Arsenal’s majority shareholder Stan Kroenke has been speaking about his plans for the club – which include securing Arsène Wenger’s services as manager long after his current contract expires at the end of this season.
Kroenke told the Daily Telegraph:
“There’s no one I feel more strongly about and I think he is doing a great job. We have been very supportive, we have never wavered, we are proud of him, proud of the club, the way the club is run and how it holds itself out to the world. Arsène knows how we feel, what our philosophy is, what we want to do and I feel like we are totally aligned. I think he wants to do it the exact same way as we do.”
Kroenke also told the Telegraph that there is money for potential new signings: “We’ve always said that there are resources available. There are guys who say that we should push Arsène harder to spend. That’s fair enough – there are always lots of opinions but Arsène is an independent thinker and planner. He works very hard at it and has a wonderful record.”
The club’s owner told the Daily Mirror how much he rates the club’s new record signing, Mezut Ozil:
“What a great player he is. His spirit is great, the players who are with him… you can judge a lot by what players say when they leave and they weren’t happy when he left [Real Madrid]. We stayed in close touch as we went through the process. Everyone wanted to get him, other teams wanted to get him and to get him here is fantastic.
“We weren’t there to make a statement. It’s absolutely not done for that. It was done purely because our manager views him as worth that money, sees him as a player to help us compete, and that meant we were happy to pay [£42 million].”
Kroenke emphasized that he is at the Emirates for the long haul and is desperate for the Gunners to win another Premier League title.
“There would be nothing cooler, I’ve never experienced it over here, to win the Premier League. I’m not getting any younger. It’s something I would like to achieve. There would be nothing more thrilling than to win a championship.”
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