Wenger defends Arsenal transfer policy after Aston Villa defeat

The Frenchman insists the blame for his side's
loss at the Emirates Stadium cannot be
directed at a lack of signings this summer
Arsene Wenger insists Arsenal's lack of signings
in the transfer market were not to blame for
Saturday's 3-1 defeat to Aston Villa.
Arsenal have already failed in moves for
Gonzalo Higuain, who moved to Napoli in July,
and Luiz Gustavo, who secured a switch from
Bayern Munich to Wolfsburg earlier this week.
The club also look set to lose out on Luis
Suarez as Liverpool continue to reiterate their
no-sale stance when asked about the striker.
So far, Wenger has managed to sign 20-year-
old forward Yaya Sanogo on a free transfer
from Auxerre, but the Arsenal boss is adamant
that his side's season-opening defeat to Villa
cannot be blamed on the failure to bolster his
squad over the summer.
"Could we have won the game with the players
who were on the pitch today? That for me is
the real question and I say yes," Wenger told
the club's official website.
"If we do not spend money it's because we
don't find the players. I'm not the only one to
work on that, we are a team who works on
that and we are ready to buy the players if we
find that the players are good enough for us.
"We want our fans to be happy and when you
don't achieve that you feel absolutely sorry and
really disappointed. My job is to make the fans
happy but we haven't lost the game because of
[not signing players].
"We are on the market, everybody knows that
we want to buy players but until we buy
players we have to win football games. It's not
an excuse not to have bought players to lose
the game today.
"People always say 'buy players, buy players,
buy players' when you tell them 'tell me who'
it becomes much more problematic. We take
our work seriously and believe me we analyse
every single player in the world.
"We work 24 hours a day for that and when
you make a decision we take it seriously. We
are not what people try to think we do not
want to spend, we want, we are ready to buy
players."
The Frenchman also lamented his growing
injury list, with Bacary Sagna, Alex Oxlade-
Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs all picking up
knocks during the game.
Arsenal now face a trip to Turkey on
Wednesday where they will face Fenerbahce in
the first leg of their Champions League play-
off tie.
"Not only do we lose a game we have many
injuries. It's unbelievable how many people are
on the treatment table and we have to recover
some players for Wednesday night," he added.