Arsènal (34 page)

The conversion of the club's old home into funding a nest egg had been eagerly anticipated by Arsène Wenger. Talking about the debts Arsenal were facing in 2007, he said, “I believe that we will see the difference after the end of the 2008/09 season. We will have much greater resources at our disposal.' As the economy suffered, David Dein fervently believed Highbury Square was having a more adverse effect than Wenger himself would ever admit and believed money was being taken out of the football budget for property. “Arsène had £18 million to spend on players in the summer of 2008. By January, that had dwindled to £12 million, due to the property,” he confided to a friend. “We need quality reinforcements, but where is the money going to come from? The cupboard is bare and Arsène is running out of hats and rabbits.”

Having deleted any mention of Ashburton Grove from all of the club's communications, how ironic that the property development company (Ashburton Properties) should be named after the street where their new stadium was constructed, although it had been wiped off the face of the earth. Further, at the same time it was airbrushed out of Arsenal's recent history, in much the same way as a certain David Dein. Dein remained in constant contact with Wenger, even after his departure from Red and White effectively made him just another Arsenal fan, albeit a very wealthy one. But he had no right to feelings of resentment as his own role in bringing about the dilemmas the club now had to face up to (which ultimately affected his friend Arsène Wenger) could not be denied.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

May 1999. John Sienkiewicz, a charismatic civil servant who established the London Development Unit, part of the newly created Government Office for London, leaned across the table in the Highbury boardroom and in front of Danny Fiszman and Ken Friar thumped it to make his point to the representatives of Islington Borough Council. The council, and the football club, had become obsessed with the idea of Finsbury Park as a site for the new stadium. Sienkiewicz told the club that “they were being taken for a walk in the park” and that the only way forward was Ashburton Grove. All the same, it took the Arsenal board months to come to the same conclusion – they flirted with other sites including the Millennium Dome – that regeneration in the form of social housing and a new waste transfer station would be the sacrifice they would have to make if they wanted a new home.

In 1998, Antony Spencer had first brought his scheme for Ashburton Grove to David Dein's attention through their mutual friend, Geoffrey Klass. As Arsenal belatedly signed on a year later and Spencer was given the green light, Dein became an obstacle with his insistence that Arsenal consider other options, by which he meant Wembley. In so doing, Dein took his eye off the ball and as the Ashburton Grove project proceeded, Danny Fiszman became the main man. So much so that Spencer was instructed not to keep Dein in the loop.

It was a monumental achievement to be up and running within six years. Yet if David Dein had introduced Spencer to Fiszman at the time the land agent requested and the directors had realised sooner that their best home from home was on their doorstep, then the stadium might have been completed a year earlier (before the economic downturn with all its implications for Highbury Square) and far more money could have been available to strengthen the playing staff.

Dein baulked at the whopping costs of the club building their own new home. His attempts to save money and thereby increase the playing budget (in line with his ‘get a winning team' maxim) were undoubtedly laudable taking the short-term view but Danny Fiszman reasoned differently, and wanted to set the club up for a century of prosperity rather than just the remainder of his own days. To Fiszman it was worth the heartache and immediate financial pain. And with Arsène Wenger at the helm, the club had the ideal man to ensure that the effects of the lack of ready cash could be minimised.

Keith Edelman arrived in May 2000 and David Dein was now well and truly sidelined, his mandate purely playing matters. He was forced to take a back seat on the new stadium project. Although by late 2001 he had hopped on the bandwagon and excitedly relayed the news that Islington Council had granted planning permission to Arsène Wenger from outside Upper Street's Union Chapel where the decision had been taken. “Arsène? We've got it!” he exclaimed into his mobile phone.

Summer 2008. David Dein had passed into history, but his gripe lingered on. The club continued to receive more money for outgoing transfers than they spent on acquisitions, at a time when pivotal players had departed and there were palpable faults that cried out for attention – weakness in the air at the back, lack of combativeness in midfield, an absence of leaders à la Tony Adams or Patrick Vieira, an international class goalkeeper and real depth in the squad.

