It is a comic trope as old as the hills: the stiff everyone thinks is only sleeping. John Cleese played it to perfection in Fawlty Towers, delivering breakfast kippers to a lifeless guest, then moaning at his lack of engagement. ‘Unbelievable,’ he says as he leaves. ‘Not a single bloody word.’
Maybe that is what board business is like at Arsenal with ‘Silent’ Stan Kroenke. Maybe they should check his pulse or the sell-by date on the kippers. Either way, something does not smell right. How does an elite club, one that was once regarded as the epitome of efficient management, come to this?