I'm quite interested to know how he had an expensive side though, admitedly I wasn't too into football when we were winning things..
http://transferpriceindex.com/2010/11/arsenal-1992-2010-extract-from-pay-as-you-play/
Kieron O’Connor (@SwissRamble)
Arsenal fan & Editor of The Swiss Ramble, a blog about the business of football
Arsène Wenger is arguably the best manager that Arsenal have ever had. He’s certainly the most successful in terms of trophies and is also the club’s longest-serving manager. However, his reign has been a little like the proverbial “game of two halves”, winning three Premier League titles and four FA Cups in his first nine years, followed by no silverware at all in the last five years.
It’s probably over-simplistic to say that this is due to changes in the club’s finances, but that has certainly played a part. For example, many fans might be surprised to hear that Arsenal’s first league win under Wenger was achieved with pretty much the league’s most expensive XI in current-day prices. Having said that, the legendary Invincibles, featuring the glorious talents of Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp, should also be called the Incredibles, as they won the 2004 title with a team worth only 64% of that season’s most expensive £XI.
Since then, austerity has been the order of the day with Arsenal spending far less than other major clubs, having been hit with a double whammy. Externally, the transfer market was artificially inflated by the presence of extremely wealthy benefactors like Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour, leading to the “financial doping” so despised by Wenger. This relative financial weakness was then compounded by the self-imposed constraints arising from the construction of the Emirates stadium.
Arsenal’s response has been to focus on younger players. In fact, there are two elements to the youth policy. The one that everyone understands is utilising the worldwide scouting network to buy young players from other clubs, develop them for a few years, hoping that they will ultimately become a fixture in the first team, but selling them for good money if they do not – the best examples being Cesc Fàbregas (whose value, in current terms, is £36m higher than the fee paid in 2003) and Nicolas Anelka (an amazing £53m CTPP profit).
The second strand is what might be described as the extreme youth policy, based on the successful approach that Barcelona, and Ajax in days gone by, have adopted. This is a long-term project, whereby the academy recruits young English talent and brings it through to the first team, Jack Wilshere being the obvious success story.
For Arsenal to spend so little in this period and yet still remain competitive, epitomised by qualifying for the Champions League a record 13 years in a row, all the time playing a dazzling brand of football unrecognisable from the days of “boring, boring” Arsenal, is a tremendous feat, which is why the vast majority of fans idolise Wenger: “In Arsène we trust”.
There is no doubt that he is an outstanding manager, though there is a feeling that he might need to modify his transfer policy and loosen the purse strings to ensure that his legacy is not tarnished. Either that, or UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regulations will bring the other clubs’ way of thinking round to “The Professor’s”.