by CARL ELDRIDGE Silent Stan Kroenke's actions certainly speak louder than his words and, again, this morning's papers reflect on the Yank minted moustachioed one's latest purchases of Arsenal shares as he inches ever closer to a takeover.

Kroenke yesterday took his stake in the Arsenal to 29.

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Stan Kroenke owns the NBA's Denver Nuggets and Colorado Rapids MLS team.
The latest 200 shares that he bought; 100 shares from Arsenal Chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, for 8,500 Pounds per share put him on a brink of the threshold mark set up by the Arsenal Board of Directors.
29. Click to continue reading...

Stan Kroenke has purchased even more shares in Arsenal today taking his holding to 29.9% of the club. With only another 0.09% required to reach the threshold to make an offer for the rest of the clubs shares, Kroenke has purchased 627 shares this week for the princely sum of £5.3 million.

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by CARL ELDRIDGE The stars and stripes will soon be flying over the Emirates Stadium. Well, maybe not but surely it can't be much longer before Yank billionaire Stan Kroenke launches a takeover bid for the Arsenal.

For the Denver Nugget has snapped up a further 10 shares in our holding company, at a cost of £85,000 and now the odd-haired moneybags owns 28.

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by CARL ELDRIDGEÂ Arsene Wenger has so far refused to be drawn on the boardroom battle between Stan Kroenke, who was given a place on the board last year, and second-biggest shareholder Alisher Usmanov. But in this morning's paper he does throw some light on his opinions of the matter.

He told the Sun: "The only important thing is the club is run properly in every department.

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Stan Kroenke has been quietly sweeping up shares wherever he can find them. He is now a mere 1.04% short of the 29.9% trigger for a complete bid for the club. Whether he can spare the £460 million, in the short term to buyout the club is a different question.

Frankly after the Tom Hicks and George Gillett hatchet job at Liverpool, you have to be very wary of someone yet to pay half of the £100m he owes for the shares that he bought last December.

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Well here we all are again, a little dustier and a trifle older, but here we all are nevertheless.

I did try to get excited about the internationals. But I couldn't. I missed the Ukraine game entirely, and though I did watch the Belarus game, it was so inconsequential that I lost interest faster than I do when I periodically attempt doing some DIY.

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A quick Sunday round-up for you.

Arsenal players got themselves on the scoresheet yesterday for their respective countries. Cesc scored a lovely goal against Armenia, Philippe Senderos scored two excellent headers against Luxembourg and William Gallas got one for France as Spain, Switzerland and France all won.

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It looks as if Arsenal may soon lose its status of being the only top four club controlled by an English board, while Liverpool continues its search for a purchaser. At Arsenal, American sports entrepreneur Stan Kroneke is close to winning the battle with Moscow-based billionaire Alisher Usmanov to control Arsenal.

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There have been several reports recently that Alisher Usmanov will announce any day now that he has acquired Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith's 15.6% share in Arsenal. This will take Usmanov's holding to over 40%, resulting in him being obliged to make a formal offer for the club.

The Board, namely Peter Hill-Wood will make statements to the effect that the club is not for sale, despite the fact the Hill-Wood sold his shares in Arsenal many years ago to David Dein!

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Knowing what a football club is doing financially is tough. When Mr Usmanov put forward his refinancing plan recently he got one set of top bankers to draw up an analysis of the club's situation and needs. Those against the plan got another set of top bankers to show why we didn't need the money. Click to continue reading...

Oh great. It looks like it's all kicking off again in the boardroom (or not in the boardroom as far as Alisher Usmanov goes).

There's been renewed media speculation about the final resting place of Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith's 15.9% stake in Arsenal. The stories have Alisher Usmanov's Red & White Holdings on the march again.

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Afternoon people, this isnt going to be the longest blog I have ever written because quite frankly there is not an awful lot out there and what is out there, is utter crap.

That is what The Sun are leading with today and it absolutely stinks. The chances of Usmanov ever completing a takeover of this club are nil as far as I'm concerned, I don't think the board (with the money of Stan Kroenke) would ever be swayed by Usmanov's billions, it must also be remembered that Usmanov has lost a lot of money over the past year or so sitting 200 places lower than Stan Kroenke in the rich list and with a wife who is even richer.

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The speculation presented in the Sun today is quite old news as Arsenalinsider informed you all of any likely impending Boardroom struggle back in July, when Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith was rumoured to have finally found a buyer for her shares. The 15.9% stake was always going to be the crucial holding in the final ownership direction, and there were only two players who were going to fight it out.

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Morning insiders no footie today as the international break takes hold, still plenty to talk about in the media this morning. We have picked some of the best bits for you to discuss below:

The Daily Mirror Arsene Wenger was RIGHT to defend Eduardo dive, says Sir Alex Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson has insisted Arsene Wenger was RIGHT not to publicly criticise Eduardo during the explosive Champions League diving row.

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You can really beat that for an opening day result, can you?
6 goals away from home. No matter who you're playing in the league, that's an exceptional performance.
And for some, an unthinkable result. After all, Arsenal haven't spent huge-wads of cash this summer. There's been no 'bail-out' of the squad. Click to continue reading...

The Daily Mail is reporting that City has succeeded in snaring Toure with lightning speed after their John Terry overtures were rebuffed. He comes to the Eastlands with a £15m price tag and phenomenal wages of £120,000 per week. Arsenal loses their longest serving member of the current squad and part of the 2003-2004 Premiership winning squad.

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Having a doomsday prophet like Alisher Usmanov who believes that only he can save Arsenal becomes a drag after a while.

