SPOTIFY CEO Daniel Ek claims he has secured the funds to take over Arsenal from unpopular American owners the Kroenke family.
But the Swede is said to only value the club at £1.8bn while a bid of £2.5bn would be the minimum needed to get Stan Kroenke talking.
And other reports suggest the protest at the Emirates have actually made the Kroenke family more determined to stay at the helm.
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- Josh Graham
PUSH AND PAUL
Arsenal legend Paul Merson believes the Gunners are stuck with Stan Kroenke regardless of how serious Spotify's Daniel Ek is about taking over.
Merse told the Daily Star: "Is Daniel Ek serious about buying Arsenal? I’m always dubious of things like this. Who would put on Twitter that they want to buy a football club? I can’t imagine if you wanted to buy JP Morgan you’d do it on social media…
"But everyone’s heard of Spotify now, haven’t they? Call me a cynic but it’s great free advertising for them. If he buys Arsenal I’ll say fair play to him. But I find it very strange. If you really wanted to take over the club you wouldn’t do it like this.
"I can’t see any way in a million years that Stan Kroenke sells anyway. Arsenal makes him money.
"It’s not like he lives here and the fans can make his life a misery and hound him out. He never goes to the games.
"He’s under no pressure to sell and I don’t see why he would. He’s not fussed about the fans. If he was, he wouldn’t have signed up for the Super League.
"I would say Arsenal are stuck with him. Will all this heat convince him to spend some money on players? Let’s see. But I doubt it."
Credit: PA - Josh Graham
ARTWORK
Mikel Arteta has pleaded for the Arsenal fans to get behind his team despite a shocking Premier League season.
The Gunners are tenth in the league and are relying on the Europa League to salvage something from their campaign.
They lost 2-1 to Villarreal in the semi-final first leg on Thursday.
Arteta told Sky Sports: "We really need them; to be with the team, to believe in the team, to support them. With them closer, we are much stronger.
"That's what we ask them and we promise them we'll give everything we can to fulfil their expectations, to give them some joy and some special moments."
Credit: Getty - Josh Graham
MAD WORLD
Lucas Torreira reportedly faces an uncertain future with Atletico Madrid unwilling to turn his loan spell into a permanent stay.
The Arsenal midfielder has failed to make an impression at the Wanda Metropolitano after joining the Spanish side on deadline day in October.
Despite making 19 LaLiga appearances for Diego Simeone's men, the 25-year-old has started just three top-flight games.
And according to Mundo Deportivo, Atletico are not looking to keep the player at the club.
They state that the LaLiga leaders have no intention of signing Torreira on another loan deal or a permanent move.
It has been claimed that the Gunners are willing to accept a cut-price fee of £15million for the player – £11m less than what they paid for him from Sampdoria in 2018.
A stunning first season in North London saw Torreira appear in 50 matches, but his form tailed off last year where he had to settle for a bit-part role under Mikel Arteta.
Torreira has made no secret of his desire to return to South America to play for his boyhood club Boca Juniors.
- Josh Graham
CHANGE OF TOON
Here's how Arsenal could line up against Newcastle on Sunday.
- Josh Graham
SPOT ON
Here's how the Arsenal takeover by Spotify giant Daniel Ek could look.
- Josh Graham
STAN HIS GROUND
Arsenal's protests about owner Stan Kroenke may have had the opposite effect – with the American reportedly more determined to hang onto the club.
The Athletic's David Ornstein explained: "What if the protests which are at the highest they’ve ever been among the Arsenal fan base right now, added to by the presence of legends, which has built some real momentum continues to gather momentum?
"What if those issues in the USA can take even more of their focus away from Arsenal.
"Now, my hunch, from speaking to a number of people is that events of recent weeks – the protests and the Super League that never was – has actually emboldened or is likely to embolden and strengthen Kroenke’s resolve to keep hold of Arsenal.
