Takeovers threaten manager's role, says Wenger

With Manchester City becoming the eighth English top-flight club to come under foreign ownership, the Arsenal manager claims European structures are transforming the traditional dominant role of domestic bosses.

Clubs are increasingly employing a director of football or a sporting director with overall responsibility for negotiating transfers and deciding the make-up of playing squads.

Such shift in power and its knock-on effects for managers contributed to Alan Curbishley and Kevin Keegan resigning at West Ham and Newcastle respectively.

Wenger said: "I am scared not that clubs are becoming more like those on the continent but even less. On the continent, at least you are informed on what players you buy. It looks like some are not even informed any more.

"It looks to be going a very worrying way. Managers face responsibilities and we stand up for it, but at least you want to feel you are responsible for the decisions you are judged on."

City's owner-elect Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, of the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG), has talked of bidding £135million for Cristiano Ronaldo and has suggested he will bring in as many as 18 new players in January.

But Wenger believes such talk is counter-productive for football's future.

He said: "Clubs should live within their natural resources. If you push that too far, there are no rules any more and there is too much destabilisation.

"You cannot come out 'next week we pay £250,000-a-week to Ronaldo and £135m', when the player has a six-year contract with Manchester United. It is not acceptable. Football is not a supermarket. The football bodies have to make sure that money is ruled properly and used well for the ethic of the game."

Samir Nasri (knee) faces a late fitness test for the visit to Blackburn tomorrow.