Remember the “good” old days of Arsenal ownership protests and placards with “You spend, we spend” written across them? Well, it is fair to say that after the full takeover in 2018 and more than £500 million spent on transfers, the banners might not see the light of day for some time.
That said, there was still a strong feeling of disappointment as the 2022 summer window closed. Arsenal spent £121.5 million on five players: Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Fabio Vieira, Marquinhos and Matt Turner.
The club recouped something in the region of £21.5m from the departures of six senior players. Not including potential loan fees for six more players who will return, unless in some cases obligatory clauses are met, in the summer.
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Therefore, for the third summer in five years Arsenal’s ownership, represented at the club by Josh Kroenke, has seen an outlay above the £100 million mark invested on talent. For such a long period of time, the Gunners were known for baffling decisions in the market and heavy investments on players that, upon reflection, were not repaid.
Shkodran Mustafi, Danny Welbeck, Lucas Perez, even Alexandre Lacazette. Arsenal nowadays are a side cautious but willing to spend and when they do it is for quality.
Jesus and Zinchenko’s impact has directly contributed to the perfect five-win start to the season. The potential of what Vieira and Marquinhos could still add is exciting and the Europa League group stage will surely provide an avenue to see it.
However, Mikel Arteta spoke multiple times in August of needing more ‘firepower’ and being ‘short’ in a couple of areas. It was clear the Arsenal manager wanted more and the deadline day pursuit of Douglas Luiz showed the club were willing, in the end, to try and make it happen. But it was unsuccessful.
To describe the window as a failure after some brilliant additions would be… perhaps harsh but I think still fair. If you set out to build a house and the windowpanes are left unchecked on the tick list you’ll still be shivering come winter.
But perhaps buying high-quality glass the following January saves you the trouble of investing in faulty infrastructure earlier on and leaving you with longer-term frustration. This is clearly the policy the club has had.
If a position was not deemed to have viable quality options at a price that was reflective of what Arsenal deemed to be the player’s maximum value they passed. This can be said for Pedro Neto, Raphinha and Lisandro Martinez.
The latter pair left for mega money to Barcelona and Manchester United respectively. Many may argue that sometimes you need to overpay to get the players you want but, having suffered through year on year of financially baffling choices, I am partial to some caution especially when combined with acquisitions like Jesus and Zinchenko.
This is not the 2015 window where a lonely Petr Cech sat in the arrivals lounge. Arsenal have made some great additions after the previous summer saw another big investment in quality that contributed to an unlikely top-four challenge.
Arteta may have been left short and the failure to tick off all his desires in this window will disappoint him as well as plenty of us. But a quick glance to the table quickly eases those negative feelings.
Now is the time to see if those misses impact the first half of the campaign. I sincerely hope they don’t.
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