Arsene Wenger has pointedly reminded Jose Mourinho that he’s been competing against the financial muscle of other clubs for his entire tenure at Arsenal.
After damaging consecutive draws over the festive period, the Portuguese coach attempted to deflect from Manchester United’s faltering title challenge by highlighting the money spent on new recruits by runaway leaders Manchester City. He also, because he’s a moany gremlin, made clear that he’ll need more cash if he’s to compete in the future.
Just to remind everyone, United have spent the best part of £600 million since Sir Alex Ferguson retired four years ago and their net spend last summer was basically the same.
Summer 2017/18 net spend on transfers:
Man City – £139m
Man U – £138m— 7amkickoff (@7amkickoff) December 26, 2017
Asked about Mourinho’s comments ahead of Arsenal’s clash with Crystal Palace on Wednesday, Wenger said: “I have been in that position for 21 years so I can’t start to complain now.
“There have always been three or four teams richer than I am. I’ve learned to cope with that.
“We deal with our own situation as well as we can. Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United are all richer than us. We have to find ways to be successful.”
Psst…Arsenal play Crystal Palace on Thursday.
Wenger’s found an unlikely ally in his quest to hide his ineptitude.
Neither can compete with Guardiola not because of money but because neither possess the talent or intellectual capacity to do so. Guardiola has taken football to a level neither Mourinho or Wenger could conceive.
Whatever you think off Wenger he is probably the most intellectual football manager there has ever been.
Out of interest what makes you say that?
Newcomer?
Haha funny, I think I should ask the same question of you!
Do a little research. Check c.v for qualifications, and add to that the unquantifiable cultural change that he has introduced to modern top flight football in England. If you can disprove the thesis then well done, but give the man due credit.
I’m asking for his opinion as to why he thinks he’s intellectual.
I think he’s a moron after watching him for the last 21 years that’s all the research i need to do
Of course you have your opinion, it just seems really rude to me.
I’m genuinely interested in knowing why people think he’s an intellectual?
He has a degree in economics or sumin?
edit* Masters degree in economics.
A degree in economics but has hoarded cash at the most stupid time in living memory, with bank rates at around 1% whilst player transfer fee running at a conservative 10%
His economics degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on
@John C
You can’t service your debt if you don’t have cash. Wenger has always done the right things off the field and that’s why he is an intellectual. I hope we don’t miss him after he leaves us because he is working hard to not give us that feeling. His commitment to the club is total. He is a living legend.
Ramgooner, yes you can by your income which is exactly what Arsenal do
Don’t go overboard buddy. Wenger has done a lot wrong outside the field in recent years ( not able to sign the right players, no more develop world-class players, set out for two notches below world-class like Welbeck, Iwobi, Bellerin etc…). However compared to Allardyce, he is Einstein.
I thought you were only talking about football intellect meaning ability to devise tactics. For that, nobody gets close to Guardiola.
both barca and bayern faring pretty well after he left.
if he can have nolito, gundogan, bernardo silva as spare backup midfielders…..well thats genius eh?
guardiola is benefitting because finally abudhabi struck a deal with the FA and referees……lots of retirement villas in manmade islands in the emirates will soon be occupied by referees, linesmen, officials etc.
when mourinho and ronaldo and ozil went after him…he lost the title and had a nervous breakdown …and took his bald head to new york….where he preened around with his agent pimp brother …..
so spare me the pep talk
Dude, the fact that you’re even asking this question…
If you are genuinely interested (which I very much doubt): I think it has less to do with his formal education than with the thoughtful things he has said over many years about issues larger than immediate tactics. Issues like what football (and Arsenal) means to fans, how football relates to the larger society and how both have changed, how individual players fit into a collective, etc. If he is not unique among football managers in these respects, he is very nearly so.
Like his enlightened musing on the January transfer window today?
These are skills to be president of FIFA not manager of Arsenal.
This is a good response and most aligned to my own feelings. Firstly I must point out that I don’t think being intellectual aligns with competence in any way; some of most intelligent and worldly people I know are quite useless as managers. Everything I have ever experienced tells me this. Does having a degree in economics means you can automaticallyrun the P&L at a multion million pound organisation. No. It simply does not. For all Arsene’s qualities and faults, and there are many, I would say he is no longer a top manager, he’s sliding and has been for… Read more »
Takes one to know one.
