Arsenal FC manager Arsene Wenger has refused to give up their youth policy and rely only on financial power to build a team like Manchester United.
Arsene Wenger has had to face a lot of criticism for the austerity he had to maintain in the transfer market while the club moved to a new stadium and paid their debts. With a bit of farsightedness , one can envisage how Wengera s ability to get the club through its financial constraints, without missing out on Champions League football, has helped in setting up a much more stable future.
Now with the stability in place, Arsenal can once again spend and afford the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in the transfer market. But the Arsenal manager has refused to completely give up their policy to promote youngsters from in his team, in order to compete with the likes of Manchester United.
Arsene Wenger insisted that it is paramount for the club to maintain the right balance between using their financial strength in the transfer market and provide opportunities to youngsters at the club. He cited the examples of the hugely successful Barcelona and Manchester United sides from the past, who relied on their home-grown talents to achieve success. Although he feels that Manchester United has moved away from that philosophy in recent times, Arsenal wona t follow that same path.
“We want to continue to combine stronger financial resources with faith in our philosophy and policy. That means we want to continue to give chances to young players and build the players from inside our club with our culture.
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“Afterwards, if we can buy the exceptional players, we can compete today, but that will not be the basis of our policy.
“Most of the clubs who have been successful are clubs who have done that well. You can take Barcelona or Man United, who had a generation and built their success on players who came from within. These are our values and it is our DNA and it’s important we keep that.
“With United’s success they have created huge financial resources and today there is no patience for them to continue to do what they did — and they have the financial resources to go with a different policy.
“As well, they do not have available the players like Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and David Beckham inside the club, because youth talent is spread more through 20 clubs than it was 20 years ago.” a The Arsenal manager said in an interview the Times.
The Frenchman also feels that the difference between the big clubs and the rest have grown over the years and now only a limited number of clubs compete for titles in Europe.
“You want, ideally, a Premier League where every club gets A?100 million and then let’s see how good you are. It was the case maybe 30 years ago but not that case anymore.
“In Spain only two clubs can win it, in Germany only one club can win it and the different rule changes have changed that. We will certainly not see Nottingham Forest winning the European Cup anymore and we can analyse the reasons, but it is just down to financial resources. The clubs who have better financial resources have the better teams.” a Wenger added.
But Wenger assures that Arsenal are in a position to compete now and they have significant reduced the gaps with other teams, in terms of financial capability.
“We have reduced the gap and I believe we are ready to go further. We now have the stability that gives us strength. Before I was more exposed to ‘Who will go?’ and now the question I get more is ‘Who will come?’
“The transfer market is not over. We can still buy but I don’t think we will sell. Our potential on the market has changed.” a He said.