Why this is the most important month of Arsene Wenger's life

By Brian Reade

Published 22:59 08/07/11

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When I heard Arsenal were signing Gervinho I thought it was another smart move by Arsene Wenger.

To sign a 24-year-old striker who's scored 28 goals in 67 league games for the French champions, and was one of the Ivory Coast's stand-out players at the World Cup for £11million, is shrewd business.

My next thought was "how high is his sell-on clause to Manchester City and how soon will he invoke it?"

It may be harsh to declare Arsenal a feeder club to City, but as Gael Clichy follows Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure to Eastlands, and City prepare a big offer for Sami Nasri, it's beginning to look that way.

And Arsenal can no longer dismiss the ship-jumpers as grasping shysters. Prior  to this summer City-bound Gooners may have been chasing the cash, but all that changed in May.Why this is

City have now gone no years without a trophy, Arsenal six. City finished in the automatic Champions League places, Arsenal in the qualifying spot.

So were Nasri to tell Wenger he wants to move to either Manchester club to win medals Wenger has no come-back. How can the French coach guarantee an end to Arsenal's trophy drought (especially without Cesc Fabregas) when he can't even guarantee Champions League football next season?

That is the measure of Arsenal's decline from Untouchable double-winners. Wenger used to have a chance pleading with players to turn down better wages elsewhere and buy into his vision of glory through beauty.

He can't do that now because the players no longer believe it. So when, like Nasri you've one year left on your contract, are about to sign the key deal of your entire working life, and clubs with better chances of winning league titles offer you the kind of money Arsenal refuse to give you, why should you stay?

A few years ago during one of Patrick Vieira's annual attempts to escape North London I asked why the likes of Petit, Overmars, Cole, Henry, Flamini and Hleb  would want to leave one of the world's top clubs managed by one of the world's best coaches.

The answer back then was that Arsenal had made them global stars but refused to financially reward that status. So they left for better pay. But the latest exodus can't be blamed on greedy, disloyal mercenaries.

Today's market dictates that you don't keep the top players if you don't win major trophies, and you don't win  trophies if you don't buy the best talent and pay them the going rate.

Arsenal are merely reaping what they've sewn for believing Wenger was some genius who could buck that market.

And both the board and the manager can have no complaints if fans turn on them. They cannot tell them to blindly trust in a "vision" that is near to completion, because their own eyes tell them it isn't. 

Arsenal's decline after the Carling Cup Final was abject. Any team chasing four trophies which implodes so spectacularly in such a short period of time, has no heart and lacks leaders.

Arsene knows, say his admirers, and I'm still one of them. He deserves breathing space for fundamentally changing how we try to play football in this country.

But that space is close to being used up. Wenger faces the most crucial month in his career. He's lost Fabregas but he needs to persuade Nasri to stay, then spend heavily at the top end of the market to rebuild his side.

Or next summer Robin van Persie and Jack Wilshere might be off.

And, sadly, so might he.

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