He does not get that his money is unwelcome and so are his suggestions through a surrogate that David Dein was never adequately replaced. As Arseblog correctly points out Usmanov offered a rights issue; very different from direct funding.

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by CARL ELDRIDGE It's very much a double-whammy of irritating news this morning, my fellow Wengerites. Kolo Toure is next to head for the Emirates exit, according the majority of the papers and there is a stark warning from (indirectly) Alisher Usmanov that we are going down the pan at a rapid rate of flushes.

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The internet is dominated by teenagers. If you doubt it, go to Yahoo, look at any sports story, and take a look at the comments. Those that are decipherable (why do people use text speak when space isn't limited?) are almost exclusively the extreme views of the fickle, the black and white majority that see either unprecedented success, or unmitigated disaster on the horizon.

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Evening all,

one would expect the BBC to always give a balanced view on things, especially after it prides itself on so called impartiality. So when an interview is conducted with an associate of Alisher Usmanov, and also with someone with no standing in the game, you would expect them to seek some sort of second opinion, maybe from the football club in question?

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Todays blog will attempt to analyse some of the issues raised by yesterday's blog and many of the excellent comments contributed to that thread. We now have the unenviable spectacle of two major shareholders at loggerheads, each pursuing their own strategy, neither certain of the likely outcome.

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Morning everyone. A couple of things have been happening in the world of Arsenal in the past few days so I figured I'd keep everyone up to date.
First of all, it's only 8 days until the first preseason match! We'll get to see that annual match vs Barnet, which while not an overly competitive match usually, it is the return of football each year and that is something to be celebrated. Click to continue reading...

It was no surprise to anyone that the board even though they reviewed the possibility of raising additional funds, the board has come to the conclusion that the club does not need to raise any additional funds.

 In the board's infinite wisdom, they are able to repay the £135million loan on Highbury Square by April 2010 and give Arsene the money he needs to improve the squad without the need for an annual "marquee player" sale.

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Good morning, be gentle with me, I am *boilking* somewhat. They say never mix wine and beer, right? Who knew they meant over the course of a night and not just in the same glass?

Anyway, plenty going on this morning. The main news from yesterday was the fact that Robin van Persie has signed a new long-term contract with the club.

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Have you heard any good jokes lately? No? How about this one? "Arsenal Set To Make £40m Franck Ribery Bid Reports."

LOL

Yeah, ok, let's just assume that Arsenal are going to bid £40m, which, according to Bayern manager Uli Hoeness, is £60m short of his valuation and would get us just a leg.

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Good morning and welcome to a new week in the summerlull. Just one week to go until pre-season starts for most of the lads. Then we're just counting down days till we get some football again.

We'll start this morning with Felipe Melo. He's been heavily linked with us since the transfer window opened and former Arsenal man Gilberto Silva, who has been away on Pointless Cup duty with him, has given him positive reports about the club.

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Arsene has for the first time broken his self imposed purdah on Arsenal's transfer budget or money available for transfers.

"I am fed-up with people who think I have £100million in the bank yet don't want to spend it. How can people think that? The pride of the club is in having moved to a new stadium while maintaining the club at the top level.

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Another week of the summerlull lies ahead and it's morning's like this that you really miss the football. Even having to write about a 5-0 hammering by Hartepool would be better than this.

There's plenty of talk about Cesc and Barcelona and Guardiola and all that. It was covered in yesterday's blog but as expected the story has grown arms and legs and tentacles and proboscises and quotes have been added to the story that weren't there yesterday and frankly it's a load of bollocks.

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What a turbulent week, Wenger throws away a line about Real Madrid and suddenly we felt like the roof hade caved in on our little world. Everyone came out in support of Wenger.

 Hill-Wood came out like the proud rooster, strutting his stuff about how disgraceful those shareholders were and how dare they question a man like Wenger.

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One of the great joys of the close season - right up there with the fixture list coming out and the pre-season games up Austrian mountains - is the inevitable new shirt launch. It's come early this year, it seems. I'm not quite sure how it suddenly became OK to launch a new away shirt each season, but that's what seems to be happening and it looks as if next season we'll be in pinstriped blue polo shirts.

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Good news to start with this morning and it's that Arsene Wenger has confirmed he'll be staying with Arsenal. Apparently he told the Daily Mail last night:

There's nothing to worry about, it's not an issue for me. I'm staying here. If that changes I will let you know, but don't worry about that.

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This morning's lead story in AS, the Spanish sports daily, is all about Arsene Wenger and the possibility of him taking over as manager.

On French TV yesterday Wenger described the idea of working with Perez, who looks set to take over as President of the Spanish club again this summer, as 'interesting'.

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As I've said before, I'd be shocked if Fabregas doesn't get a ban for his part in Phil Brown's spittergate. After all, Cesc is a member of Al Queda and we can give those fellers no quarter or they will be spitting on our children's corpses: IT WAS THAT BAD.

There's also very little news: Adebayor is going to Chelsea (OH GOD PLEASE YES), ManU is ready to win the title IN OUR FACES, Xabi Alonso is the first of a long summer of "not signing for Arsenal" stories, some Argentinian kid is in North London for a trial at Arsenal and funny enough, he thought he was getting a trial at Arsenal di Sarandi!

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EPL chief Scudamore has been a busy little boy this week, rattling sabers, and proposing all sorts of wondrous rule changes. Changes that he thinks will save English football for Englishmen, stamp out debt, prevent another Leeds United style collapse, prevent unseemly characters from taking over clubs, and even had time to hail the Respect Campaign as an overwhelming success (link works best in Internet Explorer, ugh).

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