Arsenal spent a club record fee on the signing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the January transfer window, but still managed a net spend of £9.4m – less than Brighton and Huddersfield.
Nick Harris from Sporting Intelligence added up the incomings and outgoings of every Premier League side in order to put together a table of the biggest net spenders in January 2018.
Unsurprisingly, Manchester City topped the list, with Chelsea close behind. Arsenal, on the other hand, made so many sales that even £56m on Aubameyang couldn’t push them above a £10m net spend.
Just three hours, and a bit, and deal sheet overtime, to come. Another thriller it's been. And here are the 7.30pm tallies. pic.twitter.com/L9vvcYdoJg
— Nick Harris (@sportingintel) January 31, 2018
This should be great news. Arsenal improved their squad, got rid of a lot of deadwood, and hardly spent anything in the process. If the Gunners carry the savings forward to the summer and buy a decent defender and goalkeeper, then fantastic.
On the other hand, the club hardly spent anything in the summer as well. According to the Mirror, they spent -£18m.
Clearly that didn’t convince them to address their problem areas this January. Instead, the Gunners have to deal with an ageing Petr Čech and an error-prone defence for another six months.
Perhaps Wenger didn’t want to disrupt the squad too much in January. Players often need a settling in period, which you’ll struggle to give them with knockout rounds and trips to Wembley coming up.
Hopefully it’s not anything to do with reluctance by the board to spend, because they need to this summer.