Arsenal: What is left over from summer transfer window

The answer to what Arsenal underwent over the summer is: ‘quite a lot’. But you knew that already. Making six signings during this summer, for a record spend, while the team has struggled early on this season they’ve brought in a lot of new talent to work with during this season and beyond.

This is truly massive, and something the club and its supporters should be proud and excited about. Yet without the results, the club, the fans nor the players will be content with anything. Looking at all six players, we can see that they are young, talented, capable of playing right now with a good amount of experience, and will likely only get better over the years whether Mikel Arteta remains as the boss in north London or not.

How will each player affect this team and his teammates? That is, in fact, not only a great question but a question which is the basis for the content of this piece.

Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Nuno Tavares, Takehiro Tomiyasu, and Martin Odegaard make up this record summer transfer window. These players will likely be with the team for years, and each offers great upside for both the future and the present.

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With the summer transfer window closed, taking a look at a record summer for Arsenal is an absolute must: how have they done?

Ramsdale is likely the eventual replacement for Bernd Leno, who isn’t  looking like staying for very much longer. While he is still just 23 years old, he will be able to play behind and in place of Leno when he needs rest or is in poor form. If he can play as he did at West Brom against the better competition of the Premier League, the move will be lauded in the years to come.

Ben White has been seen as a wonderful compliment to Gabriel, who was acquired the summer previous to this one, yet has missed time and has yet to make the full impact that his skills and price tag suggests he should.

With his passing ability, he was sought after to provide fluidity from the back to the front, and with time and more of his teammates returning from injury, it is likely that he will shine with more assistance and defensive protection.

He has two more defensive players joining him as well, in the form of 21-year-old Nuno Tavares and 22-year-old Takehiro Tomiyasu. The Portuguese and Japanese defenders each offer different abilities and certainly help to strengthen and diversify the protection in front of Leno or Ramsdale, just in front of Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka and Sambi.

Tavares is a fast, physical and technically gifted player who can move the ball up the pitch and provide service in the final third. Behind Kieren Tierney he is a proper fit, and should Tierney drop back and slot into a back three, one would imagine Tomiyasu would be even stronger in that rearguard.

The Japanese defender has experience playing both centrally as well as at the right-back position. With Hector Bellerin on loan with Real Betis for this season, with no option to buy, the right-back slot is pretty much between Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who was recently denied an exit to Everton, even on loan, Calum Chambers and the new man Tomiyasu.

I would imagine that we will see a steady rotation of Maitland-Niles and Tomiyasu going forward, and likely the latter more than the former, should injuries not interfere. As we move up the pitch, both Sambi and Odegaard are hopefully set to make impacts themselves, with the Norway captain used to this stage already.

Sambi is another story though, as the Belgian midfielder has really wonderful qualities, even at his tender age, and, once comfortably behind a healthy Partey, the Belgian player will likely thrive in an ancillary, yet ever-increasing role at the club.

Odegaard, meanwhile, has the greatest expectations of all of the aforementioned players. He played with the Gunners for the second half of last season, and so he is a known commodity with proven ability and playmaking imagination. As a big name for his national team, as well as a former Real Madrid player with lots of experience out on loan for so many outfits, Odegaard will be expected to invigorate and excite the squad and the fanbase.

It will happen, yet patience must be exercised as well. He is but one player, and football is such a team sport; without his teammates rounding into form, he alone can not and will not be the saviour of Arsenal or Arteta. But, to be sure, he has the abilities and vision to make things happen for this team with the players they have around him.

Arsenal, with the players they’ve been able to acquire since the summer transfer window first opened, are in a better position regarding the future now than they were before the window opened.

With that said, it remains to be seen whether these players can make an immediate impact, at least in a sizable enough way that might see the club turn around enough to where the boss keeps his job; regardless of anything, however, these players will likely have proven themselves to be a top signing class of players in Arsenal history when fans look back on it in the future.