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Why Lady Bracewell-Smith’s claims suggest that Wenger isn’t entirely to blame for Arsenal’s misfortunes

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A few days ago, former Arsenal board member Lady Bracewell-Smith blamed the people upstairs for the clubs recent misfortunes, and as such, called for the board to be sacked.

These controversial statements come at a time when faith in Arsene Wenger is at an all time low.

Smith, who sold her Arsenal shares to Stan Kroenke for a reported £123 million, has revealed she is in favour of the younger generation taking over the management of the club. She wrote on her Twitter account recently:

‘I agree that current board should all go. They are passé. Have nothing more to give to the club at all. In time we will need a more dynamic pro-active, younger board, and a good directional leadership.’

Smith even declared that former chief executive David Dein was the root cause for Arsenal’s problems before back-tracking and claiming that Dein was a huge contributor to the club.

With such stinging statements from a person who was a part of the board until very recently, the likes of Peter Hill-Wood have come under scrutiny. But the Arsenal chairman rubbished claims that the board was ruining the club, and asked Lady Bracewell-Smith to keep quiet.

Mr. Hill-Wood told the Daily Star earlier this week:

‘I wouldn’t pay any attention to it myself. I don’t know why she is suddenly sounding off. She should keep herself quiet and not complain.’

Of course, her words have no power since she isn’t even involved in the running of the club anymore, but the board has put itself in a tight corner and the chairman’s comments has given us more questions than answers.

But now a question arises whether Wenger is truly the one to be blamed for the club’s failures as of late. This is a quite tricky question to answer, but from a broader perspective, Wenger needs to take his share of the blame for sure.

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6 comments

  • para says:

    As you said, “Running a football club is a complex job and not all of us are aware of the challenges the job possesses.”

    I would like to think(hope) that AFC has a plan.
    1st stage: Stabilise the club and build a sound economical foundation, even though cup success may elude AFC for a while(which was not a given, as we may well have won a cup or two in this time).

    2nd Stage: Start to really compete in the new ruled footballing world.

    For fans, the 2nd stage is now.

  • Pete says:

    PHW thinks everyone should keep quiet, that’s is why Emirates, a far larger stadium, is more quiet than the Highbury library.

    Lady Nina, why then sell your shares to the one man(kronke) who was certain to leave this board in place?

    The entire management structure needs to join Nina.

  • Mohamed Zubairu says:

    You advised Wenger to emulate Barcelona whoa re in debt of very close to 500m Pounds. This is in spite of the fact that they have won everything winnable in the years that we have won nothing. If all the money accruing from the trophies they have won cannot fund their transfer activities, then what is the wisdom behind such a spending habit?
    Do you not realize that Barcelona will have to pay this huge debt one of these days? How are they going to do that? If they cannot pay, after they have exhausted every available delay tactics, what would happen next? Administration! They will be forced to sell everything possible to pay the debt and that will surely bring their footballing prowess down to earth. As a genuine Arsenal supporter, do you want Arsenal to have a similar fate?
    I would prefer that we continue our policy and achieve a sustainable success that would last.
    As for blaming Wenger, I agree with you! He is to blame for the 60,000 seater emirate stadium, the modern training facilities, a balanced book and keeping us in the top bracket of European football – along with the trophy-less period.

  • chris says:

    Arsenal have hardly anyone on the Board who knows anything about football. Must be good in the Director’s box though !! Have they been told the catering everywhere else (including Club Level) is utter shit ?? And that there is life after Wenger ?

  • subatomicman says:

    Well said Mohamed! Arsenal will come out on top because of their wise approach to the business of the game.
    Barcelona and Man U are both in a terrible financial mess. So glad Wenger and the board took the direction they did. Yes, not winning any trophies sucks, but always competing for them is AWESOME!

  • greenius says:

    man utd just spent 50 million on players and another 20 if they get nasri!……they must be SOOO worried about their debt!!!.
    I love the fact that we are the best financially club in england…makes me really excited……SO EXCITED I FORGET ABOUT THE 4-4 DRAW AT NEWCASTLE

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