If you’ve been completely unhappy with the way the team’s been led for the last 21 years…..geez dude. Move on. Go get yourself an Aguero kit.
I don’t think anyone needs to tell anyone else to feel about the manager, how to support the club or to go and support another club. Plenty of fans have been Wenger out for a while. Plenty still believe he is god like. Just one persons opinion doesn’t mean they aren’t supporters of Arsenal FC
21 years huh? So the invincibles and the double double seasons shows he is a moron?
I didn’t say that, i said i’ve had 21 years to form an opinion
so its not about time….its about acumen
Face it, you’re just irrationally angry and creating a revisionist narrative in your mind. Your subconscious is literally deleting your memories out of anger, and it’s causing a ‘does-not-compute’ cycle in your medulla oblongata. John, it’s ok. We can bear your downvotes and vitriol. It’ll be ok to believe in the Arsenal again. Wenger might let you down, but the club will never disappear. It can disappoint us for forever, and we’ll have a new figurehead to point fingers at soon. And if you think this is bad, then go be a Burnley fan. Or of any other team that… Read more »
Not only that, Wenger is a world class gentlemen who every player has looked up to and they all respect him. Eboue losted Wenger’s number and he reaches out to him as father. Not the first Ive heard that before. Mourinho is a cunt. Pep can be a spikey individual as well but respected among players, except Ibrahomovic. Wenger’s weakness is his loyalty to his players who have let him down. Tactically, yes, he is naive a lot of the time but he has shown he can change. Wenger has had to adapt to the oil money pumped into clubs… Read more »
Best quote. Wenger has changed the English football.
Maurene has just spent money wherever he went. He has not changed anything. That’s the difference.
This is where Arsene really annoys me. ‘Chelsea, Man United and Manchester City are all richer than us’ First of all – excluding Manchester City here. We are able to compete with both Chelsea and Man United for players – we just choose not to. They’re too very different things. The money is in the bank. That’s public information. We are the most cash rich club in the world. We pretty much have half a billion pounds in cash just sitting there doing nothing (apart from boosting Stan’s financial power in the US). We also have two billionaires owning the… Read more »
‘Two very different things
Wenger says these things without a hint of irony despite Spurs being above us with half our wage bill and Burnley 1 point behind with a wage bill less than a sixth of ours. Our wage bill is also closer to Chelsea’s, Utd’s and City’s than Liverpool’s is to ours but that’s all swept under the carpet.
Mourinho’s words will be like music to Wenger’s eyes when come the end of the season and we finish 5th or 6th he’ll have the new excuse of “Even Mourinho can’t compete and he spent £300m!!!”
He’s a fucking charlatan!
These teams are one season wONEder. He there for 21 seasons. I don’t like our current position but he is right. We can’t match United and Liverpools wage structure and financial power of City and Chelsea under current administration
John C – does the C stand for your average grade?
It’s pretty clear what the C stands for.
Confused?
Xhaka C, Bellerin C, Welbeck C, Iwobi C, El Neny C, even Cech C?
I 100% agree with you but the last line.
Why have Spurs won in those 21 years? Or Burnley for that matter?
I think you have entirely missed the point. Kronke is a twat and won’t invest in the club. Okay. And Wenger, who obviously would be happier if Kronke did invest, says: I don’t have the level of investment in the club that City, United, and Chelsea have, but we have to succeed anyway.
And you blame Wenger for making excuses.
@A Different George. I haven’t missed the point at all. That’s not what Wenger said. He didn’t say anything about investment. He literally says ‘“There have always been three or four teams richer than I am. I’ve learned to cope with that.’ ‘Richer than I am.’ The only person here who is missing the point is you my friend. You and any other Arsenal fan that believes we are short of cash are misinformed and naive. We have money, and lots of it. If you don’t believe me, go look it up. Go look at our latest balance sheets. Its… Read more »
Agree Man City are backed by a country but they don’t have Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez and Neymar. They have young Jesus and Sane and give the plateform to De Bruyne to be world-class.
Isn’t it Kroenke who decides where the funding comes from? Or do “we” have a say in how he spends his own money? Has he ever said “here you go, Arsenal, have as much as you like from my fortune and create the team of your dreams” while ” we” went “no thanks”?
sure….we could buy pogba and hazard when available….sure
Blogs,miss the too much downvote=hidden comment function.trolls can be trolls and have opinion but all shouldn’t suffer because of that.
