The Gunners could spend north of £200m on new signings this summer in their quest to win a first trophy in over half a decade
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For the last three seasons, Arsenal have shown they are capable enough to win the Premier League. The issue is that they still haven't since 2004. Mikel Arteta's side have recorded a hat-trick of second-place finishes and twice surpassed the 80-point mark, yet are without a major trophy of any kind in the five years after the first coronavirus lockdown.
It's been a paradoxically heartwarming and agonising half-decade for the red half of north London. The Gunners have been completely reinvented under Arteta and have shaken off the shackles of crisis that restricted them during the final seasons of Arsene Wenger's tenure and Unai Emery's short-lived spell, but haven't been able to turn performances into tangible success. Perhaps Arsenal fans are merely grateful for being back in the title picture at all.
The club want more, however. Arteta and his squad want more. At the end of each of the last three campaigns, the manager has given a rousing speech to a united Emirates Stadium crowd – an achievement in itself given their post-Highbury struggles – proclaiming the team will come back stronger and hungrier. As he heads into his sixth full season in charge, Arteta is now close to assembling his ideal squad in his near-perfect image, though that will come with the pitfall of further pressure. Arsenal now have to deliver on their promise.
Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱Getty Images SportRecord-breaking window
At the start of June, there was a section of the Arsenal fanbase that was concerned the club were moving too slowly in the summer window, watching title rivals Liverpool and Manchester City make a splash early doors.
Since then, new sporting director Andrea Berta has acted at an impressive pace to close a number of deals, with Martin Zubimendi, Christian Norgaard, Kepa Arrizabalaga and Noni Madueke all signing on the dotted line, and with Viktor Gyokeres and Cristhian Mosquera to follow. If all six incomings are sealed before the first-team jets off to Asia next week, it will be a record number for new signings that Arsenal have had ready for a pre-season tour since transfer windows became enforced.
Arteta having so many new players available to him from the start of the summer will be nothing but a major boost for their preparation. Much of their core remains the same, but they now have plenty of fresh blood to bed in around it.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportArteta's foreshadowing
After Arsenal were eliminated at the semi-final stage of last season's Champions League, Arteta was blunt with his assessment for the future: "For me it's crystal clear what we have to do, to be better and to increase the probability [of winning]. Nobody can say 'you do this and you win the league, or you win the Champions League'. No manager, no owner is going to sit in a press conference in front of everybody and say that, because the margin is so small, and not only that but a lot of things have to go your way to achieve that."
For most, this appeared to be his signal of intent to go big in the summer transfer window to reduce such margins. The Arsenal of 2024-25 had been decimated by injuries and lost most of their key performers to long stretches on the treatment table. Though the club have sought to improve gradually in the market during Arteta's tenure, there seems to be a realisation that they need a big swing to get over this final mental hurdle.
There have been similarly transformative windows in the recent past, with 2022's arrivals of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko from Manchester City giving the Gunners a dynamic new identity, while one year later the club smashed the British transfer record to sign £105m Declan Rice. This summer, Arsenal are marrying up several marquee signings with huge outlays.
AFP'Missing piece' striker
From December 2019 to June 2025, Arteta had only gone out of his way to sign a new forward on three occasions – the aforementioned Jesus move in 2022, then the smart decision to acquire Leandro Trossard on a cut-price deal six months later, and then the not-so-wise call to bring in Raheem Sterling on loan for the 2024-25 season. Kai Havertz, though now a full-time No.9, was signed as a midfielder, which the club were all too keen to stress. "He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield and variety to our play," were the exact words of Arteta, even.
Many Arsenal fans have been screaming at the club hierarchy for years to go all out on a hard-hitting centre forward, a brute who could score goals by the bucket load and ease the pressure on Havertz, whose lack of clinical edge only brought renewed frustrations when he was fit last season.
Arsenal narrowed down their summer options to Gyokeres and RB Leipzig sensation Benjamin Sesko, with Berta working on deals simultaneously. Eventually, he plumped to proceed with the Swede after Leipzig's asking price for their Slovenian hitman rocketed north of £80m. There were also reports claiming that they were leaning towards Gyokeres anyway given his seniority, whereas 22-year-old Sesko still has some growing to do.
Gyokeres certainly isn't short of confidence, either. When recently asked where he ranks himself alongside some of the world's best strikers in Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski, he replied: "I'm definitely one of them. It's hard to classify me, but yes, I'm at the same table as them now. They are extraordinary players, at the top level for many years, who have proven much more than I have. For my part, I have to show that I am capable of maintaining these performances season after season. What I managed to do at Sporting, I am convinced I can achieve anywhere. You haven't seen the best Gyokeres yet."
With Gyokeres on board, Arsenal will have more of a complete, well, of weapons in attack and a striker who could feasibly challenge for the Golden Boot – no Gunner has hit more than 20 in a Premier League season since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2018-19.
Getty Images SportStrength in depth
The fanfare of Arsenal's summer will continue to be surrounding Gyokeres, but he's not the only addition that supporters should be excited about.
Madueke, though the butt of many jokes about the Gunners signing another supposed Chelsea 'reject', will give them another dimension in the frontline, and provide more than adequate enough backup for the largely overplayed and overworked Bukayo Saka. Real Madrid target Zubimendi is also in through the doors after another metronomic campaign with Real Sociedad, bringing variety to a midfield that went stale at points in 2024-25. In place of Jorginho, whose extreme decline on the physical side limited his game-time to roughly 1,500 minutes last season, Arteta has recruited Brentford captain Norgaard. Unreliable backup goalkeeper Neto has been replaced by his Bournemouth successor, Kepa. There is also the matter of the low-risk, high-reward acquisition of Valencia defender Mosquera for roughly £15m in the works.
Arsenal's 2024-25 fell apart largely because they simply could not withstand an injury crisis that saw them having to field a front three of Sterling, Mikel Merino and Kieran Tierney in a Champions League match at one point. Should they avoid such awful luck again this time around, they ought to return to their formidable selves.