Mathieu Flamini, out of contract, took advantage of his status to join AC Milan in the summer of 2008. “I really thought he was going to stay,” Wenger later admitted, but his faith was misplaced. The French international, understandably, sought to improve his pay but if Arsenal had agreed to his financial demands, it would have set a precedent that would have had unfortunate financial repercussions. Peter Hill-Wood describes the situation as “slightly annoying. If you look back he had one good year for us, his last season. Prior to that, he wasn't that great. So when he decided he wanted to go (on the basis of one excellent season), we didn't cede to his requests, but we regret it all the same.” Certainly Flamini ended up materially better off, but as he spent the majority of his debut season in Italy on the bench, his career stagnated. “I don't think he's been a great star,” reflects the chairman.

As early as September 2007, Wenger had stated, “My priority will be to keep the players I already have. If the club only becomes a place to go to and a place to leave, then the club won't go very far.” By the end of the season, his view had not wavered, despite the failure, albeit a narrow one, to capture a trophy. And yet, he could not hang on to Flamini nor Alexander Hleb. Despite their different backgrounds, the two were good friends along with fellow midfielders Cesc Fabregas and Tomas Rosicky. This foursome's camaraderie was one element in the team's rise to the top of the Premier League, as they seemed as compatible on the field as they did off it. Perhaps it was an omen that Rosicky's last appearance that season was in late January, after which results took a turn for the worse. Certainly the three remaining players seemed to run out of steam at the same time, and it soon became apparent that Alex Hleb had his heart elsewhere, having reportedly met with Internazionale officials on the eve of Arsenal's Champions League second leg knockout match against Milan. Ultimately, Wenger decided to accept the inevitable and the £11.8 million Barcelona offered that went with it and reinvested the funds in a similar ball-player – Marseille's Samir Nasri. Like Flamini, Hleb went from a leading light at Arsenal to the reserves at his new club.

But the manager's notion of keeping his group together was being severely tested. He believed that everyone – even those he imported – would be loyal if they embraced the culture of the club. “Above all I believe in the virtues of a collective ethos,” he explained, “and I believe that you can only maintain and develop that if you have a culture to impart; a culture that you can pass from generation to generation.” Worthy words but the club's balance sheets painted a bleaker picture – the wage bill indicated that the manager was having to buy his treasured loyalty. Perhaps Wenger's rose-tinted glasses make him short-sighted whenever he looks at his boys. He hoped that he might be presiding over a golden generation which would bond, gather experience together and create a dynasty much as Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, the Nevilles and Butt had produced for Manchester United. But yesterday has gone and the time has passed when genuine world class stars – Vieira, Henry, Pires and Bergkamp – stay around for years and don't want to leave until Wenger shows them the door. Tony Adams feels that times have changed for the worse. “This Arsenal has lost just a little bit of being the top in some people's eyes,” he said. “When you bring a player from abroad they don't have the same feeling for the club. They look at it as a stepping stone to the Real Madrids and Bayern Munichs.”

If kids of 16 are prepared to leave their hometown club – even such institutions as Barcelona – and move abroad, how can Wenger reasonably expect them to show loyalty to him, to the club or indeed to anyone? As a football administrator, who has a lot of respect and affection for Wenger, ruefully observed, “Arsène Wenger thinks that their love of football will bind them together as they grow up but he forgets that there are very few people who genuinely love football with the intensity that he does. Only someone so completely in love with football could think that it would override culture, language, wealth and all the other differences between young players.”