Its sickening to see the comments calling someone a troll just because they don’t agree with you. Also see some people questioning their IQ? If you’ve got the balls then place your points properly and have a proper football related discussion. No need to get personal. Also in my opinion, the only people suffering are the ones who want Arsenal to move forward and no Arsene Wenger is not suffering
How can you deny that money has most to do with Gusrdiola’s success. If it is his coaching genius, then perhaps he might want to show how good he is by taking a team such as Arsenal that can’t compete financially with the teams he has coached. And if you believe he would go to a team that doesn’t have tons of cash to buy him his “genius” title, then you also probably believe pigs can fly.
I’d love Guardiola to come to Arsenal and I believe he very much wanted to join, the problem being is that Wenger won’t leave!!
Instead of answering your question directly I’ll ask you why Spurs with half of our budget can be above us and Burnley with a fifth can be only one point behind if not to do with coaching?
How does money explain the improvement of Sterling, Stones and De Bruyne at City and the regression of Bellerin and Iwobi at Arsenal?
It would have been amazing to have Pep at Arsenal. It would be fascinating to see how he would cope at a club where money is (relativly) limited.
How is Pep going to cope with the fact that he can’t spend 150M net in a summer window?
Please he almost came in your fantasy world.
He is one of the top managers but probably can’t work in a situation where he has to actually stretch a dollar.
I am one of Wenger’s defenders on this thread, but I don’t think it is reasonable to disparage Guardiola as a means to do so. Of course, money helps Guardiola build his teams. But he is quite clearly an exceptionally talented coach.
Guardiola is a great coach and has a wonderful footballing mind, but he could not pick up a mid-table PL team and turn them into champions. His brand of football requires extremely high levels of fitness and skill, and it requires a LOT of money to build and perfect. City have so much money to burn that Yaya Touré, who earns over 200K/week, I think, is a mascot this year, and they bought a goalkeeper for 35 million! His main attacking group (choose five from Aguero, Jesus, Sterling, Sane, Silva 1, Silva 2, and De Bruyne) is a lethal combination… Read more »
Sensible comment in what appears to be a bonkers day in here. Cheers, sir. I like you call foul on all this Pep THE MAGNIFICENT!! nonsense. Look at his track record; Wins things when his teams contain the best players money can buy. Well sorry, but I’m not impressed. Pep THE MAGNIFICENT!! won lots of games at: Barca (one of the, if the, best club team ever with 3 of the best players at their positions who’ve ever lived), Bayern (not as many best-evers, but many great players and very deep pockets that completely out-classed bundesliga opponents before the first… Read more »
Walcott, who is our mascot for the year is on £150,000 a week, what’s your point?
Along with Debuchy on £80,000 a week
For Guardiola, money is just a way for him to realise his plans quicker. He has a clear footballing vision and transmits this vision to his players. He could go to a mediocre club, build a team and still play great football, but why do that when you can get the best players and play the absolute best football? There is no need for him to “prove his genius” to fans of other clubs.
He had a clear footballing vision and transmitted that vision to his players last season. They were lucky to finish 3rd. And that clear footballing vision didn’t win a Champions League title in 3 years at Bayern.
But because this is England and he’s running away with the league after spending obscene amounts, we’re calling him a genius. In December. Let the man win a Champions League title without Messi before you anoint him.
.
Wenger’s had 21 years at the club and none of our players look like they have a clue what they’re doing, and he also hasn’t won a champions league ever!!
Man City have 11 player costing over £35 million, utd have -8 Chelsea 6, arsenal 5, spurs 1, liverpool 4.
City since pep took over have spent the same as Man Utd and arsenal transfer fees combined.
Peo is good at tactics , tho still didn’t win champ league with bayern
Wenger did exactly the opposite of making an excuse (and exactly the opposite of Mourinho): he said that despite the financial disadvantage, which he has faced for a long time, clubs must find a way to be successful. But I am convinced that absolutely nothing he says–or anyone says–will convince you to listen.
I did read what he said, he’s been complaining of financial doping for the past 15 years!
He complained at a time when he kept losing his best players and simultaneously kept getting criticised for not winning trophies.