"You wouldn’t imagine he would sell now, you might imagine he would have sold a couple of years ago when he took full ownership or he might sell in better times.
“What we’re hearing from Daniel Ek is that he’s here to stay, he’s not going anywhere despite the statement.”
Credit: PA - Josh Graham
WRIGHT'S BATTLE
“I remember him having her up against that wall,” recalls an emotional Ian Wright as he relives the horror of watching his mum being throttled by his violent stepdad when he was just nine years old.
Former football hero Ian, 57, sobs as he returns to his single-room childhood home in South London for the first time in almost 50 years in a bid to heal the lasting scars which saw him and his mother suffer horrendous violence at the hands of his twisted and cruel stepfather.
Tearfully, he adds, “He grabbed my mum by the neck and she was so small. It just made me feel so helpless. She was trying to say sorry while he had his hand around her throat.
"When I was going to bed I just could not get the memory (out) of how helpless, she was.”
Fifty years on and Ian still frequently has “vivid” flashbacks to the violence that left him “anxious and scared” every day of his childhood.
But it wasn’t his stepdad’s brutality that cut the deepest – Ian’s mum abused him in turn, physically hitting him before cruelly telling him she hated him and wished she’d had him terminated.
New documentary Ian Wright: Home Truths sees married dad-of-eight Ian admit that his can’t stop getting “dragged back to some very negative and horrible feelings” which often ruins family occasions for everyone because he can’t stop worrying his now “perfect and wonderful” life is about to crumble.
- Marc Mayo
GOOD MORNING ARSENAL FANS,
Martin Keown blasted Mikel Arteta for hanging Granit Xhaka out to dry by exposing him at left-back against Villarreal.
The Gunners were 2-0 down inside 30 minutes in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final with both goals coming from the Arsenal left.
Pundit Keown fumed on BT Sport: “Keep it simple, you have to have a specialist left-back at this level. And that was always going to be a problem as it was against Everton.
“It’s the actions of a player that is not comfortable in that position and it’s the manager that has put him there.
“It’s about the decisions of the manager. It’s not Xhaka’s fault by the way. I do believe he’s the most improved player we have.
“He’s still had a difficult time but to play him at left-back leaves him exposed for me.”
Meanwhile, Freddie Ljungberg revealed the three ways Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe stood out in the Arsenal academy including ‘not trying to cheat’.
He told BT Sport: “I have been with them Saka and Smith Rowe since they were 15, I know most of their parents. They’re amazing players.
“I always thought they had it in them. They’re very different as individuals, but they’re clever boys, they listen and they have a good understanding of football. I always believed in them.
“When you do youth there’s so many players, but they were training very, very hard, not trying to cheat. They of course had talents that not many other players had.
“You see so many talents that don’t make it, [they need] that little extra drive.”
And finally, on the transfer front, Newcastle want to keep Arsenal loanee Joe Willock after his fine start to life on Tyneside.
Steve Bruce has questioned reports of a £20million fee but praised the player ahead of the clubs’ meeting this weekend.
He said: “We’d love to keep him, but that’s obviously a conversation we have to have and respect Arsenal too. He’s 21 years old, so he ticks all the boxes as far as I’m concerned.”
And Bruce added: “I don’t know where the supposed £20m price tag has come from.
“The most pressing thing is that we have to have a conversation with Arsenal, and we have to respect the fact that he’s an Arsenal player, and he’s a young player too.
“We don’t even know if he’s available yet. Until we have those conversations with Arsenal, there’s nothing really else to say. I do know that Joe’s enjoyed it here – why wouldn’t he?”
- Joe Brophy
XHAK ATTACK
Alternatively, Mikel Arteta could persist with Granit Xhaka at left back despite Martin Keown's public criticism.
- Joe Brophy
CHANGE OF TOON
Arsenal could welcome skipper Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and defender Hector Bellerin back to the starting line-up for Sunday's trip to Newcastle.
