Traore, you legend 18 September, 2007

I’ve always been a big fan of our young left back, Armand Traore, but his actions at the weekend has made me admire the guy even more. After not being selected in the squad to face Tottenham he decided to go to the game with a mate. It is customary at the North London derby that the stewards on the turnstile give a quick check to see if you have anything dangerous on you. Armand was said to be acting suspiciously around the ground and the steward uncovered a knuckleduster in his possession!

I’m sure you all know there’s usually a bit of afters at these games and it seems like Traore was ready to get stuck in! The 17-year-old was arrested outside the ground. An Arsenal spokesman said, “He has apologised.” And a ‘club insider’ has said:

“Armand had no idea he’d done anything wrong because the laws are different in France.”

But still…who carries a knuckleduster round? Unless they think they are going to get into a fight. Maybe he thought he might get recognised by a Spurs fan and might be attacked? Fair play if that is the case as he came ready, and armed! Could you imagine if Armand actually got in a scrap and actually started knocking out members of the ‘Yid Army’? Brilliant. Oh Armand, you legend.

On to more serious matters and Red & White are dramatically increasing their stake in our club. Apologies for not really talking about this story much, the truth is that I don’t really understand behind the scene things like this. However, Red & White are now up to 21% and are making very generous offers to shareholders. The worry is that Stan Kroenke will sell up to Usmanov. Kroenke is a businessman too and if Usmanov was to make him an offer for his shares then I bet Stan would be willing to sell at a profit. Red & White still insist that they are not trying for a takeover, just simply increasing their stake. Hmm.

Well it does look worrying. The Board have a significant number of shares that they would not be willing to sell. Also there are shareholders who are associates of the board who are also planning to keep hold of their shares. The only thing we can do is sit back and just watch this develop and I just hope that some of our shareholders are strong, and hang onto their stake.

Finally, Setanta Sports are set to launch an Arsenal TV channel. It will launch in December and will be a part of the Setanta package. Click the link to find out more on this. There’s meant to be six hours or more of programming per day, showing five days a week. It’ll be interviews and behind the scenes stuff. However the best bit is there will be live coverage of Reserve and Ladies games and ‘delayed’ coverage of all first team games. They don’t specify how ‘delayed’ these will be but still at least there is a way of watching them. I suppose we’ll find out more on this towards the end of the year.

Right then, I’m off. Have a nice day.