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Emery & Arsenal fans told what to expect from summer transfer window
Managing director Vinai Venkatesham has outlined the Gunners' plans as they prepare to enter another opportunity to recruit in north London
Arsenal will be looking to make “efficient” additions during the summer transfer window, rather than embarking on an elaborate spend, says managing director Vinai Venkatesham.
The Gunners have become famed for their frugal approach to recruitment.
Arsene Wenger always had one eye on the club’s bank balance during his iconic reign in north London.
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Unai Emery would have liked to see the purse strings loosened a little, but he is also having to work with a limited budget.
There is little indication of that stance being relaxed in 2019, with Venkatesham looking for Arsenal to find value for money while managing an ever-increasing collection of lucrative salaries.
He told the club’s official website: “We need to continue to look at our wage bill.
“We’ve got, and it’s well known, a large wage bill – that’s a good thing. That demonstrates the financial power and the financial muscle of Arsenal, which is important for us to be successful.
“But we need to make sure we are spending that money as efficiently as possible, and we are spending a lot of time focusing on that.
“Of course we need to be sensible and we need to be efficient in the transfer window.
“We need to sign excellent players, we need to make sure those players can make a real contribution.
“And if I look back to the last transfer window, with Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira, Papa Sokratis and others, we think we bring in players that can make a really big impact.
“And we believe that those players, and many more, can make a bigger impact next season.
“We need to be sure that when we are selling players we are maximising the funds that we can get when we sell players, because all of those funds just get reinvested back into the team.”
Emery has previously stated that he is looking for more funds to be made available, but the Spaniard may have to spread his budget a little thinner than he had hoped.
He has said: “I think we can improve first, by spending money to achieve players.
“In the past the club have done great work in watching players, finding and signing young players and developing our players in the academy.
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“I have big respect for our work, for our players in the academy.
“I want to develop the players here - giving them progress to achieve something at a big club like we are.
“We can also achieve [buy] some players who are in other teams, who can come here and give us this performance - like [Virgil] Van Dijk with Liverpool.”
