Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insists he has always received total backing from the club's board.

Wenger's comments come after Arsenal were criticised by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, the club's second-largest shareholder, for withholding funds from the manager.

Usmanov - whose Red & White Holdings group are not represented on the board - also hit out at the Gunners board for their decision to sell Robin van Persie to Manchester United.

"This decision was a mistake," Usmanov said. "If I am one of Wenger's players I would want to stay for the finish, but he explained Robin wanted to go to win trophies."

But Wenger is adamant he has supported the decisions from the boardroom as he believes they have put the club's best interests first.

"I believe I have always had the support from the board, and am very grateful for that," Wenger said.

"We have worked over the years in respecting in what we did, which is to always work within our financial resources.

"Therefore we made decisions which from outside looked not based on purely footballing reasons, but it was based as well on financial reasons."
It doesn't seem as if Wenger and the board are at loggerheads does it?