Arsène Wenger has insisted he will not be panicked into recruiting a striker before the closure of the transfer window on Monday despite confirmation he has lost his principal centre-forward, Olivier Giroud, to a fractured tibia until the new year.
A timely first goal for the club from Alexis Sánchez, a £30m summer recruit from Barcelona, secured Champions League football for the 17th year in succession, at Besiktas’s expense, and Wenger reiterated that the Chilean had been bought as a No9 and can thrive in the role in the Frenchman’s absence. Wenger rejected suggestions of potential recruits, having spent time considering his options after confirmation of the severity of Giroud’s injury – the forward underwent surgery on the ankle on Wednesday – but is unconvinced there is value for money in the market at this late stage.
“Giroud had surgery today from a broken tibia and while it went well, he will be out for three to four months, competition-wise,” said Wenger. “He will be capable of playing again in the Premier League end of December but it may be the beginning of January before he is competitive at the top level.
“You will ask me straight away who we will buy? At the moment, no one. We will look around but we want quality, and we have quality: we have [Yaya] Sanogo, [Lukas] Podolksi, [Joel] Campbell, Theo Walcott is coming back soon, and to find players better than we have will be very difficult now.
“Look, if you want to make anybody happy just buy all these players. But what is important is the performance on the pitch, and the solidarity we have shown tonight. Having said that, if you look at the players on the bench and those injured, we have players you know. You cannot just buy when the player is injured. We are open for any position as long as we feel the player can strengthen the squad. But to buy? I don’t see the purpose of that. If we feel we have a player who can give something to our squad, we’ll do it in any position. We’re open.”
A likelier recruit remains a defender or defensive midfielder, with a succession of names – from Danny Welbeck to Radamel Falcao – rejected with a simple “no”, albeit he wavered momentarily and offered a smile when dismissing the Colombian, who is effectively available for loan, albeit at a cost of around £20m in fees and wages.
Instead, he preferred to linger on Sánchez’s performance, with his neat finish having beaten Besiktas for all that Mathieu Debuchy’s late sending off provoked a nervy last 15 minutes.
“He had a good game, not only on the technical side but the fighting side,” said Wenger. “He was mobile, dangerous and has shown as well he has great fighting spirit, qualities that will be very important in the Premier League. He produced the performance we wanted, technically, tactically and mentally. Can he play in that role for three or four months? He can play his whole month at centre-forward. I bought him to play as a striker, not to play only on the flanks.”
Arsenal, who will be in the first pot of seeds in Thursday’s draw in Monaco, were left relieved that the Portuguese official waved away the visitors’ penalty appeals when Jack Wilshere appeared to trip Ramon Motta as he sought to dispatch Olcay Sahan’s pull-back. The England midfielder subsequently admitted he had made contact with his opponent. “Next time it could be given,” he said. “But we deserved our luck. We battled and showed great character.” Wenger added that “we were lucky on one occasion”.
Rather, he was infuriated with the decision to dismiss Debuchy, who was booked for second-half fouls on Sahan and Mustafa Pektemek a week after Aaron Ramsey had been dismissed for similar offences in the first leg in Istanbul.
“We finished the two games with 10 men,” the manager said. “I feel the first sending off was very harsh, and tonight’s as well. Debuchy went for the ball, played the ball. There’s no intention there to make a bad foul or stop the counter. And he won the ball. Maybe the referee was on the other side of the player and thought he made a foul.
“But we dealt with it. Nervously, because it was very difficult. But we dealt with it. I would have loved us to finish it earlier, but we wanted to qualify and we did it against a very good team. Give credit to Besiktas. Technically they are very good and very strong, but we kept Demba Ba to one header near the end. That would have killed us if it had gone in.”