Stan Kroenke attended a public meeting of Arsenal shareholders on Thursday, his first since taking a controlling share in the club five months ago. Unlike at previous assemblies, there was no open mic for fans to ask questions, though board members did answer some pre-selected written queries.
That was probably prudent, since Arsenal began the season with its worst start since 1953. Premier League fans arguably demand even more public accountability from their teams than the rabid fans in the North American realms of football, basketball and hockey that Kroenke has known as owner of the Rams, Nuggets and Avalanche.
The Gunners' early play followed a summer which saw arguably its two best players – midfielders Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas – depart the club, along with another starter, leftback Gael Clichy. Meanwhile, the players brought in to replenish the roster didn't set the fans' hearts afire, and the club decided to hike ticket prices by an average of 6.5%. Given that Arsenal has not won any kind of silverware since 2005 and suffered a shocking late-season collapse last year, many were looking for answers.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger took it on the chin, admitting that there was "skepticism" but that it was "too high." He added, "Do not judge too quickly the players I bought. They are of the top level."
Whatever Kroenke's concerns leaving the meeting, they may have been partly allayed less than 48 hours later, when he made the short trip across London for Arsenal's date at Chelsea. Against a heavily-favored home team, the Gunners came from behind twice to win 5-3, becoming the first visiting team to score five times at Stamford Bridge since 1989.
And if Kroenke scans the club's recent results, he may well ask himself what all the fuss is about. Arsenal has now won eight of its last nine games in all competitions. During that streak it has risen from 17th to seventh in the Premier League standings. So much for the doom-mongers and their Chicken Little schtick. Everything's fine. ... Or is it?
Much of it will depend on the man who scored a hat trick on Saturday, center forward Robin van Persie. The Dutch striker upped his seasonal total to 12 goals in 14 games, but that only tells part of the story. He has scored half of Arsenal's 20 Premier League goals this season and it's no stretch to say that, at times, he has carried the Gunners on his back.
As center forwards go, he's somewhat idiosyncratic. Which is what you might expect from a Dutch maverick whose parents – Bob van Persie and Jose Ras - are both artists. Bob makes sculptures out of trash, while Jose is a painter and jewelry designer, making Robin a rare world-class jock born to artsy parents. On the pitch, he has a rare blend of size, speed and technique; the fact that he began his careers as an oversized winger makes him a non-traditional center forward – a bit like his illustrious predecessor, Thierry Henry – but that suits Arsenal's style of play just fine.
The problem is Van Persie's contract: It expires in 2013. While that may seem like a long way off, Arsenal has a big decision to make and it needs to make it now. When a player enters the final 18 months of his contract his transfer value plummets. It's classic deflation: why pay a lot for something today when you can pay little or nothing for it in the very near future? That's what happened to Nasri, who was sold to Manchester City in the summer for a reported $38 million, perhaps half of what he might have fetched had he been locked up in a long-term deal. Instead, Nasri was 10 months away from becoming a free agent and, faced with the prospect of losing him for nothing, Arsenal was forced to take the cut-rate offer.
Negotiations with van Persie are ongoing, according to club sources. "He has 18 months to go and I'm confident he'll sign a new deal," Wenger said Thursday, before adding somewhat ominously, "I'm always confident."
The way things are going now, van Persie seems to hold all the cards. He can just let the days tick away and turn the screws on the club to get the best possible raise on his current $6.4 million annual deal. Arsenal has been known for fiscal discipline over the past decade (as has Kroenke back home), but losing van Persie under the same circumstances as Nasri would be a body blow to the club's image.
But if waiting as long as possible in order to get himself the best available deal is van Persie's plan, he does so at his peril. He's injury-prone. Extremely injury-prone. Since becoming a bona fide starter in 2006, he has started just 52.5 percent of Arsenal's league matches. And while he has appeared in every Premier League game so far this season, it's hard to shake the fear that another breakdown is around the corner. In that sense, it's in his interest to put pen to paper sooner rather than later.
All of which creates a rather bizarre situation. The more van Persie scores, the better Arsenal performs and the more money it makes. A top-four finish would mean qualification to the Champions League next year, and the riches that come with it. But of course, that also means the more it needs to pay to keep van Persie. At 28, this will likely be his last big payday. It's easy to picture him asking for something in the region of $50 million-plus over the next five years. That's a lot of money for a guy with his injury record.
Curiously, Kroenke's best-case scenario might go something like this: Van Persie's scoring spree continues through January, in time to get Arsenal squarely into the top four. At that point, he gets injured, misses the next few months and, fearing what might happen next, signs a reasonable (from Arsenal's perspective) contract. He returns to help the Gunners finish strong and everyone is happy again. It may sound a bit twisted, but given Arsenal's current realpolitik, it would make sense.
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