CLICK HERE NOW FOR BORING FINANCIAL STUFF!!!!
252 comments September 20th, 2006
You fools.
Anyhow, in spite of the scare stories you’ll read some places, our financial results are not as bad as the press you’d like to believe. Allow managing director Keith Edelman to explain:
“It is like an individual buying a new bigger house into which you have put more equity – you will have a bigger mortgage, but overall be in a stronger financial position. The two things are completely separate and you do not say ‘you have no money to spend because you have a mortgage’. A mortgage is something you pay off every month, X amount over a number of years then you look how much cash you have in your pocket to spend. Well, we ended the year with £36million of cash in the bank, in our pocket to spend now, so we are very cash-rich. We have lowered our debt repayments substantially every year … it means we have more money to invest in players and team development.”
If you found that interesting, I suspect you are in the minority. For most fans, the last sentence will be the only bit that matters.
With the Sheffield United game on Saturday, don’t expect to see Julio Baptista starting. Arsene says:
“Julio is a very good player, but he’s not played a lot of football and needs to be sharper and get some match fitness before he is ready to start games.”
Seems fair enough, but if he continues to impress as a sub like he did against Man U, he’ll be pressing for a first-team place within weeks.
Finally, a word on last night’s Panorama “exposé” of football’s bung culture. Whilst I don’t think any of the evidence is particularly damning, it’s nice to know that Arsenal were not remotely involved in anything the programme covered.
Or at least, not caught. Here’s hoping Big Sam goes down like a sack of potatoes tied to a tonne of bricks.
