Wenger prepared to dispose of fringe players
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed that he will be looking to sell some of his fringe players in the summer to make room for new recruits.
The Gunners completed a sixth successive season without a trophy, despite at one stage being on course for an unprecedented quadruple.
A disastrous fortnight left Wenger's men dumped out of both the Champions League and FA Cup having lost the League Cup Final to a last-minute defensive howler against Birmingham City.
As a result, the Emirates Stadium supremo has admitted that he is willing to splash the cash this summer in a bid to return the good times to the Arsenal faithful.
Manuel Almunia, Tomas Rosicky, Niklas Bendtner and Denilson are among the players who are believed to be deemed surplus to requirements.
“There will be some movement of players who have played less, who need to play and as well, of course, we will try to strengthen our squad again, but we want to keep the basis and style of play we have,” he said ahead of the Gunners' final match of the season at Fulham.
The Arsenal boss also has plans to offset the loss of these players by using the reported £35 million transfer kitty handed to him by Stan Kroenke to add to the squad.
The Gunners have been linked with Scott Parker and Gary Cahill, but Wenger admitted that the inflated cost of English talent may force him to shop abroad.
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"I like English players. They are good, but I have said the inflation for them is always very high," he said.
"It is always a lot of money, but if we have to spend we will do it, if we are really convinced."
By Charlie Skillen
Gregg Davies is the Chief Sub Editor of FourFourTwo magazine, joining the team in January 2008 and spending seven years working on the website. He supports non-league behemoths Hereford and commentates on Bulls matches for Radio Hereford FC. His passions include chocolate hobnobs and attempting to shoehorn Ronnie Radford into any office conversation.