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and had large injections of cash (or debt if you are Manchester United!) Dein was seemingly in favour of going down this route and the rest of the board, well let's just say Dein isn't there anymore! The board obviously feel they can weather the storm and the money from the new TV contracts will get them to the point where they can pay down the debtand compete financially with the increased gate revenues etc. However, recently there have been several reports of Dein and Wenger meeting, so it would appear that Dein is planning to get backing and make a move to take over the club and wants to keep Wenger.

Wenger is canny enough to see this and realizes full well that he is being asked to compete with other managers but with a much smaller purse. Although Wenger and Arsenal obviously take great pride in uncovering talent cheaply Wenger is aware that at times you need to go out and spend when a major player leaves. With hindsight, they sold Viera at the right time as he hasn't been the player he was at his peak, however it has taken a year and a half for Fabregas to grow into a player able to deliver consistently (and now he really can deliver!) They needed someone with experience to help them through this transitional phase. Additionally, big money transfers are risky, many great players struggled to adapt to a new club. We've seen happen many times over the years, from Ian Rush to Andriy Shevchenko, so you need to have a transfer kitty large enough to cope with misfiring new signings too. So one way or another unless Wenger gets alot more money in the transfer kitty and people he likes to work with or even if the players at Arsenal do not come together as a team as well as he would like over the next season, he will leave. Add to this the merry-go-round at Real Madrid, the volatile relationship between Barcelona and Rijkaard, Juventus not wanting to be out of the Champions League for another season, so if Tinkerman fails to deliver etc and Arsenal are going to have to work very hard to keep him.

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