Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger has defended the way the club has acted in the transfer market, explaining the difficulties of signing top quality players.

Manchester City have already signed Raheem Sterling for a reported fee of £49M this summer, and the club are now seemingly chasing VfL Wolfsburg midfielder with a fee of £50M being thrown around as if it’s nothing.

Arsenal’s opponents on Monday night, Liverpool, have spent a huge £32.5M on striker Christian Benteke this summer and that more or less underlines the issues at the very top of the sport.

“It is difficult because there’s more money in football, more clubs with big resources, and less players available,” Wenger said in his press conference on Friday morning.

“The funds are there more than the players who could strengthen the squad. That is a big problem.”

When you have 15 or 20 clubs in the world with a huge amount of money and only five or six truly world class players there is clearly going to be an issue. Not everyone can have a  world class player, and those who do get one will have to pay an extortionate amount such is the competition for his signature.

Even smaller clubs, determined to hold onto their best players, are aware they can force the biggest clubs into paying huge prices.

It becomes even more difficult when a player – let’s take Karim Benzema as an example – is playing for a club which already has a huge amount of money and doesn’t need to sell him to raise funds.

“People know that you have the resources,” Wenger said. “And they want you to buy players from clubs who do not need your resources, and who are not necessarily prepared to sell.”

“It is simple. For any deal when you want to buy something, you go to see the owner and if he doesn’t want to sell, he doesn’t want to sell. You cannot buy. In our job it is exactly like that. In Europe you have maybe 15 clubs with a huge financial resource.”

That’s the situation Arsenal and Wenger find themselves in this summer, as links with Benzema refuse to go away. The Arsenal boss may well be interested in his compatriot, he most likely is, but if Real Madrid aren’t willing to do business nothing can be done about it.