We are known for bringing youth up through the ranks at Arsenal, and Arsene Wenger is notorious for putting his faith in young talent.
In the past it was down to necessity, but even though the Frenchman now has more financial muscle, he insists that he won’t abandon his philosophy, according to .
In recent years we have been able to splash the cash on marquee signings like Mesut Özil and Alexis Sanchez, something we were unable to do when we first began investing in the Emirates.
Gone are the days when we were forced to sell our best players, but that doesn’t mean Wenger will throw his old ways out the window.
When asked if he looked to build for the future rather than the present, he insisted that if possible he would prefer to do both.
“You like to do both, you want to do both. Yes of course it is possible. We signed players like Sanchez and Özil to perform now,” Wenger is quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
“We have as well players like [Hector] Bellerin and [Calum] Chambers who are 20. So we have both. The financial potential should allow you to combine both.
“It’s something we look at each year. When all your main players get close to 30, you can’t buy a 30-year-old player. You have to buy a player who is 22 or 23. If you buy another player of 30, they all [finish their careers] together.
“As a manager, in the long term and short term, you have to say ‘okay we can win the league’, but you cannot go without planning for the future. So the players we buy this summer have to be bit younger – they cannot be 29 or 30. Age-wise you need a balance.”
I don’t think many people were expecting Wenger to invest in a 30-year-old this summer, but these latest comments have certainly confirmed that.
We are building a fantastic squad at the moment, with established stars backed up by up and coming young talent. We may potentially be about to enter another Arsenal golden age, and the fact that we are in a position to even attempt that is down to Wenger’s transfer policy.
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