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Arsenal's squad is one of the best in Europe at the moment. That is not an opinion, that is a fact - the Gunners have looked really good in many, many games, and even in the games they have not played as well, they were able to come out of those games with three points on most occasions.
Arsenal's best comes out in combinations. The manager, the front office, and the players all have one common goal: to win as many trophies as possible. This season, the expectations are higher than ever, which make the margin of error extremely low.
To keep the margin that low, Arsenal need quality. Even if this is their best team in years, Arsenal still need players to compete with the best of the best. Manchester City and Liverpool spend money regardless of what month it is as long as there is a clear need for a certain profile.
Arsenal, if they want to consistently compete for the best titles, will have to follow the same approach.
Mikel Arteta just stated the painfully obvious about Arsenal's January transfer window
And that is exactly what Mikel Arteta talked about in his pre-game presser before their clash with Aston Villa on Tuesday.
He said: “We're going to be really aware of the situation and the timescale of certain players [returning from injury]. If you go from the front line to the back line, that's the depth that you need. When you look across the other clubs, they have 24 or 25 players, so there's nothing special in our squad.
“The thing is, we’ve had more injuries than expected, some of them not avoidable, I would say, but we want to be better, and we know how important the part of having the right availability with players is going to play in the season.
“The window is there. We're Arsenal and we have to be looking at it and saying ‘OK, what do we need?’ We have to be actively looking, and then can we do it or not? That's a different story, but our job is to always be very prepared because something can happen.”
[On departures], again, we assess every situation. I leave that much more to Andrea [Berta] to understand what's happening in the market and then the individual players obviously. We have to assess where we are with each of them and get the best situation.”
Those are the words that Arsenal fans wanted to hear. And also the words they were expecting to hear.
Times have changed, and this is the sort of smart business clubs like Arsenal have to do in order to remain competitive.
Arsenal have to look at opportunities to improve the squad. They will not spend money for the sake of spending money, but if there is a chance to make this current squad even better, Arsenal will have to take it with both hands before someone else does.