The Annual General Meeting of Arsenal Football Club was today and as usual there were lots of questions raised about the club’s financial dealings, especially the spending on transfers by Arsene Wenger. Even though the Frenchman spent more than ever in the summer transfer window, a year after smashing the club’s transfer record to sign Mesut Ozil, there is still a feeling that we could and should have done more.
And nowhere in the team is that lack of spending felt more right now than at the back. The current situation, with Calum Chambers suspended, Mathieu Debuchy in the treatment room and Laurent Koscielny unavailable due to tendon trouble in his ankles, just serves to highlight the failure of Arsenal to further strengthen the defence when we had a chance.
And the Frenchman has accepted that it has left the squad vulnerable, as reported by Sky Sports, although he does claim that he could not find the right player. Whether that was down to lack of available funds is not made clear, but Wenger also revealed that he intends to fix the situation in the January transfer window.
He said, “I believe we have done remarkably well on the transfer market. I agree we could have bought one more player, (but) we did not find.
“We will try to rectify that, because we are a bit short with the injuries we have (defensively), and overall I think we will rectify that in the transfer market in January.”
Sounds good to me, especially if the player in question is Mats Hummels, who has been the subject of a number of Arsenal transfer rumours from various media sources this week, including the Daily Express with their report that Wenger was preparing to bid £32 million for the brilliant German defender.
So is the 25-year old Borussia Dortmund star the player that Wenger is thinking of and that he sounds confident of getting in January?