Arsenal and Mikel Arteta: January not the time to spend

Per reports, Arsenal have little cash to spend in January. But as Mikel Arteta takes over as head coach and begins a new project, spending lavishly in the winter window would be ill-advised.

Any manager wants to build their own team. While they also want to improve the players they inherit, it is inevitable that their initial aim is to build a team out of the players that buy and sell.

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This is one of the problems with changing managers on a regular basis. You end up with a muddled squad of players that three different managers have assembled, leading to a collection of mixed-up players, none of which suit the style they are playing.

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Mikel Arteta will certainly want to construct the Arsenal in his way. After working with Pep Guardiola and the fantasy football-like spending of the Manchester City team, Arteta will hope to do something similar in north London, if with far less money and greater financial restrictions. As he said in his press conference last week, he learned to be ‘ruthless’ from Guardiola, so expect vast and significant changes at the Emirates.

The Arsenal squad will evolve once more in the coming years, under the guidance of Arteta. ‘Half the squad’ want to leave and many of the older statesmen who have underperformed for years are expected to be moved on, so that will open up both holes in the squad, space in the wage budget, and some money in the transfer kitty, while Arteta will undoubtedly be keen to build the team in his own image.

But while there is a natural eagerness to conduct this squad evolution as quickly as possible, being patient and making the right decisions is the wisest course of action — this might also be a necessity, given that the Gunners reportedly have little money to spend in this upcoming January window.

First and foremost, Arteta must get to know the players. He must learn what they can and cannot do and recognise which he can use as a part of his system. Only then will he be able to determine at which positions serious investment is required. That, of course, takes time. Then there is the lengthy process of scouting, identifying the type of players that should be recruited, and actually acquiring them.

Conducting business in the January transfer window is already difficult enough. Teams do not want to sell mid-season and the prices rocket. Conducting rushed business in the January transfer window is asking for trouble, and that is what Arsenal would be doing, even if they did have money for Arteta to spend.

This squad needs a major makeover, make no mistake about it. But to do it in a rushed, haphazard fashion would only damage the Arteta project. As with everything, it is better to make the right decision slowly than the wrong one quickly, and as Arteta and Arsenal look to rebuild their squad, they must remember precisely that.