Arsene Wenger hits back at Jose Mourinho over 'big-spending Arsenal' claims

Arsene Wenger has responded sharply to Jose Mourinho’s jibes over spending

Arsene Wenger has responded sharply to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho’s claims that Arsenal have been spending big, according to a report by The Guardian. The Frenchman said that he is only concerned about his team's success and not what others had to say when it came to the club's way of functioning.

Mourinho had stated yesterday that Arsenal have spent as much as, if not more, than his club Chelsea over the past three or four years. He cited the signings of Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Calum Chambers and Mathieu Debuchy to support his stance.

Wenger chose to respond in his usual style by reminding Mourinho that Arsenal had a different way of functioning with a number of players having come through the youth ranks at Arsenal.

“I believe that one day, if you make real statistics of the players we have developed here, and you compare them to all the other clubs, you would be surprised,” Wenger said, as reported by The Guardian.

The Arsenal manager then took a dig at his Chelsea counterpart by stating that he is concerned about opinions of people outside of his football club.

“If you want to create success – which we want desperately – the best way is to focus on what happens inside, try to do as well as we can, believe in the football we want to play and play it as well as we can, and let other people talk,” Wenger said.

“You must not listen too much to what people say because sometimes in the same week I get two different reproaches. One is that I don’t spend too much and another is I spend too much. We spend when we think we have to spend and do not listen too much to what people think or say.”

“We just try to make the right decisions. When you have the money available, we spend it. When we don’t have it, we don’t spend the money,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian.

Chelsea still the team to beat: Wenger

Wenger also responded to the self-proclaimed Special One’s claims that Arsenal were genuine title contenders as they had a very good squad, bolstered especially by the arrival of Petr Cech from Stamford Bridge. The 65-year-old feels Arsenal and the other clubs have a lot of catching up to do.

“Let’s not forget that Chelsea won the championship with a comfortable distance so we have to make our way up,” Wenger said. “There was still a gap between them and the others. Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool have all made big efforts in the market and it’s very difficult at the moment to speculate on these teams.”

Wenger went on to discuss his team’s prospects for the 2015/16 season.

“You cannot say that we finished third in the league last season and that we have no chance at all. The desire is to improve and move up there to fight for the championship. If I didn’t think that, it would mean we were standing still,” Wenger said, as reported by The Guardian.

“We want to improve, but the difficulty for us is to know how much we have to improve. We know we will be better and we are working very hard to be better. It’s difficult, though, to know how much better our opponents will be because everybody tries to be better.”

On Hazard

The Frenchman also shared his thoughts on Mourinho’s comments about Eden Hazard being better than Cristiano Ronaldo.

“It is all about opinions. You have to compare the numbers. I must say players like Messi and Ronaldo still score 50 goals and that is exceptional,” Wenger said during a press conference.

“He [Hazard] can decide the games and you put the top players in this kind of calibre when they can decide the games with something special,” he added.

The Arsenal manager said that the Belgian is some way short from being compared in the same category as Ronaldo and Messi.

“Hazard is in this category, now to reach the other two or three that are dominating world football at the moment I think it demands consistency which he is still to do.”

The 65-year-old also said that the Gunners had tried to sign the PFA player of the year when he was still at French side Lille. When asked how close he was to signing the winger before Chelsea stepped in, he replied: “a few millions”, the Guardian further reported .