HILL-WOOD: SPURS ARE NO THREAT TO MY ARS

ARSENAL chairman Peter Hill-Wood has taunted Tottenham by insisting: “They don’t worry us this season.”

Spurs have not picked up a win under new boss Andre Villas-Boas but Arsenal are up and running and Hill-Wood reckons they can compete for the title.

He said: “I do not see Spurs posing a problem for us this season.

“Their new manager may be a great success but they have to find a stadium.

“That’s going to be very difficult. Finding a site and financing it is a major problem which we know all about.”

Despite new signings Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla making an impact, Hill-Wood admits Arsenal can no longer compete for the top players in the market.

“Arsene has money to spend but there’s a limit. We can’t spend £50million on one player,” he said.

“At a certain level, we can’t compete. I don’t think Stan Kroenke is going to put the sort of money in that Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour are putting into Chelsea or Manchester City.

Bankrupt

“That’s not the way he thinks clubs should be run.

“Luckily, Arsene understands that. He has an economics degree from Strasbourg University so he’s certainly no fool.

“He knows how a club should be run. That annoys a lot of people but clubs have to be sustainable.

“We’re not going to go bankrupt in the way one or two other well known clubs have.”

He added: “We have a pretty good chance of challenging for the Premier League.

“I don’t see why we cannot win it this year.”

Gunners boss Arsene Wenger has gone seven years without a trophy, but Hill-Wood insisted: “It is not a worry to the board that we haven’t won a trophy since 2005.

“It would be lovely to win but it’s not that easy. Liverpool haven’t won the title for 20-odd years.

“We’re very ambitious and want to win but, if you don’t have billions of petro-dollars to throw around, you’re going to have to do it some other way.”