ARSENE WENGER has set a December deadline to decide his Arsenal
future.
The Emirates boss will give the Gunners board six months to come up
with the new investment he needs to rebuild the team.
And if there is not significant change by Christmas, Wenger will
quit at the end of next season.
He has one year left on his contract and remains Barcelonas first
choice to succeed Frank Rijkaard.
Wenger has told close friends he is frustrated at the lack of
transfer funds and feels he has been let down by the clubs
directors.
One friend told SunSport: Arsene is fearful that the current squad
is still too young to compete with Chelsea, Manchester United and
Liverpool for the title.
Its obvious he needs to bring in some experience but has been
told he must sell players to generate money to buy players.
Arsenal have had to fight to make fourth in the past two years and
Arsene knows thats not good enough but he feels his hands are
tied.
The departure of David Dein was a huge blow to him and he feels he
can only wait as long as the turn of this year to see if things
improve.
If not, he is very unlikely to renew his contract.
Wenger would prefer to see the club sold to Stan Kroenke the
American billionaire who recently acquired around 12 per cent of
Arsenals shareholding.
Former vice-chairman Dein, Wengers great ally, was ousted after
more than 20 years for recommending the owners accepted Kroenkes
investment.
Ex-Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira shares the opinion that Wenger
could be off.
Vieira, now at Inter Milan, said: It is very difficult for Arsene
now because he does not have David Dein with him at the club.
They started this new era together and now there is only Arsene
and that makes life hard for him. Arsenal need to bring in two or
three good players to make things better for next season.
It looks unlikely Wenger will be able to raise the cash to fund
such a spree at the moment, with interest in their stars limited to
Jose Reyes and Thierry Henry.
Reyes looked set to move to Atletico Madrid for around £8million
but his goal-scoring heroics for arch-rivals Real last weekend have
jeopardised that move.
Real have still not made an offer to convert the loan into a
permanent transfer.
Henry, meanwhile, has yet to give a concrete answer about his
future to either Arsenal or Barcelona.
