WENGER INSISTS HE'S NO TRANSFER SCROOGE!

Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LamzatBlog
@LamzatBlog on twitter
Youtube +LamzatBlog77
BBpin 28625F38
Fantastic shoppers discounts at http://shop.monetizer101.com/Lamzat

Manager Arsene Wenger maintains he is not keeping a tight grip on Arsenal’s bumper cash reserves, but insists the clubcan only still spend what they can afford as the search for new players continues.

Chief executive Ivan Gazidis may have talked up the Gunners’ new “financial firepower” at the end of the last campaign, but so far the only confirmed signing has been France Under-21 forward Yaya Sanogo - and that on a free transfer from Auxerre.

Arsenal failed to push through a deal for Real Madrid’s Gonzalo Higuain earlier in the summer, and another target got away this week as Brazil midfielder Luiz Gustavo joined Wolfsburg from Bayern Munich.

“If you want to absolutely describe me as a greedy [miserly] person and you would live with me, you would see that I am not, I am rather generous,” he said.

“But we had to go through a period when we had to look at the money that we spent. Today we look for the quality and not necessary the money that we spend,” added Wenger, whose side will open the new Premier League campaign against Aston Villa tomorrow without Mikel Arteta, the midfielder possibly set for up to six weeks sidelined by a thigh injury.

“What can I do about it [the public perception]? Sometimes the image you [media] give people is reality and sometimes not.

“Of course it is unfair. Why should I resist [to spend]? I just defend the idea that you spend the money you have and not the money you don’t have.

“For years I did that. Today we have more so we can spend more. It is as simple as that.

“Of course I am excited by that prospect, but what I want to convince you of is that we are ready to spend the money if we feel that the player makes us a better team tomorrow morning.

“Maybe it is difficult to balance that in a newspaper, but football is not only about that. It is bigger than that, it is about the team, the quality of the play, the spirit and togetherness and the quality of the players. Therefore we have to focus on all the rest as well.”

“In the example of Suarez and you are Liverpool, you have to calculate if you want to get into the Champions League, who are our rivals and do we want to sell to them? Unless they need the money or they have a clause or things like that, things are not always working just because you put the money up.”

“What is important, I can only influence what we do on the football pitch.”

Excerpts from London News