Arsene Wenger is praising Leicester City for showing the so called big teams that spending big is not always necessary.
The Frenchman is known for being tight with the Arsenal coffers, and last summer only agreed to sign one senior player to his squad.
Arsenal fans though are hoping for a number of recruits this summer, with a big-named striker high on their wishlist, and some midfielders needed to replace the expected departures of Mathieu Flamini, Mikel Arteta and Tomas Rosicky.
The club could be disappointed again after the summer however, with Wenger claiming the big teams should learn from the current season’s league table.
“What we learn from Leicester City is what I knew for a long time, which is that it’s not just only down to the amount of money you spend,” he said.
“It’s down to the quality of players you bring in and sometimes the opportunities are not always necessarily linked with the amount of money.
“If you look well, they finished very strongly last season and on top of that they brought some players in who have given them something more, like N’Golo Kante.
“He had a huge impact. We have spoken about [West Ham’s] Dimitri Payet – you could say along with Payet he is one of the players who had a big impact in this league.”
Wenger admitted that he has a number of targets for the upcoming window, but that nothing was certain as of yet.
The fear is that the Frenchman may use the excuse of Alex Iwobi’s emergence to limit his spending in the upcoming close-season, and as much as we are extremely happy with the 19 year-old, we know that we need some strong signings to challenge for next term’s Premier League title.
Will Wenger make up for the previous transfer window failures? Or do you think he believes we only need limited strengthening before the new season?
Proves a lot of things Arsene.
The least said the better.
Strengthen the club with a new manager first and foremost.
Some people just can’t get enough of the stress, man! ?
Can’t you wait until the season is over, before you start worrying about the summer transfer window?
To avoid disappointment,
keep your expectations low! ?
Wenger will be prompting a few more Youngsters into the first team next season ( at least 3 ) You can thank Iwobi for that, which isn’t a bad thing, unless you’re craving for big name signings?
And by winning all our remaining fixtures, that would also reduced Wenger’s need to buy big in the summer.
At least wait until the window opens, before you start getting excited for nothing! ? ? ?
Knowing Wenger since the day he came at Highbury I knew he would not sign anyone of marque except Cech this summer. Squad looked good on paper and if you take a step back and look at how events folded he was right on banking on the team chemistry. Leicester did the same, they used their last season core and added one interesting signing. Where the similarities ends and where Wenger totally made a miscalculation was the fact that Arsenal had to play one tougher competition on top of what Leicester had to play. And that is UCL. I don’t fault him for not signing here to make up for the extra games but as I said many, many times we have really good players on the bench and at the U21. Why not rotate? Why take a chance when you know for years now that there is a group of players really low on endurance (Ramsey, Walcott, Welbeck, Ox, Wilshere) which will vacate the team roster on a regular basis. Why use the 75th minutes subs when you are in control of a game? What does that give? This is one reason we tanked in January. I was watching again the interview he gave one year ago where he was asked why doing the same thing again and again and expect a different result and concluded that he will not turn down his approach to the game. Which is fine. But for this you must have the material to work with and if you know that in the past that let you down then address that issue as a top priority. As I said, I am fine with his football approach, this is why TV is broadcasting more Arsenal games than any other team, entertainment but then this should not be a reason in not addressing the painstaking issues at hand which are the consistent lack of endurance and being let down every season by a group of players on a high payslip. It is not a quest for quality because we have plenty of it at Arsenal, we miss the numbers and even that is not true. We have a darn good bunch of players on the bench ant the academy who could have made up for it. Yes, the academy players suck when they are left alone and play (see Sheffield) but this is why you should mix people on the field. I had lost count on how many times I strongly disagree with Wengers tactics and make no mistake, I admire the man as a football teacher and philosopher but you should never let pride getting in your way of achieving. I got that, he work day and night, 365 days a year but working hard is only 90% of the answer. The remaining 10% are done of other important things such as decision making and here he simply did not delivered. You have now the answer why Arsenal is 90-95% team every season. This sound absolutely brilliant but (and many teams would kill for that to have it on a consistent basis) but let’s not forget, these 90-95% are not a guarantee for winning and with our consistent lack of luck this basis is even worse. This is it in a nutshell. There are too many thing I can write now but I am in a dark mood about our club and I need to pick up myself and think about West Ham because I don’t want to spread this karma to the team.
There`s a limit to what money can buy, just because you spend more doesn`t mean you get better.
How often have I bought a bottle of expensive wine to find it tastes no better, or even worse, than one half the price? Wenger only needed to buy three world class players , plus a little back up as there is enough coming through the ranks to make a formidable squad. He bought two, now we need the striker. Be interesting to see how Leicester performs next season with the same squad.
