daily Telegraph Interview

[northbank123]

in fairness i want him gone, but the board must take a lot of the blame too for not reigning him him or putting any sort of expectation on him. they are the ones who can make the change, but simply wont.

The board's expectation is that he takes the majority of the flak whilst continuing to drive the club forward on the same profit-oriented path we've been headed for years. From the board's point of view he's good at his job (pending commercial deal renewals).

[Clash]

Gazidis sickens me. People like him always have. But he is so obviously Wenger’s kind of man. Slippery, manipulative. Politician like.

He says : “As a club, we have to make sure that all of the things that Arsène has brought to the club are enshrined in our DNA to make sure that, when Arsène decides it’s time, we are in a position to take his ideas and work forward’’.

Didn’t we have 110 years of history before Arsene came to the club? Gazidis and the Wenger cultists talk as though Arsenal were a Sheffield Wednesday type club before Wenger. One with a featureless, barren history and no recognisable tradtitons that were already firmly established.

Wenger got us playing a brand of football better than anything we’d seen before but that was largely because we had better players than we’d ever had before. Since those players have left we’re pretty ordinary and often very tedious to watch.

But Gazidis says nonsensical and nauseating stuff like ‘’we do things a little differently to everyone else and play football a little differently to everyone else’’

I think what I hate most about what Wenger has done is that rather than him working in and around Arsenal’s proud tradtions (like he did for his first few fantastic years at the club) he has made the club fit around his beliefs and traditions. And if the clubs traditions conflict with Wenger’s (i.e. being strong defensively at the expense of going forward) then Wenger’s beliefs win and the club traditions get pissed all over.

Only a complete egomaniac afforded too much power would attempt this at such a big club. And only clueless nonentities like Gazidis would tolerate it.

[armchair]

Gazidis sickens me. People like him always have. But he is so obviously Wenger’s kind of man. Slippery, manipulative. Politician like.

He says : “As a club, we have to make sure that all of the things that Arsène has brought to the club are enshrined in our DNA to make sure that, when Arsène decides it’s time, we are in a position to take his ideas and work forward’’.

Didn’t we have 110 years of history before Arsene came to the club? Gazidis and the Wenger cultists talk as though Arsenal were a Sheffield Wednesday type club before Wenger. One with a featureless, barren history and no recognisable tradtitons that were already firmly established.

Wenger got us playing a brand of football better than anything we’d seen before but that was largely because we had better players than we’d ever had before. Since those players have left we’re pretty ordinary and often very tedious to watch.

But Gazidis says nonsensical and nauseating stuff like ‘’we do things a little differently to everyone else and play football a little differently to everyone else’’

I think what I hate most about what Wenger has done is that rather than him working in and around Arsenal’s proud tradtions (like he did for his first few fantastic years at the club) he has made the club fit around his beliefs and traditions. And if the clubs traditions conflict with Wenger’s (i.e. being strong defensively at the expense of going forward) then Wenger’s beliefs win and the club traditions get pissed all over.

Only a complete egomaniac afforded too much power would attempt this at such a big club. And only clueless nonentities like Gazidis would tolerate it.

Nice post mate.

One of the things I really dont understand about those who cry...
Its not Wengers fault - its the boards."Lets get rid of Gazidis, Kronke etc" is that they all buy into Wengers philosophy of the last 5 or 6 years and his vanity project.
Its Fcukin Wenger whos holding all the cards and he has waaaaay too much power at the club. He may be "head coach/first team manager" but hes the man in control of everything that goes on at Arsenal. Even down to whether or not he get himselfs another new lucrative contract. The board IMO do what he says - not the other way around because it suits them to keep the money rolling in and they all use this self sustainable, FFP bullshit to keep the AKB's onside.
Its a fcukin nightmare and I'm slowly, slowly becoming more and more disenfranchised and disillusioned with The Arsenal every time Wenger opens his smarmy, egotistical, lying bastard mouth.