Ashburton Grove
Ashburton cash crisis resolved?
By Richard
Jul 30, 2003, 3:55pm

Arsenal's cash crisis, sparked by the troubled £400m stadium project at Ashburton Grove, is on the brink of being resolved. According to the Mirror Sport, Arsenal's bankers, the Royal Bank of Scotland, believe they have secured the £40m from City financiers to get the stadium back on track.

The completion date has been postponed until 2006 but the club is hoping to restart work on the stadium before the club's annual meeting, which has been put back by a month until September 23.

With the stadium such a crucial part of Wenger's vision for the future, the Gunners boss is suddenly more optimistic about the season ahead and believes his team is ready for the challenge.

They have only lost veteran David Seaman from the team which narrowly missed out on the Double last season and there is no disputing that the squad is in desperate need of cover in the centre-half position.

"We must remember that we still have a very good team," said Wenger.

"I feel as well that we have so many very good young players and they need to be given a chance.

"Overall, I think our team is getting better as it's a young squad. At the moment, the newspapers have already removed us from being favourites for the title, but I don't mind that.

"What's important is what's happening on the pitch and I know this team has a great potential."

Wenger has had to put his faith in his current squad and remains convinced that captain Vieira will pledge his future to the club despite stalling on a new contract offer. French playmaker Robert Pires also has a new deal waiting for him and despite Wenger being under orders to cut the wage bill, the squad remains intact.

They have tried to offload Francis Jeffers, Kanu and Giovanni van Bronckhorst this summer, but so far there have been no takers.

Birmingham are still keen on Jeffers, PSV Eindhoven have expressed an interest in van Bronckhorst while French champions Lyon are chasing Sylvain Wiltord.

But they all seem likely to stay at Highbury, which means the purse strings will remain tight.

Birmingham chairman David Gold has told Jeffers to lower his wage demands if he wants the chance of first-team football at St Andrews.

He is thought to be on around £35,000 a week at Highbury.

"It won't happen unless Jeffers takes a cut in his wages," said Gold. "If he wants to sit at Arsenal on his big contract and play golf every day, rather than get on with his career, then he can continue with that."

Meanwhile, there are no signs that a sugar daddy will come to Arsenal's rescue in the way that Russian tycoon Abramovich has bailed out Chelsea.

Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri has splashed out £54m on five major new signings in Geremi, Glen Johnson, Wayne Bridge, Damien Duff and Juan Sebastian Veron as well as tabling huge bids for Real Madrid susperstar Raul and Roma's Brazilian midfielder Emerson.

Suddenly, Chelsea are the city slickers with all of the money to spend while Arsenal have been forced to balance the books and, crucially, the team has taken second place this summer to the interests of the stadium.

Instead, Arsenal must look to the emergence of youth, and Swiss wonderkid Philippe Senderos and England Under-21 winger Jermaine Pennant are both certain to have bigger roles this season.

But while Arsenal will be forced to rely on their existing squad plus Lehmann and a couple of promising youngsters, Abramovich is extravagantly bankrolling Chelsea's title bid.

However, Wenger remains unperturbed by Abramovich's millions.

"It was a huge surprise to me that the change was made so quickly at Chelsea, because Ken Bates looked quite confident to manage the financial situation down there," said Wenger.

"What will the new resources do to Chelsea? I don't think it is a concern of ours, because we do not want to sell our good players to anyone.

"We want to maintain the stability here that we have developed in recent years.

"To build a great team is not all about money. First you have to create the spirit and togetherness within a squad and that is not easy."

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