Samir Nasri has declared that he moved to Manchester City because he wanted to be on the right side of the power-shift in English football that, he believes, is leaving Arsenal behind.
The Frenchman spoke of his admiration for Arsène Wenger but said that the calibre of team-mate and the standard of training that he has found at City surpass what Arsenal have to offer. At City, he said in an interview in today's France Football magazine, he expects to fill "the enormous void" that he currently feels because of a failure to win trophies at Arsenal and his hometown club, Marseille.
"Now I'm at a team that I feel can win trophies," said Nasri. "You play football because you love it, also because, above all, you want to win trophies. I still have the dreams I had as a kid: to be champion by winning a cup or even the Champions League. I want to feel the satisfaction you get from having had a successful season. You can only get that by winning a title, coming out on top. I want to experience collective triumph." Nasri said City have deployed their financial muscle wisely and is "the club of the future."
"The club has been buying lots of players over the last three years and most of them are young. They may already be internationals but they all have plenty of potential to improve. Most people may just talk about the money but you get the feeling here that the club directors have a well thought-through plan. Everything at every level is top-class."
At 24, Nasri includes himself among the players who have ample scope to progress and says that consorting with the likes of David Silva, Sergio Agüerro, Carlos Tevez and Yaya Touré will enable him to do that more quickly that he could have done at Arsenal.
"I feel that by training with players like them I'm going to get better. The sessions are really intense. It was intense at Arsenal but here it is even more so. When we play matches at the end of the sessions it's as if they're competitive clashes. There are 22 top-class players. There are very few Premier league clubs with resources like that."
The midfielder said that in contrast to City, Arsenal do not appear equipped to move forward and spoke of the mental damage caused by last season's Carling Cup final upset at the hands of Birmingham City. "There are telling signs," he said.
"The departure of Cesc [Fàbregas] to Barcelona is one. Our trying end to the season was another. The defeat in the final against Birmingham also did a lot of mental harm. By coming to Manchester City I've chosen to go to a club on an upward trajectory."
"Arsenal is still a big club. But the construction of the Emirates Stadium and the funding of it changed a lot of things: ambitions have been altered, for the moment. But it's not down to Arsène Wenger. It's the policy of the club, the executives. Arsenal no longer has the resources that it had before. They can no longer make the same big transfers that they did in the past. They are pretty much obliged to sell their best players and able on youth."
Wenger had hoped that Nasri would stay and become Arsenal's playmaker and talisman following the loss of Fàbregas but Nasri, who said he had made up his mind to leave as far back as June, insisted that he sees no merit in being the biggest fish in a dwindling pond.
"I'm not interested in boasting, having the keys to the shop. The most important thing is to have a team, great players and a squad powerful enough to win things." Arsenal have attempted to replace Nasri with Borussia Dortmund's Mario Götze but were put off by the German club's demand for ¤40m.
Nasri shone for City on his debut in the 5-1 conquest of Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday and indicated that his outstanding performance in that match was in keeping with the role that Roberto Mancini has asked him to play.
"He was looking for an equivalent to David Silva in order to get more creativity – another player to unlock things from midfield, someone who is capable of making the final ball in tight spaces. Beyond that, my role will depend on the tactics employed in a given match. My advantage is that I can play on the wings and in the middle, in a three-man or a four-man midfield."
Although he rejected Wenger's appeal to remain, Nasri spoke of his debt to Arsenal's manager. Though well-meant, his tribute to the manager also evoked the mocking appraisal of Arsenal made last year by Manchester United's Patrice Evra, who claimed that Arsenal is a great footballing nursery but not a club where players go to secure silverware.
"He is a great man and an immense manager. He looks after his players, perhaps even too much. He is not a man of conflict. He listens. He made me more influential as a player and enabled me to become more consistent. I think he is the ideal manager to help you make the transition from France to England. I loved working with Wenger because we have the same footballing philosophy as me. He is a footballing aesthete."
