Business as usual for Gunners says Wenger

AFP - 22 April 2007 02:37

Tottenham´s Robbie Keane, the first half goalscorer, has a shot on goal, during the Premiership match against visitors Arsenal at the White Hart Lane Stadium, London, 21 April 2007. Jermaine Jenas ensured Arsenal´s tortuous week had a sting in the tail as his dramatic injury-time goal gave Tottenham a 2-2 draw against their fierce rivals.

LONDON (AFP) - Arsene Wenger insisted David Dein's departure as Arsenal's vice-chairman will not affect his summer spending plans after his team were held to a 2-2 draw by rivals Tottenham.

The Gunners manager has long maintained that he sees no reason to make significant additions to his squad, but his close ally's surprise exit had led to speculation that he might be offered substantial funds by his board as a sweetener.

Wenger, however, maintained that he has no plans to dip into the transfer market, prefering instead to keep faith with his crop of talented youngsters and his injured trio Thierry Henry, Theo Walcott and Robin van Persie.

"We have remarkable players with a remarkable spirit and a remarkable quality and I'm sure that we will see that next season," he said. "So that is why we will not change the team. It will remain the same as at the moment except we will have the injured players back.

"It is possible that we will add one player but we will keep the core and the spirit of the side at the moment. We have not gone very far in terms of financial discussions but I feel the quality is already there.

"Of course, we always want to improve and we would never turn down the chance to get an outstanding talent but sometimes it is intelligent not to try and change things too much."

The departure of Dein - the man who brought Wenger to English football in 1996 - had inevitably sparked doubts over the Frenchman's future, although he moved quickly to quell anxiety among his players by holding a meeting with them last week.

But Wenger admitted that Dein's sudden exit will irrevocably alter the way in which the club conduct their transfer business and will also hasten their search for a director of football.

"We always did the job of transfers together and at the moment I am doing it alone," he added. "In the past, I would leave the ugly part to David, or as much as I could, and he did much of the negotiation work so it will be more difficult and time-consuming for me.

"Ideally I would like a director of football - that would be my decision and choice, but there is nothing happening yet."

Wenger's bad week appeared set for a happy ending at White Hart Lane, where goals from Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor - both picked out by set-pieces delivered with pin-point precision by Cesc Fabregas - cancelled out Robbie Keane's 30th-minute opener.

It was just reward for a dominant second-half performance, which also saw the visitors strike the woodwork twice, but there was a sting in the tail. It was delivered by Jermaine Jenas, the England midfielder, who cracked an unstoppable low drive into the bottom corner deep into stoppage time to restore parity.

That was not enough to end Tottenham's eight-year wait for a victory over their north London rivals but it perked up Martin Jol, their manager, who hailed Jenas's spectacular contribution.

"Jermaine saved the day for us but it was not a lucky goal because we see him do it all the time in training sessions," he said. "That goal made it feel more like a victory for us and we are getting closer to beating them.

"We did everything right in the first half and closed them down well, which they could not cope with. But in the second half they could have scored four or five goals so a point was a good result."