Money talks, Arsene Wenger FretsBy Martin Samuelhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article3913092.eceThese days just about every club is looking to work the Arsène Wenger way. Spot them young, buy them cheap, pay them in washers, win the league. What could possibly go wrong? Well, now they know.
Given at least five years and a brilliant technical staff, unearthing and nurturing fine talent, Wenger’s methods might work at another club, up to a point. The point at which the players start doing the numbers and, like those at Arsenal, realise the going rate for a Champions League footballer. Mathieu Flamini is the first, but he will not be the last. Alexander Hleb intends to buy out his contract for a move to Inter Milan despite Arsenal’s objections and, if he goes, what price Cesc Fàbregas and Emmanuel Adebayor, unless Wenger can quickly placate them with replacements that demonstrate that there will be no loss of potential next season.
Take Adebayor. The striker insists that he is happy at Arsenal and talks as if he sees his future there, but for how long? At a leading club, certainly one who qualify for Europe’s top competition each season as Arsenal do, the reward for a striker scoring 30 goals is roughly treble Adebayor’s £35,000 a week. It may be argued that his form in this campaign has been a one-off, but suppose he does it again next year. Will he still be happy earning roughly a third of what Fernando Torres is paid by Liverpool?
We do not buy superstars, we make them, Wenger says, but his way is about to be tested like never before, as is the cosy logic that Champions League football can be attained without breaking the bank.
What Wenger has pulled off these past ten years is little short of miraculous and by making it look so effortless, he has given the impression that every club can do it.
Well, every club cannot and Wenger may not be able to for much longer, either. Before each season there are gloomy predictions that this will be one in which Arsenal fall out of the top four and year after year Wenger confounds those who doubt him, but like the forecasts that Wimbledon would not be able to maintain top-flight status while selling every good player they had to break even, eventually the prophesiers were proved right.
Timing was always Wenger’s forte. He knew when to ditch a player and he knew a good deal. He did not want to lose Nicolas Anelka, but the money paid by Real Madrid was astronomical. Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira were dispatched at precisely their moments of decline. The portent of this crisis was Ashley Cole’s transfer to Chelsea. Everything that is happening to Arsenal now was predicted by that event and its significance was overlooked because Wenger struck a hard bargain for William Gallas, while Cole took so long to settle at Stamford Bridge and was adequately replaced by Gaël Clichy.
Cole left over money and was reviled, but the same driving force was at work in Flamini’s transfer to AC Milan and is present in Hleb’s longing for Inter, just as it will one day feature for Fàbregas and Adebayor. There is a tariff for a world-class footballer and Arsenal will not pay it. Hleb may be making a huge mistake and his uniquely ambitious style of play may never be indulged so lovingly by a manager again, but he is not moving to be in a better working environment. He wants to earn more and equates inflated wages with a greater chance of success. Looking at this season’s Champions League finalists, who could argue?
Is it still possible to succeed the Wenger way? Yes, in a limited fashion. Wenger has taken it farther than anyone could imagine because he began with the basis of George Graham’s defence, and the way he built from there was little short of genius. A manager with less wit would never have been able to forge a Champions League team out of that philosophy and even Wenger is finding it increasingly problematic.
“How you going to keep them down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree?’ the song asks. If a Frenchman no longer has the answer to that, who does?
