Arsenal struggling to keep it in the family

By now, most Arsenal fans will have heard the news that Arsenal's third largest shareholder, Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, has been ousted by the Arsenal board - leaving the club in a precarious position should the ex-director decided to sell her 15.9% stakeholding to the highest bidder.

18 months ago director David Dein was booted out - the Arsenal board citing "irreconcilable differences", seven months ago managing director Keith Edelman resigned, and yesterday Bracewell-Smith had a ruck with the board resulting in her removal.

For a club that wants to keep outside investors at arms-length, it's showing little togetherness - forcibly ejecting major shareholders under frequent acrimony.

One thing's for sure, it must have been quite an argument for the Arsenal board to risk upsetting Bracewell-Smith to the extent that they don't even know what she's going to do with her 15.9% shareholding.

Arsenal fans can only hope that Lady Nina has enough "love" for Arsenal Football Club not to sell-out to Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, but I wouldn't bet on it. You can imagine her having more than few objections to the likes of Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood. Reprehensibly old school, he's unlikely to have paid much attention, if any, to what Bracewell-Smith (or any woman) might have to say for herself at boardroom level. Ditto hard-nosed diamond dealer Danny Fiszman.

Meanwhile, American entrepreneur and stakeholder Stan Kroenke is apparently keen to further increase his shareholding; but if it was all about Bracewell-Smith finding a supportive buyer, this would have all been sorted out amicably.

Obviously there's more going on behind the scenes that I can pretend to know about, but this day was always likely to come - and Bracewell-Smith was always likely to be the weak link. I've always imagined a takeover to be inevitable at some point.

So, cue months of further boardroom speculation, music to the ears of Arsene Wenger who may be able to get away without buying anyone in January if this whole business turns ugly. By ugly I mean the media getting completely distracted while Alisher Usmanov attempts to get his greedy mits on that 15.9%.

If Usmanov did snap up Bracewell-Smith's shares he would be in a position to present himself at board meetings and dictate events at Arsenal Football Club well beyond the desired control of its existing members.

Nobody seems to want that, but if that conclusion becomes inevitable and a full-blown turf war ensues, then I would personally prefer that David Dein was brought back into the club should Usmanov emerge victorious. This would be a strong possibility considering Usmanov would almost certainly want to ressurrect his personal involvement with Dein in order to placate supporters already opposed to him.

The cynic inside of me wonders if Dein and Bracewell-Smith have shared any deep and meaningful phone conversations lately, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens. It's easy to imagine the worst, but Bracewell-Smith has long-standing ties with the club and I would like to think it's unlikely she would damage her heritage by selling out to Usmanov. More worrying perhaps is the behaviour of existing board members and their continual in-fighting.

A less confrontational and probably well-balanced view (than mine) of events can be found on Arseblog.

In other news, Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva made his return to competitive action on Tuesday night, playing the first half without any problems before being subbed due to a slight hamstring strain.

As Arsene Wenger rightly suggests, the only obstacle preventing Eduardo from returning the player he once was is the psychological battle. That's still something the player has to overcome and can only be tested by partaking in full-blooded competitive matches, where balls are there to be won and tough tacklers hove into view.

For that reason alone, supporters should not expect too much from Eduardo for the remainder of this season. Even when Eduardo is fully recovered both mentally and physically I have severe doubts whether this Arsenal midfield can create the sort of clear cut opportunities that a striker of Eduardo's prowess can thrive from.

First team goals have dried up recently, 11 in 11 games; three of those by Arsenal's reserves against Wigan in the Carling Cup.