For years it was difficult to work out exactly what Arsenal were trying to do in the transfer market.
As the Gunners sought the recipe for a swift return to the top table of European football, they suffered fatally from an excess of cooks in the kitchen. Just take the centre-back position. At the start of the 2020/21 season the club had as many as nine of them on their books, each bearing the hallmarks of the many differing strategies that had been put in place at the Emirates Stadium.
There was Rob Holding, the £2million signing from Bolton brought in under the Arsene Wenger tradition of bargain-spotting. Shkodran Mustafi, whose purchase was heavily influenced by the stats-based approach of Jaeson Rosenfeld and StatDNA, was also on the books.
