Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Arsenal Share Holdings

With news of Ken Friar transferring 152 shares to Peter Hill-Wood on 27th March, and Danny Fiszman selling 659 shares on 14th March, it is reassuring to know that not all the board members are selling. Sir Chips Keswick bought 20 shares at £5300 per share on 1st March. He now owns 40 shares.

Whether he did this in the hope of making some quick cash from a possible takeover or for a long term investment is unknown.

So the breakdown of known Arsenal share holdings of the board members is:

Danny Fiszman - 15000 shares (24.11%)
Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith - 9893 shares (15.9%)
David Dein - 9072 shares (14.6%)
Richard Carr - 2722 shares (4.4%)
Peter Hill-Wood - 500 shares (0.8%)
Lord Harris of Peckham - 63 shares (0.085%)
Ken Friar - 47 shares (0.07%)
Sir Chips Keswick - 40 shares (0.064%)
Keith Edelmen - 25 shares (0.04%)*

*Held as nominee for Danny Fiszman

Other major shareholders are:

Granada - 9.9%
Lansdowne Partners - 2.7%

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Where do Arsenal go from here?

After Arsenal got dumped out of the Champions League by PSV, there has been the usual mixture of reasoned debate and over reaction.

Some have called for big money signings to improve the team. Firstly, there is no guarantee signing anybody would make any difference at all. Wenger's history of big money signings is not great, and Julio Baptista has proved that no matter how long you chase a potential player, they can still be a huge disappointment when they get into the team. I was one who thought he would bring a different dimension to our game, someone who could compete physically when it mattered. Not only has he not done that, his finishing has been woeful. At this stage, only Wenger knows if he will sign him permanently, but in my opinion he wouldn't be a great loss if he left.

Regarding the forward line, Wenger needs to decide what will happen with Bendtner when his loan at Birmingham finishes. If he brings him back to Arsenal, Baptista or Aliadiere will have to go to make room for him. Regardless of who goes or stays, we desperately need to improve our finishing. Time and again we have anything up to 20 shots on goal, but come out of the game having scored 1 or less. Our midfielders aren't scoring, which is a major loss after years of Pires and Ljungberg providing 10 or more goals each. This then puts the onus on our strikers to take their chances, which they regularly fail to do. I like Adebayor, who has scored plenty of important goals, but sometimes his finishing is abysmal. I have lost count the number of times he has been through one on one and missed.

I was amazed before the 2nd leg against PSV when we heard Arsenal had started to practice corners. We all know how little we take advantage of them, but to virtually admit that they are not part of our game exposes a major weakness - opposing teams know they are unlikely to come under pressure from us at corners. To me it seems a huge waste of the effort put in by our forwards. After the Carling Cup semi Final against Tottenham, I commented on the number of corners Aliadiere won for us, as he never gave up on a lost cause. He might as well have not bothered and saved his energy. We need to improve at corners straight away, as not taking advantage of them must take 10-15% out of your game. It is no disgrace to get a headed goal from a corner - it won't betray our footballing principles!

The other surprise for the PSV game was playing Gilberto at centre half. Why this was the case when we had Djourou on the bench is a mystery. As a result we had 2 19 year olds playing in central midfield. As good as Denilson looks, I would have preferred the experience of Gilberto for this game. Of course, it's impossible to tell if this would have made any difference, but it seemed a huge risk to take in such an enormous game.

Now we must make sure we get as much out of every league game as possible. It's probably too much to ask to return to the days of killing teams off in the first 20 minutes at the moment, but we must make sure we qualify for the Champions League next season.

Who knows where Wenger expected us to be at this stage in the teams development, in public he would never admit to having a 'transitional' season. We can't afford to have another season without a trophy (literally - if crowds start to wane at the new stadium, we will be in the shit).

Lets see how ruthless Wenger is in the summer...

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Music Review: Onetwo, Instead

Instead is the first album from Onetwo, who are Paul Humphreys and Claudia Brucken. Brucken is ex-Propaganda, and Humphreys ex-OMD, so they both have a bit of a pedigree behind them.

The whole album has a very lush and polished finish to it - whatever Humphreys has been up to since he left OMD, he has honed his engineering skills brilliantly - he is credited with the engineering on the album, with the mixing by Bob Krushaar.

The album begins with a short intro, 'The Theory of Everything part1', which then leads into part 2. Although part 1 is short, part 2 is a bit of a surprise as part 1 has a dark feel to it, which is nowhere to be found on part 2. Part 2 wouldn't be out of place on Radio 2.

The first great track is track 3, 'Sequential', which has a great mood and a good guitar hook for the main melody. 'Signals' is a fine example of lush Electronica, which precedes one of the stronger tracks on the album, a cover of Pink Floyd's 'Have a Cigar'. In places this sounds as if Trevor Horn has produced it, but it is a good example of how strong Claudia Brucken's vocals can be. This leads straight into 'I Don't Blame You', which is the only track to feature Humpreys on lead vocals. This is a slower track and is a fine contrast to 'Have a Cigar'.

The lead single from the album, 'Cloud Nine' comes up next, which features Martin Gore of Depeche Mode on Guitar, who also co-wrote it. Although not the strongest track on the album, it is a fine showcase, and is a good example of how the album sounds overall. 'Kein Anschlub' is a classic piece of German Electronic music, with Brucken singing in German.

Overall, the album is more 'Propaganda' than 'OMD', and as mentioned previously, it sounds fantastic. A good album, infinitely better than most of the dross on the radio, it's just a shame it is unlikely to get the recognition it deserves.