Curbishley pays tribute to Wenger, the cut-price king of Highbury
Like most of his counterparts, Curbishley does not know Wenger well. After all, as Alex Ferguson remarked last season, the Frenchman is not known for regularly sharing a drink with his rival bosses after games.
However, the Charlton boss could not help himself being impressed with the way that the Gunners tore his side apart on the break at the Valley in a 3-0 victory which maintained their place at the top of the table.
And what he really respects is the way that Wenger has achieved such a feat on a relatively limited budget.
The Arsenal boss's record Highbury signing is Sylvain Wiltord, with estimates of the fee involved ranging from £11 million to £13 million.
He has also snapped up Thierry Henry for £10million, Robert Pires for £6million, Patrick Vieira for £3.5million and Fredrik Ljungberg for £3million.
And in the meantime, he has signed Nicolas Anelka for £500,000 and sold him for more than £20million, while making a huge profit on Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars, and developing the likes of Ashley Cole.
While Manchester United spent £30million this summer on Rio Ferdinand, Arsenal who signed Sol Campbell on a free transfer last year spent just £6.6million on World Cup winner Gilberto Silva and French defender Pascal Cygan.
Leeds and Chelsea, meanwhile, have spent fortunes on players of late but with far less impressive results.
''What has impressed me most about them is that they have not broken the bank to get their success,'' declared Curbishley.
''Arsenal have probably got the pick of the best players in the world, along with other top clubs, but Arsene Wenger still unearths people.
''As managers, we all look around to assess what other people are doing. I've had a lot of publicity over the years and now Gary Megson has had a great start at West Brom.
''But you also see clubs £100million in debt and having to sell their best players to pay for it. Not only have Arsenal got a great side, but they have not broken the bank. That's a great testament to Arsene Wenger.''
He added: ''There are the Anelkas of this world and even Henry and Wiltord may have been a lot of money but when they came onto the scene, people thought 'who are they'? It wasn't a £30million job.
''There are different ways of doing it. You have managers who break the bank, you have managers who work on the training field all the time and those who don't.
''He seems to have done all of that and built a football club. It's not something that is short-term.
''The only disappointment for them is that they don't have their 60,000-seat stadium, which they need to compete at the highest level, but there are plans for that.''
Having won the double last season, Wenger unashamedly declared that Arsenal wanted to dominate the current decade just like Liverpool in the 1980s and Manchester United in the 1990s.
''Perhaps we will be talking about the Arsenal of the 2000s,'' agreed Curbishley.
''I played against the Liverpool side and managed against the United team. If they can go on like this for the next three or four years, then you'll be talking about them as well.
''It's set up for them and Wenger obviously thinks there's a chance of doing it as he's signed a long-term contract.''
Curbishley sees Arsenal's main strengths as their pace, hard work, range of goalscoring talents and ability to capitalise a chance on the break.
However, he did observe that ''they may actually have it harder at Highbury where teams sit back and defend'' and does not rule out a United comeback.
As for Wenger, meanwhile, he added: ''He is human. When we beat them 4-2 last season at Highbury, I bumped into him and he had the hump. How did I know that? He had his head in his hands!
''Many managers don't get time to see each other after games. But if you do phone up Arsenal, you do get a call back and Matthew Upson has just gone on loan to Reading he was willing to help there.
''It must be a great feeling going into games and expecting to win. I did say to Alex Ferguson a year or so ago, 'what's it like to have a bad Sunday morning?'
''He doesn't have too many and that must be Arsene Wenger's lot at the moment.''
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