Arsenal: Transfer budget will dictate compromise somewhere

Arsenal’s transfer budget is reportedly only £50 million this summer. If that is the case, such is the vast array of holes in this squad, compromise will have to come.

The summer transfer window is here. After Arsene Wenger announced his pending departure at the end of the season over a month ago, much of the focus surrounding the club centred on the motivations and mechanics of his Arsenal exit, the power shift that has taken place in the corridors of the Emirates, and the search for a successor.

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However, that search has now come to its completion. Wenger is now no more; it is the era of Unai Emery, who held himself wonderfully in his inaugural press conference on Wednesday afternoon, even attempting to answer as many questions as possible is rather broken English, which must have been a daunting task given the pressures of the situation, a baying media waiting for just one loose word, and a fan base eager to hear what he had to say.

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But with Emery now in place, joining the Ivan Gazidis’ orchestrated brain trust with Sven Mislintat as Head of Recruitment and Raul Sanllehi as Head of Relations, the attention turns away from Wenger and his succession and towards a summer window that is congested by a World Cup, the pressures of a new managerial structure, and an early closing date of August 9th, two days before the season commences.

For the Gunners, many are desperate to see them splash out lavishly. The combination of need and healthy financial figures do, at least to some extent, inspire such an expectation from the fans. And so it should. This is a club that continually protests that it should be challenging for the Premier League. It is time for them to put their money where their mouth is. And unreservedly so.

That said, the reports in the media, and from David Ornstein, no less, suggest that Arsenal may only have a transfer budget as small as £50 million. I have no idea if that is true, but historic trends would suggest that it could be accurate — only twice has this club had a net spend of more than £50 million in a summer transfer window.

If it is indeed to be the case, then a compromise, unfortunately, will have to be accepted at least one position in the squad. There are five or six positions that Arsenal could do with investing in this summer — goalkeeper, both full-backs, centre-half, central midfield, winger — and that is before you factor in any replacements that might be required for outgoing players.

With that kind of budget, there is no way that they can successfully address all of those positions. And that is why, for instance, a player like Sokratis makes sense. Is he the perfect centre-half option? Absolutely not. But at £15 million, he brings some help to a position that is in desperate need of it without sapping too many resources for work at other positions.

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It is never nice to accept a club’s restrictions, especially financial ones when the figures look so healthy. But that is the situation that Arsenal are in, and that situation leads to one thing: compromise.