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The Nairobian

Arsene Wenger vs Jose Mourinho: Arsenal boss hits back at spending jibe

Football

By Mirror | Jul 29, 2015

Arsene Wenger slammed Jose Mourinho and denied he has become a chequebook manager.

Mourinho accused his bitter rival of trying to buy the title after reopening hostilities with Wenger by insisting Arsenal have spent more than Chelsea recently.

But Wenger defended Arsenal’s record in the transfer market and insisted they develop more homegrown players than other big clubs and people should stop listening to what Mourinho says.

Gunners boss Wenger said: “We spend when we think we have to spend and do not listen too much to what people think or say.

“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 enough and another is I spend too much.

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“If you want to create success - which we want desperately - we must focus on what happens inside, just try to do as well as we can and believe in the football we want to play and play it as well as we can and let other people talk.

“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 we haven’t got.”

Wenger also made a thinly-veiled dig at Chelsea’s record of producing home-grown players, with veteran captain John Terry the only player in recent years to have come through the ranks to become a first-team regular.

Arsenal currently have Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs in the first team while Wenger takes pride in developing younger players who they have bought in like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Aaron Ramsey and Theo Walcott.

Wenger added: “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.”

Arsenal have spent more than Chelsea in the past 12 months but, since Mourinho’s return in 2013, the Portuguese has spent £228.5m on transfers while Wenger has spent £148.4m.

Wenger confirmed they are still in the market for a striker with Juventus striker Fernando Llorente a possibility as a back-up while Real Madrid are highly unlikely to sell Karim Benzema even though his future is uncertain.

Llorente has been offered to Arsenal for around £10m and a striker is the only position that Wenger is now looking at.