English Premier League

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has spoken out in defence of the north London club's decision to sell striker Emmanuel Adebayor and centre-back Kolo Toure to Manchester City, with both players moving for large transfer fees in the last couple of weeks.

Many had criticised the Frenchman's choice to sell the duo to City, a club some observers perceive as being Arsenal's main challengers for a Champions League spot this season.

"I always say when you come to the decision to sell a player you can’t on top choose who you want to sell them to," he told the Gunners' official website.

"If you decide to sell he can choose where he wants to go, otherwise it would be completely unfair.

"If they are becoming a main rival I cannot stop it with a decision to sell a player or not. If they don’t buy from you they buy another good player from someone else. Nobody can stop a club fighting for the top four and if they are a rival they will be the same for Man United, Liverpool and Chelsea. What is most important is we stay strong.”

The Frenchman also intimated that there was perhaps more to the deals than had been made public, with him asserting that he would not be openly divulging his specific reasons.

“This kind of process depends always on the players you sell, on the number of players you have behind, the overall quality of the squad and you do not want to go public too much why you make these decisions," he added.

"They are always difficult decisions but that’s part of our game and we lost two great players, but we have as well, great players [left] behind and that’s up to us to show during the season that we still have the quality to fight at the top level."

As for any arrivals at the Emirates this summer, Wenger was evasive as to whether Bordeax's Marouan Chamakh would be coming to the club, stating, "He is responsible for his statements. I wouldn’t like to commentate on any phone calls I made during the day because, at the moment, I have a hundred phone calls. The only thing I can say is that we are nowhere near to signing anybody at the moment."

There was some hope though, according to the 59-year-old, that Patrick Vieira would make a somewhat surprising return to north London.

"I speak to Patrick. I speak to many players who have been here because I keep good connections with them," he explained.

"He has gone through a difficult period in the last season and I am aware that he wants to come here.

"I think Patrick is a legend here and he would always like to come back to this club. That would be his first choice.

"He is a professional footballer with emotion and you always like the club where you’ve spent time. But as a professional as well, you always give 100 per cent for whichever club you sign for.

"At the moment we need to look at the level of experience in our squad to make this kind of decision. There is a football decision and then there's the psychological impact of a player of that stature coming in.

"We are nowhere near to making a decision like that. But it is a possibility. We don't rule it out and we don't say we will do it. That's my decision at the moment."

On a slightly different tack, the coach did confirm that he was still unhappy with the way in which Gunners forward was used by both the England senior side and the Under-2s over the summer.

"I was not in fairness a supporter of his experience with the Under-21s for one simple reason: the youth teams are there to promote the players into the first team," he went on.

"Once they are there, especially at national level, I don’t see why they go back again to the Under-21s.

"The target is not to promote the players from the first team to the second team, they are supposed to be promoted from the second team to the first team."

Wenger also paid tribute to Sir Bobby Robson, who today passed away after succumbing to Cancer at the age of 76.

"It was a shock because Bobby was a man of exceptional stature and someone I loved because he had an optimistic view of mankind and a positive vision for football," he said.

"We will miss him badly because people miss people of his stature and vision. It’s a very sad day for English football but football overall."