Former Arsenal star, Emmanuel Petit, claims that the Gunners are in danger of developing a ‘loser image’ if they don’t spend this summer.

• Petit also played for Chelsea, Monaco and Barcelona
• Arsenal have finished in fifth – their lowest league position in over two decades
• Former Gunner believes Arsenal have to spend money this summer

It’s no secret that Arsenal’s season has been terrible.

They’ve finished in fifth; won’t play in the Champions League for the first time in over two decades; no one knows whether Arsene Wenger will be at the club for much longer; no one knows who will even own the club; and no one knows whether they will be able to keep hold of their best players.

It therefore stands to reason that whoever IS in charge, which will probably be Arsene Wenger, is going to have to make some big changes over the summer. Well, you’d hope so, anyway.

Petit believes that Arsenal have to spend money in order to prevent themselves from developing the images of being losers.

“If Arsenal want to be competitive next season, they need to spend money,” Petit told bwin.

“They are in danger of having a loser image. 

“Look at the academy. Ten years ago you had [Kieran] Gibbs, [Jack] Wilshere and others coming through the academy and that’s not happening any more. If you don’t have them coming through, you have to spend money. They need experienced, international players with winning mentalities.

“You need players like attack dogs – look at Madrid. They have [Sergio] Ramos, Casemiro – they are the fighting dogs on the team and then you have the technical players. At Arsenal, only [Laurent] Koscielny is going to fight to get the ball.

“At Arsenal, you can’t rely on [Granit] Xhaka and [Francis] Coquelin to do it all. You need a team-mate who will look you in the eye and scream at you and say ‘this is Arsenal, that is not good enough’. Look at [Cristiano] Ronaldo at Real Madrid, he has such a winning mentality and he is an example to others.”

While I agree that money obviously needs to be spent, I believe that Arsenal’s problems lie far deeper than their pockets.