I have decided to write this little in the pretext to highlight the significance of the financial problems faced by Arsenal and had subsequently affect the team’s performance.
Point: Arsenal’s board lead by Peter Hill-Wood and Co has not kept their promise to hand Wenger and the fans the supposed budget to buy players.
30/08/2008: Hill-Wood says Arsenal have plenty of money to spend and that Wenger’s critics should stop telling the Frenchman how to do his job. He said: Everyone tells Arsene how he ought to run the place but no-one is a better judge than him. We have plenty of money and enough to spend.
19/12/08: Arsenal’s Board have made it clear that funds are available should he wish to spend them next month. Indeed, some reports have suggested that Wenger has been urged to splash the cash by the Club’s hierarchy. At his pre-match press conference, the manager reiterated that HE has the final decision over potential reinforcements. «They [the Board] let me do what I want to do,» said Wenger. «I know how much money I can spend and I will try to do it in a wise way.»
23/12/08: Arsène Wenger admits he is more likely to enter the transfer market next month in the wake of Cesc Fabregas’ knee injury. «Yes [I am more likely to buy], but we also have internal solutions so we are not desperate because of that,» said Wenger.
02/01/09: Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood admits manager Arsene Wenger has a limited budget for the January market. «I don’t think there is a lot of money anywhere,» Hill-Wood said in the papers. «One has got to look ahead – in the future there is probably not going to be much more money coming in.
04/01/09: The Daily Mail reports that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is on a collision course with his higher-ups over the modest transfer budget he has been given this winter. The Frenchman is eager to sign Andrei Arshavin, but Zenit St Petersburg are demanding in excess of 20 million Euros for their star forward – a figure the Gunners have thus far been unable to match.
The North London club have always maintained that they will back Wenger to the hilt in the transfer market, although that claim has rarely been tested due to the gaffer’s low-budget, youth-oriented approach. But now that the ex-Monaco boss has set his sights on a big-money target, the Emirates board are unwilling to free up the funds required to seal the deal. This is is not the first report of friction between Wenger and his bosses to emerge this season. Indeed, it is has been whispered that the 59-year-old could break his contract with Arsenal to join Real Madrid next summer. That remains the remotest of remote possibilities, but if the Gunners fail to secure Champions League qualification this term – they currently sit fifth in the Premier League table – their long-serving manager could consider his options.
May we know where are the 50 million pounds that the board has promised us? Where are the support that was supposedly promised to Wenger, now that we want a player?