Arsenal have spent a staggering £150 million on six players this summer but none of the new arrivals is expected to have a major impact this season.
The club have gone ahead and spent crazy amounts of money on players like Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale. And on the other hand, they have brought in relatively unknown players like Lokonga and Nuno Tavares.
The fans are clearly not happy with their club spending money in all sorts of the wrong areas but now finally Edu has come out to explain the club’s transfer strategy this summer.
Edu is the brains behind all the transfers and he has come out to say that Arsenal have spent the money not thinking of immediate impact but keeping in mind the future.
“I think you have to see the bigger picture,” our technical director told Arsenal Media. “I know people want to understand a little bit more about this transfer window, which is quite clear for me the direction you go.
“We signed six players, all the six are under the age of 23 so that is the direction you go to try to consolidate the direction of the squad, to try to give to the squad more balance and more future as well. But what I would like people to understand is the big picture, because if you see a year ago we started to make some decisions in this direction so we renewed Bukayo Saka, and renewed Martinelli in this period as well just to give them some direction in the way you try to go.
“Just to give you some context, we renewed – in one year – five sets of contracts, and five of them are under the age of 23 for the first team. Then, in this period, summer to summer, we signed 10 players and seven out of the 10 are under 23 as well.
“So what I would like to explain is that it is not about this summer, it is about the project. It is about what we want to do. We have started the project, we are in the middle, so it is not just one window and go, it is window, window, window, window.
“We have to consider every single step, now is another one, I think in this one we consolidated a big step, I am really pleased because the players we signed are what we are looking for, so I see, and Mikel [sees] a much more balanced squad in terms of age, profile and in terms of some players who can get a lot of responsibility like Thomas, Granit, Aubameyang, Lacazette.
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“We see the balance in the squad is much better, but again this is not the end. People have to understand we are still on the journey to go where this club deserves to be.”
The Gunners have made six major signings this summer, Ben White being the most expensive at £50 million. Many pundits are highly doubtful of his impact and even the other players are not likely to make a major impact this season. But the Arsenal fans have no other option but to trust the process.
The latest buzz is that the management is not planning to sack Mikel Arteta right now so the fans are now stuck with him. And unless the manager can make drastic changes, the North London might not even make it into the top half of the Premier League table.
Hopefully, these young bunch of players can come good in the next few years but unless they can get back into Europe really fast, most of them will lose hope as well as confidence.
Another major headache for Edu is that the big stars like Aubameyang and Lacazette are ageing at a rapid rate and in a few years time, Arsenal will have to replace them as well.
