Arsene Wenger faced the media on Tuesday with our second Champions League group game looming large.
The boss was questioned on topics as diverse as team news, Basel and third-party ownership. Here’s a selection of his key quotes:
- Team news: Latest on Coquelin and Giroud
- 'What I learnt from my spell at Basel'
- Gallery: Arsenal train ahead of Basel match
- 'Let's go from good game to good game'
- 'Xhaka plays Xhaka, it's a family job'
- Download the free Digital Matchday Programme on iOS or Android
on third-party ownership…
Third-party ownership should not be allowed. I have fought against it for a long, long time. The clubs should all possess 100 per cent of their players.
on saying he could write a book about transfers…
But in the proper way, I could write a book because I made about 300 transfers and every transfer is a story. Even when you are in your contract, it is always a story.
on how ‘murky’ it is…
You always want the truth to come out. I just can speak for myself and our fans can sleep without any problems, that is all I can say. For the rest, I don’t know what we come out with, I am not involved in it. I just care about our own transfers.
on whether the public understand how transfers are done…
When I work for my club, I commit 100 per cent to make every single decision for the good of my club, so I don’t think we are too moralistic. We want everyone to work genuinely for his club and that is completely normal. The pressure is on everyone to do it in the right way.
on whether more people are coming into football to make money…
I think the transfers are well controlled, it goes through the federation and everything is declared. The payment of the agents is all clear and we have to declare everything that we do. What the agents do with the money, I don’t know, but that is controllable in the bank accounts. What I can say is England has made a huge effort to be absolutely clear on every transfer, you have to declare absolutely everything and I think it is right.
on the controls outside England…
That is one of the dangers of every single business, you have that with many world companies. But with the transfers that happen locally, you can control the money that goes out of the club, to whom it is paid and that happens in England. England has control on that.
More polls and quizzes to follow soon
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