5) Arsene Wenger: £626m
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Major clubs managed: AS Monaco, Arsenal
Manager since: 1984
Trophies won: 17
Record transfer: Mesut Ozil (Real Madrid to Arsenal) – £42.4m
After his stint in France came to a bitter end with the league mired in allegations of bribery and corruption, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein pounced on the opportunity to sign him when things weren’t going well at the club. Although Wenger had moved to Japan, he managed to convince him to return to Europe and the French manager turned the club’s fortunes around.
With the help of Dein, Wenger signed a number of foreign players such as Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires that changed the face of the Premier League. The feather in his cap was the Invincibles season of 2003/04 where the team went an entire season unbeaten.
But a move to the new stadium crippled the club’s finances and Wenger was forced to change his philosophy and promote youth talents with potential world class players in the making at the club. The experiment looked good on paper but player loyalty was a factor he did not consider as other clubs poached his best talents.
However, new sponsorship and commercial deals have allowed him to spend again which saw him smash the club record to sign Ozil in 2013 and Alexis Sanchez a season later. But that has been the extent of his big spending on world class players in the new era.
