This is why Arsenal directors are so in love with Arsene Wenger – He’s about the money, about saving money, about making money. He’s not about signing players for mega-bucks, like other clubs he loathes and envies all at once, like Chelsea, Manchester City and lately PSG. He’s about turning in a profit, but that hasn’t really helped him and Arsenal win anything for quite some time.
Being level-headed financially, in the long run, is the way to go. But it just doesn’t please fans who want to see big names, big money being spent and more than all, titles, or at least being relevant when it comes to the big titles – Champions league and the Premier League championship. Wenger cares about the future of his club, but he’s not willing, or his directors aren’t willing to take enough risks in the present, which leaves Arsenal well behind the actual big clubs of the continent in terms of money and, the bottom line, titles.
Which isn’t stopping him from making excuses as to how Arsenal’s way is the right way. Maybe when Europe collapses financially and only the gunners remain, we’ll say he was right. Till then, it all sound a little bit like a man trying to explain why he’s isn’t succesful as he was in the past.
We consider ourselves in a privileged position because we have a massive income. But overall we are not mega-rich because we do not have unlimited resources. A club can buy players like PSG has done or Manchester City or Chelsea, with unlimited resources, but overall football suffers.
Look at the activity on the transfer market since the start of the summer. PSG are ambitious and they have resources and that’s it. We talk always about the same things. I don’t think anything is new in that domain. Europe at the moment is like the Titanic but we live in football like nothing matters.
More than ever we have to run our club in a strict way because it looks like everybody suffers in Europe. I would be surprised if football is not touched by it at some stage. If you look at debt in football across Europe at the moment it is quite massive and we have to be responsible.
We have to be ambitious but also make sure we are not getting in trouble financially. It is difficult for us because the wages in some other clubs are very high. But of course our players quite rightly compare themselves to the players of the other clubs.