The "warchest" isn't a lie any more than any given pile of cash is a lie. The pile of cash is there - what lacks is the will, or the reasoning that would lead to it all being spent.
Though Wenger and Gazidis loom large in the tactical sphere on the footballing and commercial sides respectively, I think it's important to look at our strategy through the prism of the ownership.
My take:
During our years of success from 97-2005, we saw the Champions League grow into a stable competition and format which we could consistently qualify for, and thereby obtain considerable additional revenue, on which we began to depend strategically.
Also, the PL as a whole grew massively from the date of its inception, with TV rights deals growing with each new arrangement and still continuing to do so. Each and every major club saw a massive increase in its valuation as a consequence.
At around the time of Wenger's arrival, outside money in the PL started to become a regular occurrence (Al-Fayed at Fulham was an icebreaker for "foreign" ownership, although he's about as much of an Anglophile as you can get).
Wenger saw the need for more money on the football side, and the owners and board saw the possibility of grooming Arsenal for a lucrative takeover bid, so both looked for ways to bring permanent value and revenue to the club, and the stadium project was conceived—a classic case of capital investment for guaranteed future increases in revenue.
Of course, as soon as finance for the stadium project was secured (around 03-04) our finances were sharply curtailed, and this combined with the entrance of new, richer investors in the PL has limited our subsequent success. Through parsimonious management and a bracing acceptance of degraded results on the pitch, we managed to retire a large chunk of the debt over the following years.
When the stadium project was complete and the related risks were gone—the project was miraculously well executed, by the way—dialogue with possible buyers was opened. These dialogues caused conflict at board level, resulting in Dein's departure.
Among all the PL clubs on the market, what kind of target had we become? We were a stable, relatively affordable blue chip acquisition that would attract conservative investors like Kroenke and Usmanov—lifetime businessmen who weren't romantic, were thrifty, and looked first at revenue when making their investment, rather than intangibles like history, profile, or location (although we basically lead on all the intangibles as well).
Those guys wouldn't have wanted City or Chelsea - no setup, poor stadia, poor squads, poorly managed. All those clubs had was history. Those guys couldn't have afforded United or stood the risk—it took a bunch of buccaneers with an absurd LBO to take them on.
We ended up with Kroenke because he and his people had the approach skills to cut a deal with the then owners, and because Fiszman was at death's door.
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What's the good news out of the above? The only real good news is that we are owned by a rational person, so as revenue rises, expenditure should be allowed to rise. Revenue is going to rise, so look on the bright side. 🙂
