At the top of the agenda, as usual, was the subject of new signings.
Why, the Arsenal shareholders wanted to know at Thursday’s AGM, had the club failed in the summer to sign the extra defender they so plainly needed? The numbers appeared simple enough.
Arsène Wenger’s squad has five senior defenders while the club has £207.9m in the bank.
Ivan Gazidis, the club’s chief executive, did his best to explain that the vast majority of the headline cash figure was already accounted for, but down on the floor there was scepticism. He had a seven-figure signing he did want to promote. It is one that strikes a fundamental chord with him and the Arsenal majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, even if there continues to be a hush-hush quality that underpins it.
Arsenal bought StatDNA, the US-based football data analytics company with a massive workforce in east Asia, for £2.165m in December 2012 but, for the second successive AGM, Gazidis did not mention them by their name. Instead, he referred to AOH-USA LLC, which is how the limited liability company was registered in the States. AOH stands for Arsenal Overseas Holdings.
Arsenal are reluctant to divulge anything about StatDNA’s methods but it is clear that Gazidis believes their means represent the club’s secret weapon.