Last night almost 200 members of the AST held Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis to account at the Trust’s traditional end of season Q&A.

At the meeting Ivan Gazidis spoke publicly for the first time on the contractual situation of Arsne Wenger saying that a new deal will happen. He also informed the meeting that the club was now free from all property debt and that all further sales of property at Highbury Square and Queensland Road were ‘available for reinvestment in the club’. While not giving exact figures, he reassured the audience that there were funds available to invest in the team.

The full recording of the meeting, which covers many other issues including ticketing, ownership, the club’s financial strength, Arsenalisation and which trophies the club should prioritise, can be seen on Arsenal.com:

AST member Ian Henry has written up his own assessment of the meeting. It is a thorough review in which Ian adds his own analysis and interpretation to the comments. A thoroughly recommended read:

“For the second year running, Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis spent an hour and a half answering questions from members of the AST at the end of the season. Last year we were all pretty impressed with Gazidis honesty and straight-talking, something he generally repeated this year. Once again, he said it how it was, at least that was mostly the case. Fortunately perhaps for him and indeed us, the Q&A took place a week before the Cesc to Barcelona bandwagon had started rolling, otherwise there is no doubt what would have been the main subject for questions. Certainly there were some revealing insights in what he had to say; quite how his summer workload will now be reshaped courtesy of our Catalonian friends is another matter.

AST board member Glyn Taylor started proceedings by announcing that the ShareSave scheme which the AST has been working on for a substantial period of time will be launched during the summer with Arsenals backing. While this may not mean new shares and new capital being injected into the club, the fact that club is trying to make it easier for fans to buy shares can only be a good thing.

Towards the end of the Q&A someone asked if, following the board having rejected the idea of a share issue whether the ShareSave would be more successful if it involves new shares being issued; Gazidis response was cautious the club is supportive of the scheme yes, but he doubted whether in this economic environment there would be much interest in new shares being issued. We shall see once the scheme is launched Arsenal fans will be able to show how much owning a bit of the club means to them. Glyn Taylor interjected to say that the AST is regularly approached by people wanting to sell some shares, but who dont want to sell to one or other of the existing major shareholders, so there should not be a shortage of potential shares for the scheme to buy.

Ivan Gazidis began with a review of what he has been doing for the year since our previous Q&A. He described last season as one of a lot of ups and downs, although I can remember rather more downs than ups. He said that trying to take a step back is a little difficult given the way it ended which he added was a real disappointment. He also thought 3^rd place was a fair reflection of our performance, which is hard to disagree with overall. Tellingly he said that the season just gone had been important for several players; I would like to think that any season should be important for every player, as every player should be giving 100% all of the time, but I took his point certain players had the opportunity to move up a level. But had they?

Although referring to specific players was not something he was going to do, he said, in a slightly unfortunate turn of phrase, that we will be involved in a lot of self-examination with Arsne; so although the Board wont tell Wenger what to do with players, someone high up, presumably Ivan Gazidis himself, is going to look at the squad and the player resources we have with the manager and ask how we can take the next step. However, we were assured that review wont be done in public [and there will be] no public discussion regarding individual players, before adding, tellingly, that we are not blind to where we fell short. That was the first really positive thing I heard. We can only hope that the goalkeeping situation and the woeful lack of resource at centre back are both addressed in the next couple of months, if not sooner. As Gazidis said at one point, the review of the past season cant go on too long as they need to get a move on, especially if Wengers wish to get his transfer dealings done before the World Cup is to be realised. Personally speaking, I cant see all transfer dealings being completed before the World Cup begins. The real work will, I suspect, be done later on in the summer, irrespective of the managers ideals.

Gazidis emphasised that the club exists to achieve success on the field and in that regard what he and the rest of the non-football management team do off the field has to provide a solid foundation to support the self-sustaining model. The self-sustaining model will remain at the cornerstone of Arsenals strategy. The club want to bridge the significant revenue gap we face on the commercial front, especially vs. Manchester United, and Gazidis was keen to emphasise the role and impact of Tom Fox, the new chief commercial officer whom the club has recruited from the US. The AST has already met Tom Fox; he is impressive, but he, like Gazidis, knows that having talked the talked, its walking the walk that counts now.

