Whether you believe him or not is another matter, but Arsene Wenger has declared himself pretty happy with the transfer business done by Arsenal this summer, despite missing out on the France international pair of Kylian Mbappe and Thomas Lemar from AS Monaco and failing to persuade the England international star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to sign a new contract and having to sell him to Liverpool.
The boss has actually done more business through the exit door at the Emirates stadium than he has bringing in new players, but according to a BBC report that was part of the plan all along. We know and Wenger even spoke about the squad being too big. It was a drain on the wage structure and quite a few of the players in it, like Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson, Joel Campbell and Lucas Perez were not likely to play much.
So will this trimmed down squad actually be better for Wenger and Arsenal? Time will tell, of course, but it just might work out that way. The last two clubs to win the Premier League, Chelsea and Leicester, did so using the same core players for most of the games and it produced a team spirit and understanding.
They had no European football whatsoever but we can afford to play a second string side in the Europa League and focus on the EPL games, at least until the latter stages if we get there. There is always a worry with Arsenal about injury problems seeing us lose key players and we have to hope that this year proves a bit kinder to us on that front.
If it does, though, do you think that the leaner and less bloated Arsenal squad may actually do better?
Bob.