- Joe Brophy
KARREN BRADY
"The refereeing itself has been poor this season, possibly the worst I have seen in the Premier League.
"No doubt there will be statistics that prove me wrong but, subjectively, I can remember no time when the whistle was so out of tune with the game.
"VAR was sold to us as a way of perfecting decisions."
Read more HERE.
- Joe Brophy
HOT ROD
Arsenal are reportedly increasing their efforts to land Real Betis star Guido Rodriguez this summer.
El Desmarque claim that the LaLiga side might be forced to cash in on the central midfielder who has a £70million release clause in his contract.
And the report adds that Arsenal are set to make every effort to sign Rodriguez at the end of the season.
- Joe Brophy
CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
Arsenal could sign both a centre-back and right back this summer, according to transfer guru Fabrizio Romano.
He reports Hector Bellerin could leave the club in the summer and a replacement for the Spanish right-back would be needed.
And the Gunners are also said to be poised to add a central defender to the squad.
Brazilian veteran David Luiz could also leave, freeing up the former Chelsea man’s spot in Mikel Arteta’s playing strength.
- Joe Brophy
GRAB NAB
Arsenal target Nabil Fekir has boosted his Premier League admirers by confirming his Real Betis future is uncertain.
He told AS: “For now I am happy at Betis.
“We are going to do everything possible to go to Europe. It’s what I think about now.
“In football we can never know the future. We must look at season after season.
“It is always important to play in Europe. I was playing the Champions League and Europa League and I want to play there again.”
- Joe Brophy
GUNNER SPEND
Securing Champions League football next season by winning the Europa League may allow Arsenal to add to this list.
- Joe Brophy
DEMAND MAR
Pablo Mari has called for Arsenal to get right in the faces of Villarreal in next week’s second leg.
He told club media: “I think it’s not a really bad result thinking about that we’re 2-0 down with one player less, I think a really good reaction from the team.
“But for me I think for me we don’t have to wait to go into that situation to react. I think we have to learn about that and we have to put all the effort starting from minute zero next week to go to the final.
“I don’t know [why we made a sluggish start]. At the end you’re on the pitch and I try to help everybody, but we did some mistakes and I think this is key because they like to play football and they know when you do a mistake to go on that side and take the goals. So at the end we have to learn from that.
“We have to go full gas from minute zero and go with everything to win the game.”
- Joe Brophy
ART NEW LOW
SunSport's David Seager says: "I think before I launch into some forthright opinions on last night’s debacle, I should reiterate that this is a ‘Fan’s Column’.
"As such, it is hard to be an Arsenal fan emotionally invested in the manager, because I hugely admired Mikel Arteta as a player and feel he too, feels the same attachment to our club.
"As such I have wanted him to succeed and perhaps given him more latitude personally than I gave his predecessor and opposite number last night.
"Despite all that, I was, after 60 minutes, at the point I had reached with Unai Emery, after a cold night watching a 1-0 defeat to newly promoted Sheffield United in 2019.
"Nicolas Pepe’s calm penalty and Etienne Capoue’s rashness, to equal that of Dani Ceballos, may have bought our manager a last drink at the Europa League saloon, but in truth he got so much wrong last night."
Click HERE for the eight things Mikel Arteta got wrong last night!
- Joe Brophy
HEAVY TOLL
Arsenal are among the clubs interested by the news that Bayern Munich are open to selling Corentin Tolisso.
According to Kicker, the German giants will consider bids ahead of his contract expiring in 2022.
The Gunners are set to rival Manchester United, Napoli, Juventus, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid
Credit: Alamy - Joe Brophy
MORE FROM LJUNGBERG
He told BT Sport: “I’m so happy, when you have a connection with the players and their families, it's amazing. To see them succeed is a special feeling.
“I just hope the club believes in them and lets them play, make mistakes when they do and don't drop them.
“You can't just trust the young players, you need leadership. It is important for them to see the pathway otherwise they'll go somewhere else where they get the chance to play.”
