ARSENAL shareholder Alisher Usmanov has splashed some of his considerable cash on a new luxury yacht...no doubt tempting Gooners to dream about the money he could fork out on players.

Usmanov has, it is being reported, handed over some £65million on the craft, which includes a swimming pool, a helicopter pad, a gym, a luxury dining room and cabins for 20 guests.

Richard Scudamore: "This [the Premier League] is what you get when you welcome in inward investment. Any other industry would be welcoming that inward investment. We should welcome it with open arms."
Being psychopathically inclined, Mr Scudamore does not get integrity...
... inward investment is not the issue, it is the sources of that investment that has ruined what he beautifully calls "his product".

London football owners/investors fill the top three positions in The Sunday Times's Rich List for 2012, the annual parade of the wealthiest individuals living in Britain.
Lakshmi Mittal, part-owner of Queen's Park Rangers, remains Britain's richest man according to the survey, with an estimated wealth of £12.

Welcome to Thursday. The North London derby takes place on Sunday and much of the focus should now turn to that.

Of course there isn't much in the way of news because after Milan and Sunderland we've gone into lock-down mode on the media side of things. The only snippet we got was poor old Bacary Sagna being rolled out to do the 'We'll keep fighting, do it for the fans' line which was previously the domain of Johan Djourou.

Following the Misery in Milan and the Shocker in Sunderland there have been calls either for the managers head, the boards collective head or for the team to be ruthlessly pruned and expensively strengthened. It has to be said that these last two events are perhaps only the latest in a succession of poor results that have seen the club knocked out of the Carling Cup, the FA Cup and almost certainly the Champions League, although we have got into fourth position in the Premiership, a position we hold over Chelsea who are on the same number of games, points and goal difference.

Following the Misery in Milan and the Shocker in Sunderland there have been calls either for the managers head, the boards collective head or for the team to be ruthlessly pruned and expensively strengthened. It has to be said that these last two events are perhaps only the latest in a succession of poor results that have seen the club knocked out of the Carling Cup, the FA Cup and almost certainly the Champions League, although we have got into fourth position in the Premiership, a position we hold over Chelsea who are on the same number of games, points and goal difference.

'8-2, eight bloody two' as Michael Palin almost said in Ripping Yarns (8-1).
The morning after Arsenal's worst defeat since 1896 was a sobering one.

The 8-2 capitulation at Old Trafford was slow-motion carnage or schadenfreude at its sweetest, depending on your opinon of the Gunners and Mr Wenger.

Arsene Wenger's nil by mouth approach as Arsenal head towards major resection this summer has dominated the discourse as signs point to a club heading towards dysfunctionality and descent into gradual oblivion.

Paul Scholes writes that Utd's energies are now devoted to fending off Chelsea not Arsenal, Paul Hayward opines Wenger's experiment is stuffed which only a £80m enema will relieve, Dominic Fifield blames the club's refusal to go over £90,000 per week in salary for the mass desertion, Phil McNulty believes Wenger faces his greatest challenge since he was blamed for the demise of English football.

We have arrived at the stage of the summer where one begins to mentally tick off checkpoints for the maddening methadone of pre season. In the last seven days, two of my traditional tick boxes have been inked. The release of the season review DVD (bet this year's sold like hot cakes. Any chance of a reduction if we only buy up to February?

You know those people who, some time in March, get a little newspaper piece about them? The ones who live somewhere by the sea, or up a mountain, and say they can predict the long-term weather because of the amount of moss on the trees or the number of donkeys that are born that year or by the amount of pus that oozes from their canker sores?

Apologies for being two days behind a story once again but having given a great deal of time during the season, I am trying to balance it during the summer. And while I do let a lot of rumours and events go by without comment, this PR stunt from Alisher Usmanov is hard to ignore.

I don't want to repeat the comments as they've been all over the internet.

As a lifelong football fan who has watched the sport at almost every level of the game for the last 40+ years, I have developed some dyed in the wool attitudes about many things, not least of which is my utter contempt for the vast majority of the people who run our sport, from the owners and directors of the clubs to the crooks and clowns who administrate our game.

A couple of stories today:

First, the Arsenal Supporters Trust met last night and voted unanimously to reject chairman of the board Peter Hill-Wood's suggestion that Arsenal shareholders sell their shares to Kroenke. The AST, which I believe holds 3 shares in its own name and manages dozens more under the fanshare scheme, is not a major shareholder in terms of percentage of the club owned, but has been a very active and passionate voice for Arsenal fans.

The dust is yet to settle after yesterday's big news. There's a lot of speculation, a lot of rumour, but the bottom line is nobody knows anything for certain.

In my interview with the AST yesterday we hear that Kroenke will not saddle the club with the debt of the purchase, the Guardian says he 'could'.

The inevitable is finally happening – a billionaire is buying Arsenal. Will it make Arsenal a rich man's play thing? Will there be money available to the manager? Will Wenger have a sword hanging over his head? Will the Gunners be laden with the burden of debt? Will Usmanov sell his stake? What about the AST, Fanshare, and other minority shareholders?

Morning all, it seems odd that football should play second fiddle in today's blog considering we just won our first game since 1875, but events at boardroom mean that's very much the case.

It is a hugely significant day in the history of Arsenal Football Club. Stan Kroenke has agreed to purchase the shares of Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith for £11,750 per share, bringing his overall share holding to 62.

Good morning to you. While the other day I suggested this Interlull would be timely from an Arsenal point of view, I did not realise how horrendous it would be in other ways.

Well, one other way in particular. You can't look at a sports section this morning without the ghastly countenance of John Terry staring back at you.