Wenger pledges not to cut squad

Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, believes the club must not reduce their squad this summer, despite the financial warnings of his own chairman.

Wenger insisted that the Gunners' challenge at home and abroad next season would be compromised if Arsenal cut the playing staff. He said his chairman, Peter Hill-Wood, had been "misinterpreted" in comments that suggested Arsenal "might let half a dozen players go in the summer".

Hill-Wood was quoted as saying: "Some of the players released will still be on contract. This is a period of retrenchment for football. It has got to be. We've got to the limit of our spending. A lot of big clubs are struggling."

But Wenger said the intention at Highbury was to "keep the players in the squad, and in fact, to strengthen the squad".

"You spend as much as you can until you reach your limit ... there is doom and gloom in English football at the moment because of the television company [ITV Digital] having financial problems, but that has nothing to do with the popularity of football," he said. "There is no major financial problem at Arsenal or in the Premier League."

However, his West Ham counterpart, Glenn Roeder, believes that Premiership clubs will have to take a long look at their finances this summer because of the problems surrounding ITV Digital.

Roeder did not think funds would be as readily available to top-flight managers in the climate of uncertainty that has grown up since the company's descent into administration.

Although the direct threat is to Nationwide League clubs, Roeder suggested the knock-on would be that all clubs would take stock. That meant a reassessment of wage structures and transfer fees.

Roeder said: "We're going to be like a lot of other clubs who won't have a lot of transfer cash this summer. Because of that I think that transfer fees and salaries will start to come down. We'd never be able to afford the top-drawer players anyway – they'll always go to the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal."

He added: "I don't think there's so much transfer cash slopping around in the Premiership that we'll be left behind and not be able to compete. I think prices will be forced to come down. The evidence is that when you speak to the agents, they're not doing any business."