If Alexander Hleb had not already made his manager aware of the facts of life, then Emmanuel Adebayor underlined them for him. Overtures from Milan and Barcelona had turned the Togolese international's head and, endeavouring to exploit his exceptional 2007/08 season, he demanded pay parity with the world's top strikers. In response, Arsenal were prepared to let him leave, but at a price, one which deterred the interested parties, and so a new deal was eventually struck. (During an argument with a disgruntled fan, the striker revealed his weekly wage had risen to in excess of £100,000 a week.) The concession of a huge hike in salary at least ensured Adebayor would not be allowed to run down his contract in the way Flamini did, thereby providing the club with the reassurance that he would command the kind of fee commensurate with his ability if he left (30 goals in the 2007/08 season was an exceptional strike rate, even if his profligacy irritated those with half-empty glasses).

Over the course of six months, the departures of Lassana Diarra, Flamini and Gilberto – who was allowed to leave rather than see out the last year of his contract, and joined Greek side Olympiakos – severely depleted the midfield options. Prior to the start of the 2008/09 season Arsenal fans were anticipating the purchase of a top-notch name to partner Cesc Fabregas, and there was much speculation regarding Liverpool's Xabi Alonso. But Nasri aside, the only midfield arrivals were the unheard of 21-year-old Amaury Bischoff from Werder Bremen, a club for whom he had made a total of one appearance as a substitute, and Aaron Ramsey. At 17 years old, the young Welshman was one for the future, even if his £5 million price tag suggested he was already highly talented. Significantly, Arsenal's rivals for his signature, Manchester United, intended to allow him to remain at Cardiff before he was scheduled to go to Old Trafford in the summer of 2009.

A similar scenario affected defensive resources. Jens Lehmann returned to the Bundesliga with VfB Stuttgart and Philippe Senderos moved to AC Milan on a year-long loan deal. Having been a first-team squad member for four years, it seemed as if Wenger was paving the way for a new and better recruit. Thus when he purchased the injury-prone 31-year-old Manchester United reserve utility defender Mikael Silvestre for a token fee more than a few eyebrows were raised. The French international had made only a few first-team appearances for United in the previous two seasons, and was now very much surplus to requirements. Moreover, Silvestre seemed earmarked as cover for the left back position (rather than the crucial one of central defence), especially with Armand Traore being loaned out to Portsmouth. An atypical Wenger purchase, at least he might be someone William Gallas could talk to. At the end of August,
The Gooner
fanzine commented in its editorial with unfortunate prescience, “If he [Wenger] thinks the current squad have the quality to win enough of the key matches with the defensive options available, I fear senility is knocking on the door.”

In the early days of the new season (2008/09), Wenger was taken to task by someone who was emboldened to inform him, “You need two six foot five world-class centre backs, an international goalkeeper, a midfield ball-winner and to make better use of the wings.”

“I couldn't get the centre backs I was after,” Wenger replied.

“And the goalkeeper?”

“If Almunia was English, he would be an international.”

“That's a reflection on how poor English keepers are at the moment, and anyway he ain't no Schmeichel. And the attack?”

“You're right.”

Yet the manager was still choosing to ignore the experience of his early years at Arsenal: the tough mature English professionals he inherited and the extra lease of life he gave them when he realised their value, the tall combative midfielders – Vieira and Petit – he bought and the resolution they all showed to right defensive wrongs and ensure that defence began in the midfield.

Undoubtedly the manager would have preferred to have had an extra central defender to add to Gallas, Toure and Johan Djourou, but he simply couldn't get the one he wanted. At the club's October AGM, he was questioned as to why he did not buy a centre-back after stating it was a priority at the beginning of the summer. “Football is not just like going to the supermarket,” he responded. “You can't go in and say, ‘I want one player who is six feet five inches with a good left foot and I want him to be delivered.'” Money was available – some £18 million – but with that seemingly insufficient one can only conjecture whom he had in mind. It would have been closer to the truth to say that he simply couldn't pay for his preferences. The players he wanted were available, but the manager's line was, “We have internal solutions” – sticking to what he had rather than buying someone who was not top of his list, so midfielder Alex Song had to be drafted in if more obvious defensive candidates were unavailable.