In Arsene they trust? Arsenal face make-or-break summer with board, players and fans no longer pulling in the same direction

Arsene Wenger, Arsenal

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ANALYSIS
By Wayne Veysey | Chief Correspondent

Arsenal have experienced a few pivotal summers in recent years as the pot-less seasons have accumulated.

But there remained a general air of calm as faith was placed in Arsene Wenger to gently tweak a youthful squad who were annual Champions League shoo-ins. In Arsene We Trust? Of course.

The atmosphere at the club is altogether different now. The toxic combination of a calamitous finish to the season, uncertainty caused by American Stan Kroenke’s takeover and a series of PR disasters culminating in a 6.5 per cent season ticket hike at a time when Arsenal are raking in record profits and not re-investing them in the team has whipped up the perfect storm of unhappiness.

The sense that the board, players, coaches and supporters are no longer pulling in the same direction was all too apparent during the 2-1 defeat by Aston Villa at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

Here, Goal.com analyses why there is so much unrest in N5 and the issues facing the club ahead of what looks increasingly like a make-or-break summer.

‘Six per cent? You’re having a laugh’

Arsenal fans are generally a peaceable bunch. But frustration turned to anger on the terraces when news filtered through in March, as revealed by Goal.com, that they were being socked with a 6.5 per cent increase in prices for season tickets and general admission tickets for 2011-12.

The hike will generate an estimated £4.5million in revenue, yet the club posted record pre-tax profits of £56m in their last full set of accounts and Wenger has barely touched the transfer war chest available to him in the last three windows.

Supporters already pay through the nose for the most expensive season ticket in world football – prices range from £985 to £1995 for the rank-and-file – and fury reached boiling point at the weekend.

Missing link | There were an estimated 10,15,000 empty seats at Emirates on Sunday

The ‘Black Scarf Movement’ protested against the club’s increasingly corporate direction with a march before the game while others made their point by simply not turning up. Despite selling all the tickets for the Villa match, there were around 10-15,000 empty red seats, the most for a competitive match – including Carling Cup fixtures – since the switch to Emirates Stadium in 2006.

After going two goals down early on, boos erupted around the ground and the crowd began to sing, ‘six per cent, you’re ‘avin a laugh, six per cent you’re ‘avin a laugh’. The team was jeered off at half-time and at the final whistle.

The fans have had enough. Although a VAT rise contributes to 2.5 per cent of the season ticket price hike, there is general bewilderment at the remaining four per cent, which the club insist is merely inflation-indexed.

As the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust pointed out in a recent letter to chief executive Ivan Gazidis, “Our objective has nothing to do with recent results and everything to do with our concern that loyal fans are being priced out of attending matches. The wider economic climate means that many fans are suffering. They can no longer afford the high cost of tickets, and we have been approached by many concerned members who tell us that accepting a price rise is no longer a matter of choice, but will force their exclusion as their finances just can’t stretch to meet it.”

To his credit, Gazidis has not pulled out of his annual end-of-season Q&A with the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust. It promises to be a lively meeting on June 13.

Silent Stan’s plans?

Never has a nickname seemed more appropriate than that afforded to majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, who took control of the club last month shortly before the death of Danny Fiszman.

The low-key Denver-based billionaire’s reticence in the media has extended to failing to communicate his medium or long-term plans to supporters.

All he has deigned to divulge is that he will not pile Glazer-style debts on to the club as part of his takeover and that he is committed to Arsenal’s self-sustainable business model.

Fans’ requests for reassurance that Kroenke will not take dividends or management fees out of the club have been met by a wall of silence.

Even the future of Wenger, untouchable for so long and never more so than since his ally David Dein was removed unceremoniously from the board in 2007 and the Frenchman was given complete control of player recruitment, is up in the air. Kroenke has described Wenger as a “wonderful manager” but that hardly amounts to unequivocal backing.

Sources close to Wenger believe the manager is questioning his future at Arsenal more than at any time in a decade and a half.

Silence is not golden | Stan Kroenke has not yet divulged his plans for Arsenal

With this backdrop, Arsenal’s second biggest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, who has been frozen out by the club despite accumulating a 27 per cent stockholding, made his own position perfectly clear at the weekend.

The Uzbek-born billionaire revealed in a newspaper interview that he had rejected the opportunity to make a £60m profit in Arsenal to hang on to his stake, that he remained willing to inject his own cash into the club and that Wenger was one of the best coaches on the planet.

Gooners are awaiting a similar statement of intent from basketball fan Kroenke, a man who is believed to have little affection for or knowledge of football.

From quadruple to Champions League qualifiers

The feeling of deflation, of hopes raised and then dashed, is a familiar one for Arsenal fans. But the collapse this season has been so calamitous that the call for changes, be it in players, coaching staff or training methods, has never been so vocal.

Wenger’s carefully nurtured squad have once again failed to deliver where it counts – in the trophy cabinet – and have gone from potential quadruple winners at the end of February to handing Manchester City their pass into the group stage of the Champions League.

A £45m transfer kitty – including fees and first-year wages – has gathered dust in a dormant bank account while obvious deficiencies in the squad, such as central defence and midfield, have not been adequately addressed.

There is hope that Wenger will adapt his methods for the greater good but those who know him well will not be holding their breath. A new contract for assistant manager Pat Rice is hardly the start of a brave new world.

It is expected that there will be a relatively big-name arrival early in the summer window in the mould of Scott Parker to help shift season tickets but those anticipating a complete overhaul are likely to be disappointed.

Even if Barcelona stump up the £45m that Arsenal will demand for Cesc Fabregas, the majority would remain untouched by a manager who spends the club’s money like his own.

Yet Wenger can point to his unrivalled ability at achieving Champions League qualification on a shoestring, at keeping the club’s head above water while Russian oligarchs and Arab sheikhs were firing petro-dollars at the beautifully manicured Emirates lawn and at a style of play that has few peers in world football.

The problem for an increasing number of disaffected fans is that this is not enough anymore. And the shoestring has been replaced by a nifty set of laces.

Supporters don’t want Arsenal to be a finishing school for the world’s most talented kids. They want it to be a breeding ground for proven winners who can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best at home and abroad.

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