Gazidis then emphasised the importance of us, the fans. He is keen to listen to the fans, he meets with the AST, AISA and RedAction, and he reads the internet forums and blogs. I wondered what he made of Myles Palmer, arseblog and the like, but soon woke from my reveries to hear him talking about the investment in the stadium, or rather the process of Arsenalisation. He was keen to emphasise that this was a term which had been applied before he arrived and he had not brought it over from the US. This summer, the Arsenalisation process will move into the upper tier and Club Level and we should soon see the end of the risible quadrants (risible is my word not his!). The stands would be renamed and in order to increase the sense of belonging, the Clock will move back inside the stadium; all good stuff. Longer term, he assured us we would see a major improvement in the service levels inside the stadium, but did not give us much on what this will entail. He added that the programme of investment inside the stadium is not a one-off and it will be ongoing, saying that the Arsenalisation programme is one with limitless opportunity to improve and it will be led by the fans, so articulating what we would like to see through AST, AISA and RedAction does matter.

Since last year the 120m debt on Highbury Square has been paid off and all sales there now represent pure profit for reinvestment. The Queensland Road site has been sold, so the club has no property debt at all, a major change on the situation a year ago.

And with that, after assuring us that he felt our pain when the team lost, it was over to the questions

Kevin Whitcher got us under way by asking whether, given that we are ranked in the top five clubs in the world by turnover or value, are we under-ambitious in only competing for two competitions and does the board concur with the managers strategy? Gazidis answer was to say that we are not really in the highest category, especially in terms of transfer spending (something with which there was no dissent!), so in order generate more revenue to facilitate higher spending, the club had to be smarter and more strategic; but can the club compete in four competitions? Gazidis noted that most clubs have to make compromises in terms of which players play when and that squad rotation, which was controversial when it started in England, is now accepted, but he was emphatic that we could compete in all four competitions.

This was a theme taken up several times later in the evening, with one questioner pointed out the need for the current team to win something, to learn from this process of winning; Gazidis concurred, but it was clear that neither he, nor the board, were going to change tack and tell the manager who to pick when.

Gazidis argued that the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea spend more than us on wages, and Liverpool had spent more than us on transfers, but this was either funded through high levels of debt or patronage; he added that Arsenal doesnt have the latter and didnt like the former. So the multi-owner model would continue and the major shareholders wont dip into their pockets to fund a buying spree.

The next questioner asked whether the manager should put out stronger teams in domestic cup competitions because the fans and the team needed to win, observing that the two domestic cup competitions are our best opportunities of winning something. Gazidis accepted this was a valid argument, adding that he didnt disagree. He added that he expected the Carling Cup would continue to be used for giving young players a chance. Regarding the FA Cup, he said that they (presumably the manager really) believed this team put out against Stoke was strong enough, but at the time of the Stoke game we had a lot of matches, ie the two Bolton games, Stoke, Villa, ManU etc, so playing our best 11 in very game wouldnt have been the best solution, or indeed possible, adding the team strategy for that period obviously didnt work.

At this point I interjected, pointing out that when the fixtures came out last summer, I could see that the period at the end of January and into early February would be a nightmare for the squad given its history of injuries and the general perception amongst those outside the club that it was weak. We could see the pitfalls, so why couldnt Arsne Wenger and why didnt he do more than simply re-recruiting Sol Campbell?

Gazidis response here was interesting, and he said all I can say is I share your frustrations, adding that we havent done everything right we were close and we had a chance had we done small things better, differently, we could have won something, and there is a pretty clear-sighted self-critical process going on right now, [but] we cant be too long because we have to act. So it seemed to me, here was clear recognition that the squad wasnt strong enough and that players would be signed, but no clue as to whether they would be the rights ones or enough.

Then Gazidis moved somewhat into what I felt was defensive explanation mode which seemed to me to come directly from the Wenger school of post-event justification. Apparently, our injuries were twice as bad as our competitors in terms of days missed; in fairness, he said the club will look at this, asking why is the case. He added that we have a team that plays possession football and runs more than others and because of the fixture list, the team had fewer days rest between games than our opponents. Apparently, Arsenal had a total of 36 fewer days rest than our opponents, while Chelsea had 22 fewer rest days and Manchester United 24 fewer. I am not sure how these figures are arrived at, but I will accept that they calculated correctly. It is good that the club is analysing why we have so many injuries and is doing so in a systematic manner. However, whatever the explanation as to why we are getting the injuries, the solution surely has to encompass a bigger, squad and one with fewer players, such as Van Persie, Gallas, Diaby, Djourou, Vela and Walcott, who for whatever reason have yet to show that they can last a full season unhampered by niggling injuries.

