Arsene Wenger may still have the reputation of being a bit of an Ebeneezer Scrooge and treating the Arsenal purse strings as if they were his own, but after spending big money on the transfer fees for Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in recent years and splashing decent amounts on other players like Calum Chambers, the Frenchman has certainly come out of his shell a bit financially speaking.
The club paying off the debt we created with the building of the new stadium is obviously a big part of that but a lot of Arsenal fans and those in the football media still think the Gunners are a long way behind the really big spenders in the Premier League.
Maybe so when you look at the transfer fees paid by Man City for players like De Bruyne, Sterling and Mangala and the silly money spent by Man United on the likes of Angel Di Maria and Anthony Martial, but a report in the Daily Mail tells a different story.
It is all about the wage bills of the EPL clubs and while Arsenal are back in fourth place behind the usual suspects of Chelsea, United and City, the numbers might surprise you. The Gunners paid out a massive £192.2m in wages last season and that is only slightly less than the £193.5m of Man City. United were a bit further forward with £203m and Chelsea were out in front with £215.6 million, but the evidence is clear that we can no longer use the big spending of our rivals as an excuse for not challenging for top honours.