All the talk of transfers, all the failed bids which were never actually going to succeed. It's a masterstroke of genius. For now the papers are proclaiming that, Gareth Bale is heading out of Spurs to pastures new. And without Bale, Spurs lose their main resource in attempting to oust Arsenal from their customary top 4 spot.
The long and short of this is, Arsenal actually do not need any more players to attain their perennial champions league place this season. Everton and Liverpool still look to be far enough away from the top four spot that they are not that big of a threat, and Tottenham, well, it appears they've just been emasculated. And Wenger? Well he can genuinely say, "Well, I DID try", albeit not very hard. Fans will then see it as players refusing to come to Arsenal, rather than Arsenal refraining from attempting to grab world class players. They might then forget that players like David Villa have been bought for a measly ?4million, Tevez for ?10million etc, and just accept it was impossible to add to the squad this time round.
It's a scenario where the club wins financially, Wenger continues his philosophy of not paying astronomical fees, and also can say to his squad, "I trust you to get us to where we need to be" safe in the knowledge that the team he has is good enough on last season's form to get them to where they need to be. Which is champions league football. Looked at from that point of view, is it really that far fetched to think, maybe, just maybe, Arsene planned this from the beginning, banking on the sale of Bale, and thus calculating and manipulating all which came since. The only people who lose out in all this, are the fans, who're begging for a marquee signing.
But then, based on the last few seasons, the fans longing for trophies and success has been consigned to something far less important than the maintaining of the fiscal model at Arsenal.
Source: DSX
Source: DSX