- Joe Brophy
FRED'S REDS
Freddie Ljungberg revealed the three ways Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe stood out in the Arsenal academy including 'not trying to cheat'.
He said: "I have been with them Saka and Smith Rowe since they were 15, I know most of their parents. They're amazing players.
“I always thought they had it in them. They're very different as individuals, but they're clever boys, they listen and they have a good understanding of football. I always believed in them.
“When you do youth there's so many players, but they were training very, very hard, not trying to cheat. They of course had talents that not many other players had.
“You see so many talents that don't make it, [they need] that little extra drive."
- Marc Mayo
TELE ME MORE
ITV are preparing a bid to bring top flight English football back to free-to-air TV as they contemplate buying a stake in BT Sport, according to reports.
It was revealed earlier this week that BT Sport was being put up for sale.
And streaming platforms Amazon, Disney and DAZN were all touted as potential buyers for the TV network in a deal that would be worth billions.
But according to The Telegraph, ITV have now emerged as another possible buyer.
Both ITV and BT Sport have attempted to diversify in recent times, with ITV a partner in YouView and BT considering investing in ITV's streaming service BritBox.
BT Sport is believed to be worth around £2billion.
- Marc Mayo
FAN-DEMONIUM
Every Premier League team will be allowed fans in their stadium before the end of the season after an entire round of fixtures were moved.
Prem chiefs today confirmed that match week 37 set for Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 May will take place a few days later.
The round will now be played on Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 May – one day after the latest lockdown restrictions lift.
From Monday 17 May sports teams can host up to 10,000 fans or 25 per cent of stadium capacity.
That meant that teams scheduled at home on the final day of the season on Sunday 23 May could've potentially had an unfair advantage.
But the Premier League today moved the penultimate set of fixtures – meaning the 10 away sides on the final day will now have a midweek home game with fans.
Credit: REUTERS - Marc Mayo
XHAK ATTACK
Martin Keown blasted Mikel Arteta for hanging Granit Xhaka out to dry by exposing him at left-back against Villarreal.
The Gunners were 2-0 down inside 30 minutes in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final with both goals coming from the Arsenal left.
Pundit Keown fumed on BT Sport: "Keep it simple, you have to have a specialist left-back at this level. And that was always going to be a problem as it was against Everton.
"It’s the actions of a player that is not comfortable in that position and it’s the manager that has put him there.
"It’s about the decisions of the manager. It’s not Xhaka’s fault by the way. I do believe he’s the most improved player we have.
"He’s still had a difficult time but to play him at left-back leaves him exposed for me."
- Marc Mayo
LAWRO LOSS
Prediction pundit Mark Lawrenson has handed Arsenal a surprise 2-1 defeat away to Newcastle on Sunday.
The Gunners could certainly do with a win at St James’ Park to boost their hopes of a European finish after last night’s Villarreal loss.
But Lawro wrote in his BBC column: “The Gunners are extremely inconsistent at the best of times and I just have a feeling Newcastle will come out on top here.
“Part of that is down to the Magpies' form – they have won two and drawn two of their past four games – but they also have their big guns back in attack and they have made a big difference.”
- Marc Mayo
MAN OH MAN
Villarreal star Manu Trigueros was at a loss to explain how Arsenal were allowed back into their Europa League tie.
A late penalty meant an away goal for the poor Gunners in last night’s 2-1 loss.
Trigeuros said: “They got out of here alive. It is clear that we have won and it is a good result, but seeing how the game went we should have killed them.
“I couldn’t describe what happened but they have found a penalty that… I haven’t seen it but my feet were still. They have had a big reward for what they have done.
“The penalty is not a penalty. VAR is there to do justice and you are upset by details that you do not control, such as the referee.
“There is no explanation. I have seen it and I have not understood it. Having VAR you can’t go wrong twice.”
Credit: Getty
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