Mikel Arteta and Edu were very active in last summers transfer window, and also off-loaded a whole host of peripheral players, and another five were disposed of in January with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Pablo Mari, Calum Chambers, Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles all parting company with the Gunners.
Arsenal fans were rightly worried that we were left with a threadbare squad and we were very vulnerable if we picked up just a few injuries. This has been proved true this week with the terrible news that Kieran Tierney won’t play again this season, and Thomas Partey has also set up camp in the treatment room again.
So it was little surprise that Arteta was asked by the Metro if he was expecting to be very busy again this summer, especially if we have the added games of a European competition, which seems very likely right now. Arteta said: ‘I am expecting so, yes.
‘I think both competitions [the Champions League and Europa League] require a much larger squad because the amount of games you play is much bigger in both, so I don’t think [which you qualify for] makes a lot of difference or changes a lot.
‘If you can financially afford it and we don’t have to do the turnaround in the squad that we’ve had to do, if you ask me what I want it’s 22 outfield players and three goalkeepers.”
Now that is a very interesting number because, having checked our official squad list, Arteta currently has 18 outfield players, and we all know that Elneny, Lacazette and Nketiah are set to be moving on, and hopefully William Saliba will be coming back from his loan at Marseille.
That means that we will need to have another six players come in, and I’m not sure that we can cover many of those spots with Academy players, although I would like to see Balogun improve enough to rejoin the squad.
But one thing is for sure, it is going to be a very exciting summer for Arsenal fans!
Admin Pat
Well, finish outside top 4 and the new players will be B-quality!
It will depend on whether we get a CL/ EL ticket or not
As usual Arsenal will be linked to, actively chasing and talking with 97,000 players all of whom will be “sighted” at Heathrow and also looking at houses in North London. We will turn down no hopers like Haarland, Mbappe and Felix and at 11:59pm on deadline day we will actually sign Pablo Mari, Shkodran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac Marouane Chamakh Marouane Fellaini and Peter crouch 🙂
Crouch could be that towering figure in the box😊
Indeed 🙂
fairfan, Methinks thou hast become a tad cynical and I SIMPLY cannot IMAGINE why(he lied!)!
Newcastle beat Wolves. We cannot take Brighton lightly and must play well to a plan to win the game. That said, more than the summer transfers, I hope Arteta and the team focus more on getting into the CL. If we get into the CL, automatically the best players will be attracted to Arsenal and we dont need to go hunting.
Wise words gunnerforlife, no point in getting giddy about who we may or may not buy until we complete this season
I agree Brighton will be a test today and we have to be on it, if we are I think we can take all the points
If we don’t get Top4 then the quality will not be enough unless we throw silly money at some players.
We need a goal scorer, attacking winger, Centre Mid, Defence Mid, RB & LB, Saliba & Turner coming back hopefully. Especially when are back in one of the european competition’s.
Outgoing could be alot too like Laca, Mo, Eddie, Pepe, Xhaka & Leno, along with players out on loan to be gone permantly like Matteo, Lucas, Hector, Niles, Dino & Nelson.
Lokonga, Taveres & Balogun not ready yet in my opinion. Injuries will always play a part so we need a big squad fir next season.
Alot of work to be done behind the scenes come the summer, now we look to Brighton game for 3points to get us back on track for Top4. Massive game today