Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has confessed that he is expecting his side to be active in the summer transfer market.
The Gunners spent big last summer on the likes of Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale, who have helped fire the team back towards the top end of the Premier League table.
A battle with Tottenham for a spot in the top four looks like it could go right down to the wire, but regardless of which European competition Arsenal find themselves in, Arteta wants reinforcements.
“I am expecting so, yes,” he said when asked if Arsenal would be busy this summer.
“I think both competitions [the Champions League and Europa League] require a much larger squad because the amount of games you play is much bigger in both, so I don’t think [which you qualify for] makes a lot of difference or changes a lot.
“If you can financially afford it and we don’t have to do the turnaround in the squad that we’ve had to do, if you ask me what I want it’s 22 outfield players and three goalkeepers.
“You have to come a long way in the aspects that you see on the pitch, it’s a lot of things that have to be put in place, and that takes time.”
Arsenal currently have 18 outfield players at the club, excluding any out on loan, and three of those – Alexandre Lacazette, Eddie Nketiah and Mohamed Elneny – could all leave when their contracts expire in the summer.
Arteta did have the numbers he wanted to start the season but chose to part ways with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Pablo Mari, Calum Chambers, Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles in January, and he insisted that he does not regret letting the group go.
“They were players that we did not really use,” he explained. “And you put them in the context now, I don’t know how much they would have played. You don’t know, I don’t know.
“We made a decision on what we believed was the right thing to do for the team and for the individual players that were asking for the opportunity to play football because they didn’t have any minutes in several months.”
