Samir Nasri (right) and Gael Clichy swapped Arsenal red for Manchester City blue in 2011. Photo: PA/Nick Potts
It was August 2009 and Arsene Wenger was pondering the impact of a major new force in the English transfer market and what it might mean for an Arsenal team that just three years earlier had been 10 minutes away from winning the Champions League.
“Living in this environment is a little difficult,” Wenger said. “It's not because you can't succeed. I believe that you can be successful even though some teams have more money. But this puts a lot of pressure on the salaries of players at other clubs.”
He talked about Manchester City and Real Madrid, but mainly about City. A year after taking over Abu Dhabi, City dominated the English transfer market. Finished tenth, six places behind Arsenal, that summer they signed Kolo Toure, the latest graduate of Arsenal's Invincibles season, and then Emmanuel Adebayor. The latter brings City's spending over 12 months to £175 million on 11 new players. Each outfield player cost over £10 million. For that time these were huge numbers.
It couldn't stop there. Two years later, City signed Gael Clichy and then Samir Nasri, days before Arsenal were due to play a Champions League qualifying match. Cesc Fabregas has moved to Barcelona. Arsenal's fifth player was free agent Bacary Sagna in 2014. Arsenal considered re-signing another of their Invincibles, former captain Patrick Vieira, but he too ended up at City. City were signing not only Arsenal's future, but also their past.
The fact that both teams will face each other in a potentially title-defining match 15 years later is testament to Arsenal's rather remarkable resurgence. That they did this with a coach formed at Pep Guardiola's City, and signed two players who were considered surplus to City's requirements, shows how life has changed. The wage inflation Wenger talked about in 2009 has come true. Now, as then, Arsenal could not compete with City.
Meanwhile, City's owners City Football Group (CFG) have built a powerful multi-club system. If Wenger had known what he was up against 15 years ago, he might have been more vocal about the «financial doping» accusations he regularly made against City, as he did against Chelsea and Real Madrid. «.
The set of 115 allegations against City in the Premier League suggests that the league itself believes this. Whether he can win the case is another question. What is certain is that City hunted down Arsenal as the weakest of the Premier League's big four in the late 2000s and did so effectively. They signed some of their best players. Eventually they overtook them. Since 2010–11, City have finished above Arsenal in 12 of 13 seasons.
Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola during the 2018 Carabao Cup Final, city victory. Photo: Getty Images/Catherine Ivill
To what extent are Arsenal to blame for their demise? Essential. Wenger lasted too long and the club he left in 2018 was far behind the times. It failed to adequately support his successor Unai Emery, a clearly excellent manager. However, Arsenal may feel they have failed in other areas. The earliest of City's 115 allegations dates back to 2009-10, when they began selecting Arsenal players. The city denies all allegations.
In 2009, the club was in a much stronger position to demand tighter financial controls from the Premier League, including deals with associated parties. Wenger constantly complained about this. Did the then Arsenal management lobby the Premier League hard enough?
It is also significant that in the summer of 2009, while City snatched two key Arsenal players and set the tone, they were also pursuing a prominent figure at another top-four club. It was John Terry, a transfer saga that has long been forgotten but was so real that then-City manager Mark Hughes spoke openly about it. Wages of £200,000 a week were reportedly offered. Ultimately, this provided leverage for the lucrative contract extension Terry signed with Chelsea in August 2009.
Wage pressure was everywhere — even at Chelsea, a club that had previously conquered the market for fees and salaries. Chelsea were strong enough to face it with their own billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich. Arsenal lost player after player to bigger payers in England and across Europe. Starting with Vieira in 2005, Ashley Cole in 2006 and Thierry Henry in 2007. By 2009, this had become a habit.
Arsenal's management are now among the most combative at Premier League shareholders' meetings when it comes to financial control, but in 2009 they seemed unclear about what was consuming them. Their business plan, centered on funding the Emirates Stadium and the savings required to do so, was destroyed by the Abramovich effect from 2003 onwards. By 2008, when Sheikh Mansour came to power, the club was already drunk.
< p>There's one line in David Dein's 2022 autobiography that sums up the moment. In 2006, Dein was convinced that Arsenal needed a new owner — or at least an investor — with the same funds as Abramovich. Media group Granada were set to sell their 9.9 per cent stake in the club and Dein saw this as a chance for a serious investor to start building up a stake. Dein said he had met with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Abu Dhabi's de facto chief executive and chairman of CFG since 2008. Khaldun passed and Stan Kroenke bought the shares.
Dane tried Khaldun again when he sold his own Arsenal. stake next year, but, he said, “the timing wasn’t right” for Khaldun. Exactly what that meant was never explained by Dein, but if Khaldun had moved forward it would have meant a very different Arsenal and a very different City. Since the late 2000s, Arsenal have adapted to a different reality. Ineffective at first, but decisively in recent years. But so much time and opportunity was wasted.
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