Leicester will have some challenges next season and I am curious to how they will deal with it.
Will they be able to keep their star players?
If not then will they be able to replace them with equal quality?
Will they be able to add to the squad depth with enough quality to cover for fatigue and injuries that extra games will bring them.
How well will they deal with CL weeks and then playing in the EPL, will they actually try in the CL or will they just enjoy the experience and focus on the EPL?
When Liverpool had their good season and failed to build on it I took enjoyment out of their failure because of their fans, such arrogance….
But Leicester are The Foxes, their fans have been a happy bunch all season… I wonder how I will find myself thinking about them when next season is well and truly underway.
1.Wenger has been a short-spender for a long time. He does it naturally. He does not need inspiration in this regard.
This is nothing new to him nor is it any real news to the Arsenal fans who have been awake on the planet for more than one season.
Did we suddenly believe Wenger would go spend-crazy all of a sudden until these few comments about Leicester??
2. My guess is Wenger was already “inspired” by the emergence and great play from Bellerin, Iwobi, and Elneny. This is working into his frugality mindset quite nicely already.
“Wenger has been a short-spender for a long time. He does it naturally.”
Wenger and Dein: Broker Arsenals tranfers record multiple times.
Wenger on his own: Signed Arshavin for a club record… Oh and we had Stadium debts but that didn’t stop Wenger.
Gazidis joins as we get players like Giroud and Podolski…
Nasri has confirmed that Wenger didn’t sell him but it was Silent Stan.
Wenger said that if he stayed at home then Welbeck wouldn’t be here.
You think it is Wenger who does the spending? PMSL!
Arsenal Football Club is Silent Stans currently, the guy who said he isn’t in it for championships, you think a guy like that would give full backing to spend more than needed to meet targets? Remember the target isn’t to win the EPL!
wengers transfer policy has allowed man u man City and Chelsea to win our league time and again since we last won it.
Wengers transfer policy?
Wenger has openly said that if he stayed at home then Welbeck wouldn’t be here now.
Wenger openly promised us fans that Nasri wouldn’t be sold the same window as Cesc, Nasri has confirmed it was Silent Stan who sold him and not Wenger.
You have the nerve to say it is Wengers transfer policy….
It is clear that Wenger hasn’t had 100% control of the transfers since Gazidis joined us, Wenger only had 100% control for a short period. That was after David Dein was forced out and before Gazidis took over Deins old role.
That was when we had the stadium debt and you know what the tight penny pinching Wenger did? He broke the clubs transfer record and also paid over the odds to get Nasri who had just signed an extension to his contract with his old club.
A reasonable human being will be able to question their own current beliefs when those beliefs are built upon speculation, I hope you and many other fans will see the FACTS that I have seen and point out, maybe just then we can unite against the real problem… A greedy board and an owner who isn’t interested in winning championships but boosting the value of his ASSETS.
TO WENGER……. I AGREE WITH YOUR THEORY OF SHORT SPENDING THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT YOU ARE NOT RANIERI…..WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO YOUR PREVIOUS GLORIES YOU CANT BUILD A WINNING TEAM ANYMORE……………. TIME TO GO PROF
Forgot where the caps lock button is? It’s on the left hand side of the keyboard next to the letter A.
For a start Wenger doesn’t do all the transfers, Nasri was sold after Wenger promised him he would stay and Wenger has openly said that if he stayed at home then we wouldn’t have bought Welbeck.
With all due respect to Raneiri, he hasn’t had to play in the CL and deal with the extra games, he hasn’t had the injuries other teams have had to their top players. He doesn’t appear to deal with a board that does what they want and get the manager to deal with it afterwards.
It wasn’t Wenger who lost to them home and away to give them the points, Wenger managed to beat them while managers like LvG and Jose etc lost points to them and gave them the title.
Elneny comes to mind, cheap but worth a LOT more if he was at a higher profile club.
I personally think the communication between Wenger and Gazidis isn’t good enough, I don’t know what system they got going but we can work out that Wenger isn’t the final say on the transfers by what has happened in the past. Nasri? Anyone remember reading Wenger saying that Welbeck wouldn’t be here now if he stayed at home?
I don’t care about the price but I do care about what players we get in, I want them to be the players that Wenger truly wants and as such hopefully allow Wenger to build the team he wants to build.
I do wonder if Wenger had another CF in mind when the club bought him Welbeck, I’m not saying Welbeck isn’t good but he hasn’t been the CF we need so far, is he?
Wenger may have been told to deal with what he has for CF, seeing as they are all internationals and the owner is profit driven… and in this case Wenger would obviously back his players.