Stoke City manager Mark Hughes has defended the way Arsenal went about their business in the recent transfer window.

Over the course of the summer, Stoke themselves spent in surplus of £20m, mostly to bring in Xherdan Shaqiri, Joselu and Philipp Wollscheid.

None of those players would improve on what Arsenal have right now, and Hughes seemed to sympathise with Wenger. When you have a strong side already it is incredibly difficult to find players who can improve on that, as Hughes explained.

The kind words about Petr Čech are accurate. The Gunners have signed a top class goalkeeper who is an improvement on what the club already had in that position.

Aside from him, was anyone attainable who would improve on what we currently have? Arsène Wenger didn’t think so, and Hughes seems to agree.

In order to improve now Arsenal need to sign truly superb players, who are not easy to find and then difficult to convince to sign for you. If only more fans saw it like that, and the media actually portrayed it like that, managers like Hughes wouldn’t have to try and explain the situation.