SIMON JORDAN: Now’s the time for Arsenal chief Stan Kroenke to spend £250m on new players

When all is said and done, Arsenal should have won the Premier League title this season after the position they were in.

I won’t mention the dreaded ‘B’ word (as in bottles) but I do think they lacked the means to control their own destiny and contracted a freak case of altitude sickness.

Throwing away the points they gained against Everton, West Ham, Southampton and Liverpool was in some ways unforgivable. Arsenal had the trophy in their hands and decided to give it back, like a moronic game of the pack. They had multiple chances to unwrap the gift, but didn’t!

The players have to look inward and Mikel Arteta has to look inward. Arsenal’s expectations were so low that they are lauded for finishing second, despite being eight points clear of victory a few weeks ago.

Arsenal didn’t lose this competition because they lost to Manchester City home and away, they lost the competition because, when it came down to it, they squandered opportunities from February to last weekend. They showed unnecessary vulnerabilities and vulnerabilities at key moments and that lack of content is worrying.

I felt that this Arsenal side and their young players would only get better and this campaign would be a launch series for next season. But I’m not sure I still think so. My belief has been eroded by recent results and achievements.

Assuming that the younger players level up and that the team will benefit from this experience is dangerous, wrong and does not reflect where this group is. Football doesn’t move in a linear fashion and, barring the reality of an improved Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and City as City, that means this year may have been as good as it gets in terms of chances.

I wrote in these pages back in March how impressed I was with how aligned and united they were as a club, even if that wasn’t quite clear against Brighton when we saw an exodus of fans. Nevertheless, there is much more for Arsenal to grab onto than there has been in ages.

But the most important part of Arsenal’s potential future success isn’t just in the dugout, it’s also in the boardroom, because if Arsenal go again they need to invest – and invest heavily.

For Arsenal to evolve, which could actually mean staying where they are, the board has to be willing to move to another level. The key question is: how badly do you want it, ‘Silent’ Stan Kroenke? I always thought he was that rare thing – a billionaire seemingly comfortable with footballing mediocrity, happy as long as Arsenal kept qualifying for Europe and it didn’t cost him any money.

Well, now is the time to build on what could be a great platform, lest Arsenal discover it was all built on quicksand.

Kroenke, if he really desires success, Arteta should give a lot of money to find someone who can score them 25-30 goals. He needs a deeper, better squad to ensure that the substitutes who come in are as good as the ones they replace. If that investment manifests itself, this season will not have been in vain. If not then I struggle to see how Arsenal will maintain what they have achieved let alone progress.

To be blunt, City and more recently Brighton have exposed Arsenal’s inability to adapt clinically and undeniably, because when their court pressure failed, boom, trouble followed.

And let’s not forget, despite all the above, we’ve rarely seen such a gap in class between first and second as when City handed them their heads. It ended 4-1, but it could easily have been seven or more.

The irony of Arsenal coming back to the Champions League is that it could come with a stab in the tail. They now risk doing nothing important in Europe and at the same time see their league form decline. That vicious cycle could take them out of the top four, a berth that certain factions might consider theirs to keep moving forward.

To struggle even slightly with this Premier League away from City, I think we’re talking about over £250 million in new players, but it needs to be well spent. They need central forwards, central defenders and central midfielders and need to ensure William Saliba’s contract is extended beyond the year he hasn’t left yet. They must find upgrades wherever they can and Arteta must be forensic, ruthless and honest. He cannot have misplaced loyalties.

Arsenal only need to look at Tottenham to see what can happen if you don’t invest from a position of strength. Other clubs like Aston Villa and Newcastle will think if they can push for the league then why not us. We have money, resources, ambition and desire. So how eager is Arsenal to be successful and how much inspiration and ambition has Arteta’s season brought to the boardroom? We’ll find out soon.

It is important for the Premier League that Arsenal, along with other sides regaining their luster, maintain this progress and that will only happen if significant amounts of money are invested in the squad.

City are so good and only look to get better under Pep Guardiola, but in the interest of football, and with no regard for the champions chosen, the league needs Arsenal to build on this and not waste all the good work that has been put into making them contenders. season.

Poch will not bring in any silverware for Chelsea – he is not a winner

The imminent arrival of Mauricio Pochettino at Chelsea is an interesting one. Yes he’s built a great squad at Tottenham Hotspur but he hasn’t won anything and while I’m sure he’ll make Chelsea contenders again I don’t think he’ll bring in any silverware because I don’t think he’s a winner , he just gives you a touch of winning.

It’s one thing to win in France with Paris Saint-Germain – if you don’t win there, what the hell are you doing? – but if you want to go to Chelsea you better make sure you’re a winner and I’m not sure he is.

His return to the Premier League has also complicated things for Daniel Levy’s search for a manager, as Pochettino’s appearance at Chelsea seems like something Tottenham should have done. Pochettino would have you believe he would have gone back to Spurs if given the chance, so Levy needs to do this right now for his own credibility.

There is a part of the Tottenham fan base that is rabid and there is also a more measured part that understands what he has been trying to achieve to stabilize the club and understands that they went above their weight given their financial power compared to others . But even that sympathetic segment of the fan base will find it hard to justify Levy bouncing from Jose Mourinho to Nuno Espirito Santo to Antonio Conte to someone who is doing nothing again.

If Levy gets this appointment wrong it could be very difficult for him to gain any ground with the club’s fans and the whole situation has been made worse by Pochettino’s move to Chelsea.

This next appointment is incredibly important to Levy. He needs to find the next Jürgen Klopp, someone who can take the club and the fan base with him and understand that they cannot compete with the wealth of City, United or Chelsea. If he’s wrong again, not only won’t Tottenham get back into the top four any time soon, they won’t even get back into the top six.

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