Arsenal and transfer window: Go hard or go home

In recent years, Arsenal have spent very little and achieved very little. When the summer window comes this time, if they have hopes of a title challenge, they must go hard or go home.

With less than four months until the opening of the summer transfer window, Arsenal need to prepare a busy window. Rumors have been flying around and only a handful could even be remotely realistic. Nevertheless, the quality and quantity of such targets are the like that the Gunners need to pursue.

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Buying the right players for the right price is respectable and cost-efficient. But it is not necessarily a viable way to build a squad in the increasingly money-driven football word. Why not go for the heavy artillery?

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Signing mediocre bench-warmers are great ways to keep your star players fresh for the big games. But should those players be just mediocre or should the club be looking to improve on their first-team options? When you compare the Gunners’ bench (when everyone is fully fit) to Manchester City’s bench, it’s like comparing a Dodge Grand Caravan to a Ferrari. One is great for kids; the other is what wins Premier League titles.

If the north London club could spend big this summer and buy the right players, the club could possibly challenge for the title. When you only the spend the bare amount on players, you will only get the bare amount out of them. There are some rare cases that have backfired on Arsene Wenger, Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka being two. I’m not saying both are terrible players. I’m simply saying both haven’t lived up to expectations.

The players being linked with Arsenal don’t really fit the bill — Wilfried Zaha and Aleksander Golovin being the two most-prominently rumoured. Both players wouldn’t improve the side, they would only add to the depth.

Arsenal doesn’t need more depth, they need more stand-out players, more world-class talents. The club needs to spend big, not small, signing players that fans never thought possible. Before this season I thought Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would never sign for Arsenal, yet here I sit, dumbfounded and astonished.

Signing big-name players also shows other Premier League clubs that this club isn’t fooling around. Spending big on maybe two or three players, signing world-class players, rather than investing in more good-but-not-much-more players, could drastically change the makeup of the squad. Dropping the usual mediocre players in the starting XI for assured top-class talent would make any fan drool with excitement. And there is plenty out there: Thomas Lemar from Monaco; Samuel Umtiti from Barcelona; Jan Oblak from Athletico Madrid. All three of those players would slot in immediately and solidify their places and significantly improve this team.

Next: Arsenal: 3 necessities for title challenge

Fans will have to wait eagerly for the window to open, but when it does, if the Gunners harbour any hopes of a title challenge, they have to go hard or go home.