Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PREMIER LEAGUE ALL GUNS BLAZING
Wenger vows to deploy his whole armoury of attacking options because ‘that’s our DNA’ .. AS SAM SAYS £20M WAS A ‘NO-BRAINER’ FOR PREM’S THIRD-HIGHEST-SCORING ENGLISHMAN
ARSENE WENGER will shoehorn all his attacking players into his new-look Arsenal line-up because it is in his DNA.
Wenger completed a record £56million deal for Pierre-emerick Aubameyang this week, brought in Henrikh Mkhitaryan, persuaded Mesut Ozil to sign a new £350,000-aweek contract and also has summer arrival Alexandre Lacazette. It will be difficult to get them all into his starting XI, especially with the Gunners leaking goals, but Wenger is desperate to try. The Gunners boss said: “That’s our DNA. We are an attacking team. The danger is when you are an attacking team that you don’t score and then of course you create your own problems.
“That’s the challenge I have. I will try to find a way to do it. But we play so many games that everyone will get games.
“It’s always possible. Will I do it? Maybe. I don’t know. But I think it’s possible, yes.
“You need at least two top strikers in the Premier League, because if one is injured then you have a problem.
“Would I rather win 4-3? That is not the solution I like.
“I like the four, but I don’t like the three. We have to improve our defensive record, absolutely, and everybody has to contribute. That is why we have to work on that. We have to find the balance so we are better defensively.” Wenger (above) also had to do his sums before signing Ozil to a new contract as the club have moved into new financial territory.
But, incredibly, the Frenchman insisted that tying Ozil to a new three-year contract was cheap compared to finding a replacement.
“When you let a player go you have to buy somebody of the same calibre,” said Wenger. “The wages will be similar and, on top of that, we have to pay a transfer fee.
“So overall Mesut for us was the cheapest option. On the other side all of our players are well paid. Very well paid.
“As long as we are paying what we can afford, it is not a problem. I did try my whole life to pay the players good wages, so I am not against that.
“I am just against the fact that you live on credit.” Wenger feared at one stage the whole transfer merry-go-round would collapse like a pack of cards with Borussia Dortmund waiting on a replacement before they would let Aubameyang leave.
But he would not give any reassurances to Lacazette and has no concerns about Aubameyang’s bad-boy image.
The new signing has been struggling with a fever this week and may miss making his full debut. He has even given a medical certificate to a German court after missing a hearing about the terror attack on the Borussia Dortmund coach.
Wenger said: “I have to assess how he is physically and how well he feels. I don’t reassure people because we are in a competitive world.
“We have all chosen a job that is about competition and you have to fight for your place.”