Does Stan Kroenke realise that Arsenal are in crisis?
In Milan, Arsenal were crap before Boateng scored in 15 minutes.
They were lucky Milan only scored four goals. Arsenal just folded, gave up.
Today they dropped Walcott for Zambia's hero, Gervinho.
Gervinho's penalty shot over the bar gave Zambia the African Cup of Nations, completing a fairytale for the country whose team was lost in a plane crash 19 years ago.
Arsenal had 4,200 fans in the Stadium of Light but gave them nothing to watch, nothing to enjoy. They lacked leadership, passion, flair, fluency, everything.
Sunderland won 2-0 with a deflected goal in each half.
Richardson's shot went in off Squillaci in 40.
In 77, when Oxlade lost the ball he chased back 70 yards while Sessegnon broke and fed Gardner, whose shot hit the post, bounced against Oxlade and dribbled over the line for 2-0.
CEO Ivan Gazidis wasn't in Milan.
On holiday with his family, Gazidis could have flown in for Arsenal's biggest game of the season, met some of the movers and shakers of European football, flown the flag, and rejoined his wife and kids the next day. OK, it was half-term. But I doubt if they were in Hawaii.
The problem at Arsenal isn't that Wenger lost the plot years ago. It isn't that Fabregas and Nasri left in the summer. It isn't the denial by a manager who refused to believe that he could lose both of them. And it isn't the year-by-year decline in the quality of the team.
Wenger has 53 players but no team, and even that isn't the biggest problem at Arsenal.
The biggest problem is that Stan Kroenke can't imagine owning Arsenal without Wenger there to run it for him.
Stan has no Plan B.
I've heard that Wenger and Gazidis barely speak. If so, it's a dysfunctional club.
And CEO Gazidis isn't really running Arsenal until he hires the next manager.
Clearly, Kroenke doesn't know who the next manager should be.
Therefore Kroenke should sell London's biggest club.
He's the wrong owner. Totally the wrong owner.
He's the majority shareholder of a club he doesn't understand playing a sport he doesn't understand, so Arsenal is something he can never really love and never really care about. He behaved like a complacent fool at the AGM. He said nothing and knew nothing and many of the remaining shareholders were deeply dismayed by him.
Stan Kroenke is 4,000 miles away and not a winner. His teams very rarely win trophies. And right now he's far more interested in bidding to buy the LA Dodgers baseball team on February 23.
Arsenal is a historic sporting institution that's won trophies in many decades but the team is no longer competitive. That's demoralising for the supporters.
Sunderland had five in midfield, marked all the spaces, won all the tackles around the D, and wide men Larsson and McClean outplayed Arsenal on the flanks.
Martin O'Neill's team of journeymen deserved to reach the FA Cup quarter-final.
Playing as they did against Milan and Sunderland, Arsenal will get ripped to shreds by Spurs next Sunday.
At least that derby is a 1.30pm kick-off.
I detest 5.15 kick-offs. I hate waiting all day to be disappointed.
I'd rather get it over by 2.30 pm.
Feb 18, 2012