My first attempt at starting a new thread and much of what I have to say below may have already been mentioned . But just thought it could be a good discussion topic to sometimes focus on the business side of things as well.

I know people accuse me of being too pro-Wenger..and to some extent probably I am. But apart from Wengerball…I also admire Wenger for his business sense….in almost equal measure to his footballing philosophy. And just to show that my continued defence of Wenger is not based on pure emotion…I am outlining below why I feel his strategy will pay off sooner rather than later.

The strategy of going for youngsters and lesser known names is wholly deliberate. It may look very foolish in this day and age…but when analysed from an economic point of view..it suddenly tends to make a lot of sense. It has not brought success in the last 3 years primarily because Wenger did not forsee the massive amounts being pumped into football for the last 3 years. He probably imagined that football wages and transfer fees would follow a general slowly rising trend as it happens for most industries/businesses. However, the entry of people like Abramovich with plenty of spare cash turned the whole thing upside down. They had the spare cash because of the amazing returns they were generating thanks to their investments in stock markets/companies etc ..and they invested this spare cash not because of any love for the club but only because they imagined that in a world where the economy was really booming…..economic growth was on a high…people were spending more and more…they would generate handsome returns on their investments. True we lost out in this scenario…but I have to again credit Wenger for not changing his policy and sticking to his guns. Why? ..because if we had done that last year or this year..we would have been stuck with hugely expensive players at huge salaries ..at a time when the economy is on a downturn.

We are facing one of the worst global credit crisis in nearly 20 years or so….one that have never happend in the era of the premier league or football as we know it..and this is something from which we will not recover from for a pretty long period ..about 4-5 years is my guess. Not too many people have spare cash to invest at this time….stock markets have taken a beating…..and return on investments are at an all time low. Last year we had a lot of talk about big name investors wanting to invest in English clubs….we don’t see that happening too much this year ..do we? ..and it’s not as if clubs are not available for sale

This is the first year ..and it’s just beginning to dawn on clubs that the era of big money may be over. Next year’s transfer market will be very very different from the one we have been used to over the last 3-4 years. Let me predict something….in the next few years (or maybe as early as next year) we will have a lot of players professing their love for their own clubs and about ‘honouring’ their contracts instead of talking about how they ‘dream’ about playing for some other club.

The Wenger strategy of continuing to buy youngsters probably looks foolish today….but take a scenario in which the money supply in football suddenly dries up. The top clubs in football who’s team building model is one of buying established superstars for huge sums suddenly looks in a bit of trouble since they do not have the money for transfers. What’s worse they have ageing superstars who are on 100K plus per week long term contracts. The only way in which they will be able to generate some transfer funds would be for them to sell of their superstars and get some transfer cash if they are lucky and save on the huge wages. But which club will be willing to buy them?….or able to afford their salaries?…..the player in question would rather see out his contract and earn as much as he can rather than shift clubs.

In such a scenario…Arsenal are probably one of the only clubs who will have a ready supply of quality players on decent wages…and who have been at the club for a long time. They won’t need to buy players..and at the same time will be able to use the unspent transfer cash to pay more than decent wages to their players. In such a scenario i don’t expect clubs like ACM, RM or Barca to be able to tempt players away from Arsenal…since they will have to spend a huge transfer fee to make that happen…and even after that give the player a question a huge pay rise to tempt him away. They won’t be able to do this without going bankrupt. Adebayor and ACM probably learnt this lesson the hard way. I am going to watch the unfolding scenario with interest

Ofcourse the whole strategy looks foolish now…and there is a risk that Wenger has not predicted things accurately…..but if things turn out right….everyone will be praising the Arsenal strategy (in hindsight of course )..and clubs will ensure that any of their future managers would necessarily need to have a degree in economics before they get the job.

It’s a classic case of short term v/s long term…and history has shown that the strategy with a long term view is the one that succeeds in the end.