And it’s been true every single time. He actually has opinions about where football has been, and is, going. He doesn’t just care about himself and his career. And again and again, he stands up and takes the flak for owners that have given him nothing to work with. He’s something you don’t see very often. A loyal employee that also tries his best to be a leader.
I’m not Wenger In/Out, I’m simply saying that you’re completely missing the context of the things you’re complaining about.
Bollocks, he had money at the time but didn’t want to buy Xabi Alonso because it would “kill” Denilson and Diaby.
He lost player because they were wasting their careers babysitting and not winning.
He’s doing the same thing now playing Maitland-Niles and Iwobi, putting playing time of youngsters above results, it has nothing to do with lack of money!
Guardiola the intellectual giant who has never had to manage a club with limited funds. The great manager who took over at Bayern Munich after his predecessor had won the European Champions Cup and failed to emulate that feat over three seasons
Think about Pep’s Bayern Munich.
New levels?
Didn’t they spend 90m quid on one player? It’s your fault you’re stupid enough to spend all your transfer budget on a fucking midfielder instead of a replacement for Phil Jones and Ashley Young you dumb prick
Young has been one of United best players this season (along with the other winger turned into fullback, Valencia). Pogba, the expensive midfielder, when not injured or suspended, has been brilliant. I actually think United’s problems are based on Mourinho’s inability to alter his defensive philosophy sufficiently to meet the attacking expectations of the club’s supporters. If that is true, it is a wonderful irony–one that Wenger, Guardiola, and Klopp can share over a glass of wine. Maybe they will invite Eddie Howe.
Once mourinho stops managing at top level which will be very soon I hope. No one will remember him aside from being a foul mouth moron who got his way at the end by blaming everyone but himself.
Wenger will be remembered at the Emirates along side legends like George g and h Chapman
Morinho….the Donald Trump of football.
The massive disparity in financial resources across the premier league is becoming a serious problem. The gap between the top 3 and the rest is enormous, its not really a serious competition at this point. At least its 3 teams competing instead of one like in France and Germany, but there is no way that Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool can seriously compete for the league on a consistent basis with the gap in spending. After this season, the oil teams will have won the league 4 out of the last 5 seasons. At some point someone has to decide if… Read more »
Yes…turning into Spain…
Actually the club had the right vision until we found out FFP was a lie and UEFA are a bunch of wankers. The Bayern defeat just added insult to injury. Now, I can’t sit and argue that our way is the right way and I can’t stomach City literally buying the league title. Either we need to up our spending game or football needs to take action against big spenders. Surely, the math has to be right in one of the two. Executive decisions are much harder now because the sums involved are so huge. One step in the wrong… Read more »
Come on, the same could be said about any teams’ fans. Overall, I’m proud of Arsenal’s stance on spending, whether it’s a side effect of the discord between the owners or the manager’s choice (likely the former). Everywhere else in business you have to balance spending and revenues, why should football be any different?
@Confucius
We do a fantastic job balancing the books but are we really maximizing the revenues? There is no reward without risk. We need to spend to win which in turn will generate more revenues.
You see the transfer market next summer and you will find guys like Chiellini are free agents. What we need to do is keep our best players and go after guys like Chiellini and offer him big wages. There are plenty of good deals out there.
Wenger is absolutely correct, he had fight against the financial might of ManUre and the local bully Fergi, who had the establishment sucking up to him. Mourinho was hoping to similarly buy and bully his way to the title and now that it’s not happening, he wants to go to PSG to buy his way to the title. Even in this hyper competitive environment and all financial clout, Leicester and Monaco won their respective leagues in the recent past. Teams like Southampton and this year Burnley have done well. While even after all the spend Everton struggled. No doubt some… Read more »
Pep at Barca, Bayern and City. Would love to see him perform at a club which isn’t the richest in the league.
Let’s be fair; he has brought out the best in Sterling, De Bruyne and Sane. They haven’t drawn a game, let alone lost a game since the beginning of the season and don’t look like stopping any time soon.
The team looks amazing. One of the best, if not the best, in Europe at the moment and that has a lot to do with the manager in charge. I’d kill to be in City’s position at the moment.
No one thinks Pep is a poor manager but until he’s successful with a ‘limited funds’ club, he can’t really prove he’s a great manager either. I’m not sure he’s brave enough to find out.
But in doing so he would probably lose half of his players after 2 seasons. That would be stupidity not bravery. Look at what happened to that Monaco team.
