Coach Mikel Arteta broke the silence and asked Arsenal to continue spending money to upgrade the squad to prepare for the new season. Impatience can be felt in the Spanish strategist.
Last summer, Arsenal spent heavily to recruit 3 rookies for Arteta including Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber. After that, they also borrowed goalkeeper David Raya from Brentford. The results are clear to everyone when the Gunners, with their quality factors, created a fair competition with Man City until the final round in the Premier League. Even though they once again won the runner-up position, Arsenal showed that as long as they have a good enough force, they can completely do things.
Therefore, many Arsenal fans expect their favorite team to have another explosive summer transfer period, with many quality rookies aiming to conquer titles in the 2024/25 season. However, up to this point in the summer of 2024, Arsenal is quite quiet. They have only spent money to buy goalkeeper Raya for 27 million pounds, and are trying to complete the deal to buy defender Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna.
When asked about the need to upgrade the squad, Arteta said: “We have to do that. Perfection in this tournament requires different standards. To turn that perfection into a Premier League championship then that’s what we have to do.
We need to upgrade everything we’re doing. We have to improve in every aspect and that’s what we’re trying to do. I don’t know if there will be any more recruits or not. There’s still a lot of time in the transfer market but I think that’s a question for Edu and the board of directors.”
In addition to Calafiori, Arsenal is said to be interested in a few other players in the Premier League, notably striker trio Viktor Gyokeres (Sporting Lisbon), Alexander Isak (Newcastle) and Ivan Toney (Brentford). However, up to now, everything still remains at the rumor level and nothing has progressed. This clearly makes coach Arteta impatient because if you look at other competitors in the Premier League, most of them already have rookies.
Except for Liverpool, which is also “immobilized”, other clubs in the “traditional Big Six” group including Man City, MU, Chelsea or Tottenham have all had additions. For Man City, they recently announced their first contract, winger Savio from Troyes. MU also very quickly got themselves two “new recruits”, midfielder Leny Yoro from Lille and striker Joshua Zirkzee from Bologna.
There is no need to discuss Chelsea, because this team is always ahead in the transfer market. So far, the Blues have owned 6 rookies including Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Omari Kellyman, Renato Veiga, Caleb Wiley, Marc Guiu and Tosin Adarabioyo. Of these, only Adarabioyo landed at Stamford Bridge on a free basis. Finally, Tottenham – Arsenal’s “neighbor” – welcomed two new recruits, the central midfield duo Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray.
Looking here, it can be seen that most of the top Premier League teams are relatively prepared for the new 2024/25 season, while Arsenal seems to be somewhat out of tune. If they successfully recruit midfielder Calafiori, the Gunners will have a quality boost for their defense. However, that is definitely not enough for coach Arteta to feel secure.
If we followed Arsenal last season, even without much expertise, we could easily see where they needed more rookies. First is definitely the attack, where Kai Havertz’s late-stage brilliance was not enough to cover up the Gunners’ shortcomings. Gabriel Jesus is fluctuating, while Eddie Nketiah has never become a reliable choice.
Moving down to midfield, Arsenal needs a quality midfielder to back up Rice. Last season, the former West Ham star had to plow from one arena to another without any rest. Arteta of course wants to give Rice “time to breathe” but he simply lacks good enough cards in his hand. Luckily Rice was healthy and avoided injury, otherwise, there’s no telling what could have happened to Arsenal.
In the 2024/25 season, Arsenal certainly cannot continue to bet on Rice’s health like that, especially in the context that they will have to play more matches due to the expansion of the Champions League with a new format. In addition, Arsenal also needs to have more backup plans for the wings, notably on the right side, where Bukayo Saka is currently the only quality name.
The 2024 Summer transfer window is just over a month away, and Arsenal needs to speed up before it becomes too late.
