Arsene Wenger has claimed that balancing the books and keeping Arsenal in the top four while transitioning to a new stadium was the 'most difficult period of his life'.

The Gunners moved out of their long-term Highbury home in 2006 and made the short journey to the 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium, kickstarting a near decade-long spell without any silverware.

Not until 2014, when beating Hull City in the FA Cup final, did Arsenal end their trophy duck at the new ground, but Wenger insists that constantly reaching the Champions League during that time was a success in its own right.

"In 2006 started most difficult period of my life because we had restricted finances and we had to pay back a huge amount of money," he told BT Sport.

"We had to sell our best players and we had to stay at the top and we had to stay in the Champions League. There are many debates when you build a stadium about how big can it be.

"It's quite simple at the time it was £4000 a seat and you multiply that by 60,000 it's £240m. Plus all the businesses we had to buy out so we went for over £420m And we had to pay a huge amount of money every year and that's when we had to stay in the Champions League."

Arsenal finished outside the Premier League's top four this season for the first time in over two decades, but they could still end the campaign with a trophy as they face Chelsea in the FA Cup final this weekend.