He’s a big enough name to insist that his contract with a smaller club, that he only sells the players he wants to sell, so that situation could be stopped. But even with that caveat I can’t see him taking the risk.
The word ‘manager’ is not even applicable for Pep. Pep is just an ordinary coach. Sean Dyche is a manager. Eddie Howe is a manager. Even Pochettino is a good manager. Pep doesn’t care about the club. Pep and Maureen are mercenaries.
But Pep does care about pure football, which used to be the main reason why football clubs exist.
he cares about the commission his brother makes
Till this year I thought Pep was high maintenance and in the same camp as Mourinho.
However this year the transformation some in the ManC team have undergone. E.g. Sterling when we asked for him in a swap in the summer transfer window for Alexis, it was underwhelming. Now not only because of Sanchez’s form, it would be a brilliant swap.
Sterling’s transformation is the kind Wenger is famous for!
Pep has made him look a lot more like the £45m player that City paid for, but it may just be an age thing with Sterling and maybe he’d have reached that level on his own…
Monaco was owned by a Russian oligarch the equal of Abramovich. Southampton proves the opposite of what you think: a brilliant academy or scouting cannot overcome the fact that your best players will leave for higher wages after their first contract, unless you sell them first. Leicester is an unexplainable miracle.
It is in times like this we have to ask ourselves:
Who the fuck are MAN UNITED?
To muddy the waters here, net spend is an unhelpful metric in terms of competetiveness, two net spends could be similar but one team may have to sell more/less higher/lower quality players than another.
For the purposes of this particular cunty gripe of Maureen’s we would need to know what funds were made readily available for transfers on top of the existing team.
For example, for us to reach a net spend of £150m we’d have to sell half our first team. Our board wouldn’t sanction that sort of spending without offsetting it somehow.
Not sure you realise what net spend is?
(spend on players in – income for players sold = net spend)
I agree that net spend is not a very good way to measure a team’s talent or the financial firepower it required to build. There are a lot of factors that determine the size of a transfer fee outside of the player’s actual talent. Let’s instead take a look at something much better suited for this purpose: player wages. Man United signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a free but are paying him £360k per week (to sit on the bench!). That’s three times the salary of Man City’s highest paid defender and over four times the salary of their £50m fee… Read more »
When MaureenO went to Chavski he inherited a strong squad with a few weak spots. He spent loads of money to fill those gaps and because successful.
He’s tried to do the same at Dis-Utd but he hasn’t adequately plugged the weak spots that he identified, and he didn’t identify all the weak spots, plus his mouth has created some additional weaknesses…
Wenger is right, it’s never been a playing field. He had to compete against teams with bigger budgets by outsmarting them; with more astute scouting and even level of tactics. But the world and football has changed now. Not only is he still competing with the big boys, but they now match him and/or better yet by better scouting and better tactics. Worse yet, clubs below us are now scouting better (Leicester, Spurs) and new generation managers are now far better in terms of tactics than Wenger. Heck even clubs a few years ago who were behind us internationally are… Read more »
If Sanchez & Ozil walk for free and we are out of top four, the master of economics would have cost us up to £100 million, that’s money not available to spend on somebody decent to get Arsenal back to where we were 10 years ago. Otherwise we are doomed to plough our lonely furrow relying on the likes of Iwobi, Xhaka, Bellerin, Elneny, Coquelin etc. Heaven help us!
You know something needs to change in your life when you and moaninho are moaning about the same thing.
Jose is an unimaginable prick.
Its a sign that Wenger is losing it when he doesnt rubbish Moanrinhos claims straight off, sort of semi empathising with him.
I mean this is a club who paid Rooney and Falcao 300,000 a week, and that was way back, not to mention the 600 mill theyve spent since the Bollox left.
Did anyone think to congrat Sean Dyche, who isnt awash in that kind of cash?
Man o man who pissed in all of your cornflakes this morning….All the crazy whinging on here! The campaign isn’t over, and the Gunners are still in the FA cup and Caribou cup (not very deer to anyone, it seems), and the Europa league. All winnable. Everybody just chill – wait and see where things are at the end of the season before freaking the hell out. And here’s a clue: Wenger stays pretty guarded at pressers – always has. There is a bit of art to what he says and its foolish to take everything the man says at… Read more »