In summary, the Club is pretty much safe from takeover action for the remainder of this season. The negative is the injury to Robin.

Yesterday the Emirates hosted Arsenal Holdings PLC’s sixth Annual General Meeting. The main news was the new lockdown agreement signed by the Board, something I went over in yesterday’s MyVision as the news broke. In summary, the Club is pretty much safe from takeover action for the remainder of this season and the majority of next, so there will be nothing to distract from our on-field performances ’til then. Hopefully.

Linked to this is the rumour swirling around this morning in the financial world that the Board have offered Kroenke the chance to be part of this agreement. There is no doubt that there has been a softening in our stance towards Silent Stan since the arrival of Usmanov, and now he is very much seen as the lesser of two evils. At least he has some kind of history running sports clubs (or ‘franchises’ as they’re called in America), owning teams in most major US sports. Were he to get in on this agreement he would add his 12% to the Board’s existing 45%, giving the lockdown-ers a whopping 57%. And – more pertinently – he would not be able to sell his shares to Usmanov, which is legally still a possibility.

The other major story to come out from the AGM was that Le Boss has been rightfully honoured with a bust, which was unveiled by his wife in a touching moment. It was a surprise for him as the Board kept it under wraps ’til yesterday. I can’t help but feel that we are the only club who could pull this off, sources from other clubs would leak the story to the highest bidder, but not our lot. Class. Le Boss got his now standard standing ovation from the floor, apparently his speech is on ATVO but I have yet to see it, no doubt it’ll be worthy viewing.

Onto the players and the positive is that Denilson has been awarded a new contract. The kid (I think he is still in his teens) has taken to English football like a duck to water and grabbed his first goal against Newcastle recently, an absolute screamer into the top corner. He is similar in stature and style to Cesc, which may be his downfall in the short-term, but as long as he remains patient then I see no reason why he can’t eventually break into the first-team to partner the Spaniard. We really are set for the future in the middle of the park – Cesc, Denilson, Diaby, Diarra, Flamini – and not one of them over 25!

The negative is the injury to Robin. He is provisionally out for a month, it may be more or less depending on the results of his scan, but he is almost guaranteed to miss the crunch games against Liverpool and Man United and our next few European matches. Bollocks. That’s all I can say about it. Robin gives us something different, especially from set-pieces, and will be sorely missed.

I guess this means Eduardo will get an extended run in the team. On paper Ade and Eduardo is potentially our best partnership: right foot-left foot, little and large, workhorse and poacher. Eduardo has been in good form for Croatia and poached another goal for them last weekend, so more of the same please.

With Robin out there has been talk of switching to a 4-5-1, especially away at Anfield and on our European travels. I’m not too sure. While Ade is well-equipped to fulfil the lone striker role, I think we would lose too much of our threat going forward. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, don’t want to look too far ahead as we’ve got Bogey Bolton tomorrow, who are manager-less and maybe Anelka-less, but will be difficult nonetheless.

Right that’s it for today. Mean Lean is back tomorrow (I think) so he’ll resume the MyVision duties. It’s been a blast doing it over the last few days, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my random ramblings ‘cos I know I’ve enjoyed writing them. Peace!

Squid Boy