Arsene Wenger may think that balancing the books is the right way to run a football club, although at Arsenal he does not have a lot of choice because the chances of silent Stan Kroenke putting up any of his own cash to sign players is as slim as a cigarette paper, but a lot of Premier League clubs do not feel the same way.
So if it was not for the Financial Fair Play rules brought in by UEFA, the Gunners would be left even farther behind in the transfer spending stakes. Those rules do not seem to apply in China, though, unless the likes of Guangzhou Evergrande and Jiangsu Suning have got some amazing sponsorship deals going.
The first of those Chinese Super League clubs recently completed the transfer of the reported Arsenal target Jackson Martinez for over £30 million pounds and the latter paid not far off that to Chelsea for the Brazil international midfielder Ramires. They also beat Liverpool to Alex Teixeira from Shaktar Donetsk with an offer close to £40 million.
And this seems to be a growing trend from the far east, with The Sun reporting that Jiangsu had offered a staggering £57 million for Chelsea’s Oscar and they are ready to offer a huge salary to get Yaya Toure in the summer.
So Arsenal fans, how likely is it that we would keep hold of our stars like Mesut Ozil if China came calling with a big transfer kitty?