It was not what Arsenal supporters, or indeed any supporters of Premier League clubs, might have expected to hear in Stan Kroenke's first interview in England. Kroenke, however, made little attempt to sugar the pill. What had the Glazer family, he wondered, done wrong at Manchester United? In his deep Missouri drawl, the largest shareholder at Arsenal made it sound like they had his admiration.
"What was so tough about the Glazers' situation?" Kroenke said. "They won. And they have increased revenues by a huge amount. If I was a fan of that club, I would sit there and go, 'Wow.' Because how could you do it any better? That's what I would say."
It was put to Kroenke that United fans were deeply unhappy at how the American owners had taken money out of the club, following their heavily leveraged takeover. "But they still won," Kroenke said. "We don't need to get into an exchange here but I don't know as a fan … how could you do it much better? They have increased massively. Some of their players have taken money out and maybe they haven't performed.
"We have a whole different philosophy in the States but I think it's time, maybe, for everybody to think a little bit and, maybe I'm saying too much but I think they ought to think a little bit about who invests in these clubs. What do you want for the long term?
"Because in the States you would never get this dialogue. 'He took money out of the club.' So what? Jerry Buss [the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team] takes money out of the club. A lot of owners in the US do. No one ever says anything about it. What it's about, in fairness [is] … did the Lakers win anything? Well, yeah. They did. How big's their revenue? Pretty darn good."
Kroenke's takeover at Arsenal might have been helped by borrowing but he did not put debt on to the club. He has never taken money out of any of his teams, which include the Denver Nuggets (NBA), St Louis Rams (NFL), Colorado Avalanche (NHL) and Colorado Rapids (MLS).
His bottom line at Arsenal is not dissimilar to that of the Glazers at Old Trafford: to drive revenues and to win trophies. Yet his methods feel purer. He is wedded to the concept of the self-sustaining business model, arguing with understated passion that it is the safest and surest way forward.
All sportsmen, he said, "would rather compete on the basis of intellect rather than being able to throw money against the wall." He noted that "anybody can buy a player but it takes a lot more to identify that player, develop that player and position him."
Close your eyes and it might have been Arsène Wenger talking. Kroenke cannot get enough of Wenger, and he took every opportunity to lavish the highest praise upon him. One thing is clear: the French manager might have gone six years without winning a trophy but there is no gun to his temple as he seeks to change that.
Kroenke places greater store on concepts such as continuity, patience and the measured fulfilment of long-term goals. He suggested that success, when it came, would taste all the sweeter.
"There's a film out in the US called Moneyball and Moneyball is all about being smart in sports, specifically baseball," Kroenke said, of a film inspired by Billy Beane, a man who used statistical evaluation to fuel tremendous success with the Oakland As. "This whole science of sport goes a long way but it really started with Billy Beane. And Billy Beane's true hero is Arsène Wenger. He loves Arsène. He is proud and is a fan of Arsenal because he realises what it takes to succeed and be responsible. That is different.
"Arsène Wenger is just an unbelievable manager. I think he's a tremendous person and he is just as good as there is. You can't judge a manager on one game or on one stretch of games. You judge him over time."
Kroenke intends to go a different way to, say, Manchester City, whose petro-dollars have reshaped the Premier League landscape. He mentioned throwing "money against the wall" on more than one occasion and it was plain that he did not intend to do that in north London. Moreover, players will not hold the club to ransom over contracts. Samir Nasri's move to City in the summer was a case in point.
"Can we compete in terms of money? Well, here's the thing. Could you? Yeah. You could. Do you want to? Maybe you don't," Kroenke said. "Sometimes you can overspend for the wrong assets and you end up shorter in the long run. I think that you want to be sure that you want to spend the money and that's what our manager does. He makes that evaluation. It hasn't been because the money wasn't there. We have money. This club is run in a certain way and I think people are proud of how it is run.
"I think you know that one of the players who departed in the summer had nothing to do with money [Cesc Fábregas]. There was a specific personal circumstance that happened. Then, you could say that the other player departed for money [Nasri]. That's where you get into an evaluation. You had one year left on a player's contract, and you've got a large sum of money being offered."
Kroenke arrived in London last Thursday, in time to give a brief address at the club's AGM. He saw the 5-3 Premier League victory at Chelsea on Saturday and he will attend the Champions League fixture against Marseille at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night. He said that he had "got out and walked" to Stamford Bridge, as it had been a fine day, and that he had been recognised by supporters.
"The Chelsea fans were fine. They were talking to me a little bit about the stadium. They care about it. It is interesting that they can see with our stadium that, as a fan, they like seeing things like that. It has been developed, we have a strong economic model, which is something they don't have, and it is something they are interested in."
Kroenke also addressed the Arsenal squad at the training ground on Monday morning. "I told them that I'm proud of them, that they had faced adversity but had shown real class and spirit to fight through it. It was a lot of fun to watch that game on Saturday."
Kroenke intends to continue enjoying himself and the impression that he left, beyond being at Arsenal for the long haul, was that personal financial gain was not his priority. "We'll see [if I make money]," he said. "That's the risk. There's no guarantee I'll make any money. As a matter of fact, believe it or not guys, you can actually lose money in sports! I know that you'll find that shocking." His counterparts at Old Trafford surely would.
