Arsenal face West Ham today with manager Arsene Wenger confidently predicting they WILL win the Premier League, WILL win the Champions League and WILL keep their exciting young squad together.
West Ham go into the match frantically trying to find someone their cash-stricken Icelandic owners can sell the club to – and prepared to offload £20million worth of stars to ease a rescue deal.
The teams are, Wenger admits, now as different as chalk and cheese as the credit crunch bites. Arsenal, who revealed a pre-tax profit of more than £30m last week, seem to have escaped the worst of it – unlike the hard-hit Upton Park outfit.
And the hard-up Hammers illustrate just why Wenger is sticking to his guns with policies that now place the two clubs poles apart.
It is always best to win with style
Arsene Wenger
Wenger claims that if West Ham had not sold world-class stars like Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick – who have all since won championships with other clubs – they could be sharing a level playing field with his Gunners, rather than being in the pickle they are.
It is also why Wenger will stick to the style which stunned Fenerbahce last week and has made Arsenal role models in many European countries, even though they have not won a trophy for three seasons.
He insists: “We play this way because we feel it is the best way to win trophies. It is always best to win with style.
“Who has won the most trophies in the world? Brazil. Who played the best football? Brazil. So why should we oppose that?
“We beat Fenerbahce 5-2 and they hadn’t lost a Champions League game at home, so let’s continue and we can get better.
“We have gone for a policy to keep playing the way we play because we CAN win the Premier League and the Champions League, and we CAN keep the squad together.
“In Italy, France and other countries they ask managers who is their role model – and it is Arsenal. So we cannot destroy what we have created.”
Wenger has another reason for playing entertaining football. He feels that it won’t only help him to achieve that three-pronged dream, but will also help their fans to beat the recession.
The manager says he feels a personal responsibility towards fans during the economic crisis.
“As we go towards a recession, the only thing we can do first of all is to make sure that Arsenal Football Club survives. That is why I am very happy at our financial situation.
“Nobody knows how hard football will be hit by the recession but the club has solid management that does not expose the club.
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“Happiness is created by the fact that the club is in safe hands.”