Gazidis explained that the whole injury issue was being assessed calmly and in this regard he was keen to emphasise the importance of a new GPS system which tracks players training ground movements. This system is apparently proven in rugby and at other clubs; it can give you a lot of information on how far and fast players run, what is the load on their feet (ie how much time do their feet spend with the heel on the ground), and it would appear that with players about to get an injury, the load increases and their work rate comes down. All this and more will be measured more scientifically and perhaps next season we will see the benefit and we will suffer fewer minor injuries which last too long. However, for the all the brilliance of such a system which can predict when a player might get injured, again I come back to the inescapable conclusion that we need a bigger squad. We didnt have the squad to cope when the unexpected injuries arose, so will we have a sufficient squad next season when we will be able to predict injuries, assuming the new GPS system does its job? Lets review that on September 1^st.

Someone, in fact the person next to me, then asked whether the club should start to question the managers obsession with youth and his decision making in general.

At this point, Gazidis was quick to move into gear and defend and praise the manager. He said that Wenger is very clear-sighted, he is not a stubborn fool, but he will never publicly divorce himself from his players, even when he sees their shortcomings. Gazidis then said that Arsne has done a slightly unrecognised job in managing to steer the club through the move to the new stadium and keep it reasonably competitive while facing the financial restrictions the new stadium placed on the club, and while Chelsea under Abramovich have spent and spent. The manager, for all the criticism heaped on him, has kept the club in Champions League year after year, and done so with young players not superstars, and without spending money we didnt have or getting into additional debt. Yes, Gazidis said, the club has not been as successful as he or we would like it to have been, but we should be in no doubt that the board backs Wenger 100%, adding in response to a question from Nigel Phillips, that the club would like to extend Wengers contract and believes he is the right person to manage the team. If the club thought Wenger didnt have ambition or wasnt the best person, we would have a different conversation. Gazidis was confident that a new contract would be sorted out and added that he wasnt having sleepless nights worrying about whether Wenger would sign.

After a few questions about our goalkeepers which Gazidis refused to discuss in detail, came a fundamental question, namely what is success for Arsenal? Here Gazidis was clear: Trophies are our objective and ambition, adding that he didnt accept the notion that there is success or abject failure. He went on to say that if we cant win trophies, qualifying for the Champions League is the base line which explained the managers odd statement at the end of the season that finishing third in the Premier League was like winning a trophy. He added that the club budgeted so that it could survive missing a year of Champions League football without selling players; of course (my words, not Gazidis) that assumes that players are prepared to stay, even when we are not in the Champions League.

At this point someone asked how much was in the clubs transfer budget! Gazidis wouldnt answer, referring us to the analysis which Nigel Phillips does on the clubs accounts for an idea of the figures concerned. Gazidis was however keen to emphasise how the transfer fee was one thing, but the players salaries were the bigger factor in a transfer. People dont come to Arsenal for a pay cut, apparently (did the club really give Mikael Silvestre a pay rise when he joined? Surely not!). The club does model how salaries will pan out for several years ahead. He was keen to emphasise that the club would not embark on a programme of unsustainable spending and that the clubs future would not be risked. Yes, in response to another question, the manager had money to spend, but he wouldnt give any specific numbers.

He added that while the move to the new stadium did increase our revenue, the full impact or value of the new stadium had yet to be felt or seen. This would come in time, but the football world was about to change, and clubs that had been spending in an unsustainable manner would stop soon enough, either because the money would run out or because of upcoming UEFA rules.

Gazidis added that he thinks Arsne Wenger often seems to be treated as an idiot because he has a sensible attitude to spending; people, whether it is fans or the media, seemingly dont know how to cope with a manager who is involved with the board and who takes a long term view. We were told that Wenger has a genuine sense of responsibility for the club and we are lucky that we have a manager who does an outstanding job with resources he has and who is responsible. Moreover, we are fortunate to have a board which supports him and does not demand a return on its capital. Remember, Gazidis added, the club does not pay a dividend and all the shareholders, on and off the board, agree with this. Sure, we are lucky to have a stable club, and I suspect most of us are delighted not to be supporting a club which has to pay the kind of debt interest which Manchester United and Liverpool have to, but it seemed to me that Gazidis was in danger of focusing too much on the business side of the club. Whether the board or the manager accept it or not, the team has seen player after player leave in recent years and they have not been replaced by players of comparable proven standing, nor have we had many truly exciting signings. I dont wont trophy signings for the sake of it, but for all the benefits of the stable, self-sustaining model, there is something missing. The squad needs freshening up, with some proven players coming in. Was there a message coming across I wondered? Maybe this summer will not see that much change after all. But then again, this was all said before the Cesc to Barca bandwagon had got into gear, so maybe events will force a different hand to be played.

Gazidis was keen to add that the club did not retain cash, asking why would it? Money is there to be reinvested apparently; I took that to mean that the 40m received from selling Kolo and Adebayor to Manchester City was either needed for general cash flow last year or went into new contracts for the existing playing squad.

