Wenger remains  defiant, adamant 

Arsene Wenger insists that his philosophy based on bargain buys and developing youth players is the best way to move Arsenal forward.

The Gunners boss, along with the rest of the board, has been in the firing line of late with players and shareholders questioning the club’s policies in the transfer market and their ability to keep marquee players.

Captain Robin van Persie cited a disagreement with how the club “should move forward” as the main reason he will not be renewing his current contract. And in what proved a turbulent 48 hours, major investor Alisher Usmanov wrote a letter to the club’s hierarchy to express his concerns about the current infrastructure at the Emirates.

Despite the mounting pressure for a shake-up, Wenger has made it clear that he plans to continue looking towards Arsenal’s youth set-up and scouting network for inspiration, a formula that worked well for Dutch legend Johan Cruyff at Ajax and Barcelona.

“I totally agree with Cruyff, and I won’t change,” said Wenger. “I could have left 10 times to join another club but I didn’t because I have worked with the same vision and philosophy at Arsenal for the last 16 years, and that won’t change.

“The only sad thing is that sometimes your work is destroyed by others. You want to see a player in his prime doing it for your club. But it does not work like that all the time.

“I am a victim of that. I lost Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy and Cesc Fabregas at an age when they should have been playing their best football for Arsenal. But I never left the club when I could have.

“Besides, money was never a motivation for me. And, in a similar way, people like Cruyff don’t put all their energy in building football teams with young players just for money.

“We all do this because we want to give something back to football.”