Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has provided an update on the club’s transfer plans following an agreement to sign Oleksandr Zinchenko from Manchester City.
Zinchenko signed a four-year deal with the Gunners on Wednesday afternoon, and he is set to become the club’s fifth summer signing after Marquinhos, Fabio Vieira, Matt Turner and Gabriel Jesus.
Arteta officially confirmed the same after 3-1 friendly win over Orlando City, and when pressed on further signings, he said that the next process could be to offload out-of-favour players.
He told Arsenal.com: “I don’t know. It’s what we have today. We have a large squad so we have to make some decisions as well on the players that we’re not going to be using consistently and be fair and straight with them and that’s a process that is going to start very soon as well.”
Our view:
The Gunners have been busy during this summer’s transfer window, and the arrival of Zinchenko for £30 million is expected to take their spending spree to nearly £120m.
There could be more incomings over the coming weeks. The Gunners were hot in the pursuit of Raphinha at the start of the summer, but the Brazilian ended up joining Barcelona.
This suggests that they could still pursue a marquee winger. Meanwhile, there continues to be constant speculation linking Arsenal with Leicester City midfielder Youri Tielemans.
Hence, we can anticipate at least two more arrivals, but before that, Arsenal may want to recoup some transfer funds from the sale of players that won’t feature in Arteta’s plans next term.
Lucas Torreira, Hector Bellerin, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Pablo Mari and Reiss Nelson could be among players that could be shown the exit door before the Gunners spend again.
Arsenal will need to speed up the process such that they can land their desired signings. Arteta may ideally want to complete the transfer business before the new season begins.
