Wenger: We're not poorer than City on the pitch
Published 23:00 28/11/11 By John Cross
Arsene Wenger has admitted Arsenal will never be able to compete financially with mega-rich Manchester City - but insists they can beat anyway.
The Gunners manager will gamble on a second string line-up of fringe players and kids for Tuesday night's Carling Cup showdown with big-spending City.
While he accepts City's wealthy Arab owners have blown the rest of the Premier League away with their signings, including Arsenal stars Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy, Wenger believes they will find it difficult to emulate his own Invincibles side's achievement of going unbeaten through a Premier League campaign.
"Financially it is impossible to compete with them," said Wenger, who has previously accused City of "financial doping". "But on the pitch it is possible.
"What is interesting in football is that we are playing a football game tomorrow night and it is important to compete with them.
"As long as they have not been beaten, then they could go unbeaten. It looks unlikely, but you never know.
"I think in the modern game you need a bit of luck - watching the game against Liverpool [on Sunday, City] could have been beaten. We want to get as close as possible to them and it's important to beat them."
City paid close to £30m combined for Clichy and Nasri, even though both players only had a year left on their contracts.
Wenger's counterpart Roberto Mancini has said he will rest and rotate for Tuesday's tie to avoid burnout from his own squad, but will still field a strong line-up that's likely to include another ex-Arsenal player, Kolo Toure.
The Arsenal manager hopes Nasri is given a decent reception by the fans, even after his ugly transfer saga and departure in the summer, which Wenger admits badly affected the Gunners' pre-season preparations.
"You want to keep your young players," he said. "When we didn't reach an agreement over a new contract [with Nasri] I prepared myself to face it. But maybe it was more a conjunction of Fabregas and Nasri that got more publicity.
"I knew in May that it could happen. Overall, I knew that Aaron Ramsey didn't play much last year and that he would be in contention if he had a chance not to be injured. In pre-season, I felt that Jack Wilshere and Ramsey worked very well together.
"What we did not expect, of course, was to lose Wilshere on top of that. We had to admit then that we were a little bit exposed, quality-wise and number-wise.
"I hope Samir gets a good reception. I don't know if he will play, but personally I want every player who has played for us to be respected when they come back.
"Samir improved tremendously while he was with us. He has developed fantastically well from a non-scoring player to a guy who could make a decision. He was an important player here and I'm sure he will be for City as well."
But Wenger insists that Arsenal are now a stronger squad mentally and can compete for silverware this season.
However, the Arsenal manager, who has given several senior players Monday and Tuesday off, feels finishing in the top four and maintaining Champions League football remains his priority, even after going six years without a trophy.
"When we you are in a competition, of course you want to win it," said Wenger. "The target is to finish in the top four though. It's as simple as that. What engages the whole future of the club is being in the top four.
"Mentally we are in a different shape. I believe everybody would say we were a very good side last year, but of course the last two months were difficult because of the accumulation of disappointments and injuries.
"But now we are in a very good shape, we want to do well and we have a good spirit. Let's see where we stand at the end of the year and then we can compare.
"The squad has more experience and I am confident we can show that on Tuesday. We are still a young team - I think we combine.
"The success of this club is based on the development of young players and we still want to show that on Tuesday."
