Arsenal 2023 summer transfer window preview: Incomings

Well, that’s it. After spending much of the 2022/23 season as the chasers, the campaign has concluded with the familiar sight of Manchester City holding the Premier League title aloft.

A stuttering April meant Arsenal relinquished their strong position at the summit and allowed City to eventually waltz to the title after suffering back-to-back defeats against Brighton and Nottingham Forest.

However, no matter how the season ended, the upcoming summer was always going to be significant. The absence of silverware in a season that promised so much will only further incentivise the club to splash the cash in order to improve.

According to The Times, Mikel Arteta and Edu Gaspar will have up to £200m to spend in this summer window. While we can speculate on who exactly this £200m will be spent on (and I will try), the last few summer windows have shown Arsenal’s willingness to change targets when they miss out on players or their valuations get too high.

In that sense, we should expect the unexpected in the upcoming transfer window. At the same time, however, we can identify the areas of need at the club and speculate on how Arsenal will attempt to fill these needs.

Arsenal 2023 summer transfer window preview: Incomings

Here is what you need to know and what to look for in Arsenal’s 2023 summer transfer window in terms of incomings.

Addressing the midfield

Even with the Jorginho transfer in January, central midfield remains Arsenal’s biggest area of need heading into the summer. This is exasperated by recent news that Granit Xhaka is expected to leave the club. Despite what you think of Xhaka’s quality, his importance to the squad over the past few seasons in terms of playing time is not up for debate. If he leaves, he will have to be replaced by a player (or players) that eats up a lot of minutes and improves the level of the squad.

If there was a midfielder that I would bet on Arsenal signing this summer, it would be Declan Rice. While this signing would either require Rice to play in a more advanced role than what he’s used to or Arteta to tactically switch to something closer to a double pivot in the midfield, it’s quite easy to see why Arsenal are prioritising signing the West Ham midfielder this summer. That being said, there will be other teams in for Rice and his transfer to Arsenal is far from a sure thing.

Even if Arsenal are able to secure the Rice transfer, it does not mean that they won’t be looking at other midfield options as well. The Moises Caicedo rumours have not gone away, and while I’m not convinced that Arsenal would be willing to spend upwards of £150m on two midfielders this summer, you can’t rule it out. Assuming Xhaka leaves, this would give Arsenal a strong midfield six of Rice, Caicedo, Martin Odegaard, Thomas Partey, Jorginho and Fabio Viera, with Smith Rowe potentially getting midfield minutes as well. If this were the case, it would be quite hard to complain about a lack of midfield depth, and a player like Jorginho might even struggle to get enough minutes barring injuries. That’s what you call a good problem.

If Arsenal are weary of spending so much on two midfielders, they may look to sign a Sambi Lokonga type—a young midfielder that they can sign before their valuation skyrockets and somebody that they can potentially mould into something special. Obviously, Arteta and company would be hoping that this signing would have a more positive impact than Lokonga has, but they may try to go down this route if a player like Caicedo becomes too expensive.

Expect Arsenal to break their transfer record on a central midfielder this summer, and don’t be shocked if that’s not the only midfield move they make.

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