Arsenal\u2019s summer work reflects a clear idea: if the club wants to become the \u201cbest club in the world,\u201d it must keep adding players who can \u201cchange the dial.\u201d That phrase, used by chief executive Richard Garlick, sits at the heart of the Gunners\u2019 recruitment strategy as Mikel Arteta and the owners continue to push the team forward.<\/p>\n
It also helps explain Arsenal\u2019s interest in Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior before he signed a new contract with Real Madrid, and the scale of their spending since the start of last summer\u2019s transfer window. The club has committed around $482 million (\u00a3353 million) on 11 signings in that period.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly the ambition of the club and the owners to be the best club in the world,\u201d Arteta told Sky Sports ahead of Arsenal beginning their title defense at home to Coventry City.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to do that, you need the best facilities, the best stadium, the best supporters, and you need the best squad and the best players in the world. Those are the ones that win you football matches and the ones that can be decisive when it matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we try to build with the actual players that we have, and with the players that we want to sign to make the difference for Arsenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garlick\u2019s point is that Arsenal are beyond the stage of simply filling gaps. He said the club now need players who can \u201cchange the dial\u201d and ultimately \u201ctake Arsenal forward\u201d in ways that not every current member of the squad can.<\/p>\n
The need is rooted in last season\u2019s evidence. Arsenal reached the Champions League final, but were completely dominated by Paris Saint-Germain in that match, with the penalty shootout detail masking how uneven the contest was.<\/p>\n
Arsenal arguably had the best midfield in the Premier League last season. Even so, the heavy physical load on Declan Rice has not gone unnoticed, and the Gunners still made Bruno Guimar\u00e3es the second most expensive player in the club\u2019s history heading into the new campaign.<\/p>\n
Garlick also suggested the club\u2019s recruiting standard has changed with their position in the game. When Arteta arrived just before Christmas in 2019, Arsenal were 10th in the Premier League and short on established starters. After two eighth-place finishes, they have since moved steadily upward and never gone backwards.<\/p>\n
Now, after that climb back to the top, Arsenal believe the pool of players who can genuinely improve them has become smaller. \u201cIn the past we\u2019ve looked at players that maybe helped build out the squad or get us to a certain level, but now we’re competing right at the top level, and we do need to bring in players that are going to change the dial,\u201d Garlick said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal\u2019s recruitment now aims at players who can change the dial and raise the team\u2019s level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1843],"tags":[1047,59,182],"class_list":["post-18632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-transfer-news","tag-champions-league","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}