Arsenal: Difficult balance of needing quality and being financially smart

Arsenal are a self-sustainable club, and so, while new signings are needed, there is an obligation to be financially sensible. Striking a balance is very difficult.

It is official, the Premier League summer transfer window is open and it is time to spend hundreds upon hundreds of millions of pounds on quality players to bolster your squad. Unless, of course, you are Arsenal football club.

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For many years, the Gunners have been incredibly underwhelming, to say the least, when it comes to signing new players. They do not like the splash signing. It is in the DNA of the club. Arsenal is a club that prides itself on being run in the ‘right way’. They abide by Financial Fair Play regulations and are managed in a self-sustainable manner, only spending what they themselves earn. There is no billionaire ‘sugar-daddy’.

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Due to the club’s self-sustainable ethos, qualifying for the Champions League is essential, wit BBC Sport journalist David Ornstein stating that whether or not the club qualifies will have a massive impact on what the transfer budget actually is. With all of this being said, therefore, the notion that it is just as important to be financially sensible this summer as it is to sign quality players is an extremely valid one.

Let me explain. Unfortunately, Arsenal are seemingly in no position to make mistakes when it comes to signing players. Figures around certain players, such as that of Wilfried Zaha at £80 million, are far too risky to chase after. Younger, under-the-radar players will have a significantly smaller and more feasible price tag, making them a low-risk investment. These are the type of players that head of football Raul Sanllehi will chase, not those with the massive fee attached to them.

Now, that makes it a lot harder to sign high-quality recruits. The best usually cost the most. And if one thing is certain it is that Arsenal need better players, a lot better players. If they truly have the ambition of challenging for the Premier League title, a large portion of the players within the squad must be sold sooner rather than later because they are simply not good enough.

Striking a balance between being financially sensible and improving the squad, then, is absolutely vital. But it is also an extremely difficult task to achieve. And it will fall on Sanllehi and managing director Vinai Venkatesham, along with the guidance of Unai Emery, to effectively and efficiently find and acquire targets that both improve the team and protect the finances.

Sanllehi spoke this week about the need to ‘outsmart the market’, that, in his opinion, is how Arsenal will have a successful summer and build a team capable of challenging once more. And that phrase nicely sums up the demands of this window: to sign good players for good prices, continually seeking out the balance between the two.

Only time will tell if those who execute the decisions made within the club are capable of running it in an efficient manner. This summer will tell us a lot about their capabilities. But as they look to rebuild this team in a fiscally responsible manner, remember that this is no easy task.