Arsenal: Arsene Wenger believes his side are closing the financial gap on 'good clients' Manchester City

Having lost top players to City shortly after thier takeover, Wenger now believes the financial landscape has changed for the better

Wenger no longer feels that his side can be financially bullied by City (Getty)

Arsene Wenger joked that Manchester City have been “good clients” ahead of facing them at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Arsenal sold Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri to City between 2008 and 2011, as well as losing Bacary Sagna on a free transfer, during the years when City enjoyed financial dominance over Wenger’s side.

The financial landscape has changed in the last few years, with Arsenal now able to hold off City’s interest in Hector Bellerin, who signed a new deal in November.

Arsenal and City are not quite competing on the same level yet, as shown by the long negotiations over new deals for Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, but Arsenal are certainly getting closer.

“They have been good clients,” Wenger said at his Friday morning press conference. “The gap has reduced but it is still there. I believe we have the needed quality not to look at the financial differences as the reason why we should not win the game.”

While Arsenal continue to negotiate with Ozil and Sanchez, Wenger is delighted by the fact that they tied down Bellerin. That points to the ability of Arsenal to offer their players good enough money to keep them out of City’s clutches.

“Today I feel we can give financial satisfaction and support ambitions and values that can make the players happy at this club,” Wenger said.

“Before, perhaps the financial gap was too big a difference to keep our players. We could not compete, we had to sell players.”

City, then, are not the main concern as Wenger tries to offer Sanchez and Ozil enough money to stay at Arsenal. Sanchez could treble his money in China, making the Chinese Super League the new threat to Arsenal’s self-sustaining model.

Wenger, though, insisted again that he was not worried. “If people want to go to China, they go to China,” he said. “You can understand that I have completely different worries than China today ahead of the Manchester City game.”