The next questioner asked whether some players got enhanced contracts unnecessarily, or some players get too much too early. Gazidis, unsurprisingly, said that he didnt believe that the club gave out contracts unnecessarily, but explained that, especially with young players, who have unrealised potential, if you did not put them on long contracts they could walk and you would lose their transfer value. He explained that the club believe it is better to re-sign players you already have and who you know and, yes, this did mean that you do pay young players more than their achievements might justify. He added that when he arrived at the club, there were a lot of players close to the end of contracts and a major part of his job was to help ensure squad stability. Apparently the next set of accounts will show spending on wages! To which the unasked question on my and I suspect others lips was: will any of the underperforming players from this season actually be sold this summer? Or are their contracts simply too good to walk away from?

Changing tack, the next questioner asked about the impact of the three new senior roles which had been filled in the commercial area, as well as senior legal and HR functions.

Gazidis had already spoken about Tom Fox, but added some interesting insights re the HR director. He saw this role as critical because of the next stage in the transformation of the Arsenal business.  Having gone through a huge change when we moved stadiums, the next transformational change at the club will be people-driven. Gazidis sees this as just as big a change as when we moved from Highbury and to achieve this we need the right people in senior positions. To get the stadium functioning in an enhanced way, a strategy for people, led by a proven HR director, was essential. It may take time, but over the next couple of years, we were told we will see major changes in how the stadium works, and in particular it will become more fan-friendly. I hope so.

Tim Payton asked about possible improvements to the ticket exchange system and whether the silver membership category was being abused, ie some people simply used this for a few big games and shut out loyal red members from those matches.

Here Gazidis responses were very interesting: We have to work out a way of making the ticket exchange work, adding that we know there are empty seats; he accepted that the current system is inefficient, and apparently the biggest issue amongst members is that we cant get tickets to games. He said the club was looking at this very seriously, adding that people who were unable to use seats should be able to release the seats and this should be possible even close to kick-off. He saw it as a technological challenge, although I can imagine the police and the health & safety people will have a thing or two to say about long queues forming in the hope that loads of season ticket holders will text in that their seats are available at 2.45 every Saturday. I did wonder how big the queues for tickets really would have been on the last day of the season just gone. Intriguingly, Gazidis added that he wanted to get ticket exchange working properly to avoid the embarrassment of announcing a 60,000 crowd each week. I have a suggestion here just announce the real attendance.

Then, as the session neared its end came a question, or rather an observation, which drew strong applause; essentially, we, the fans, are asked to respect players, so it would be nice to get respect back from players, especially the travelling away fans. Gazidis said he heard this loud and clear; whether we will really see the players come over to the fans at the end of every game remains to be seen. A similar comment was made at the infamous Wenger Q&A last year and not much happened then. Still, we will see.

Someone then asked how well prepared the club was for the new home-grown player rules to which the answer was very good, and apparently we are better positioned than our competitors so even if Cesc leaves, I inferred, Wilshere, Lansbury and the other protgs of project youth will hold the fort. Phew, thats a relief. Sorry Bolton, Jacks coming home.

Then came a question regarding our kits, ie who proposed changes, and would we have a new kit next season, to which the answer was yes. Here, I felt Gazidis was less than convincing, seemingly suggesting that our international fan base was a justification for changes to shirt designs. The club had to find a balance between the needs of its different fans. I am not sure I buy that and wonder whether many others do. Arsenal shirts are red and white, with the sleeves being white. End of. Sorry to get on my high horse, but I didnt buy our imitation Spurs away shirt last season. Put another way will Spurs ever wear a red shirt? No, I dont think so.

Another questioner suggested that Arsenals presence in London should be better exploited; Gazidis said this was right and the strategic review now under way will help the club exploit our position in London better.

And the final question: will we tour further afield, such as to the Far East? With this, Gazidis repeated a similar line to that trotted out by Tom Fox earlier in the year. When Arsenal do tour, it will be carefully planned and we will really realise the value of this venture, something which Gazidis doubted the clubs who tour now actually manage. To paraphrase Gazidis: while international markets represent big opportunities, just going abroad and playing a couple of games will not make a big difference; we have to do something beyond just playing a couple of games, and we need a permanent presence abroad. Apparently Arsenals name recognition around the world is huge (whatever that means), but at the same time, Arsenals turnover is less than a Tesco supermarket, so we currently dont have the capacity to take Arsenal internationally and the club need partners who are global to make sure that when we do a tour it is a real success; Gazidis wants to do it right and not just do it”.

Arsenal Insider also has his own write-up of the meeting as does the Evening Standard