Ivan Gazidis has vowed that Arsenal will continue to invest as they aim to win major trophies, but can fans really trust what he says given his track record?

The club’s chief executive has again reiterated that the club’s ambition is to win major trophies and has, again, claimed that Arsenal are doing everything to do so.

“Our ambition is clear – to win major trophies,” Gazidis said, as reported by the Evening Standard.

“In order to compete at the top, we need to strive to be better than our competitors in everything we do. 

“That is why during the past season we have continued to make substantial investments to drive the club forward. At the top of the pyramid, we have scaled up our investment in our first team squad significantly in recent years, spending a net £203m in transfer fees in the last three seasons.
“We will continue this long-term approach of progressively reinvesting all our available revenue in our playing resources as we look forward.”

Unfortunately, Gazids’ comments and promises are always going to ring hollow.

Despite his big talk, Arsenal have yet to achieve the on-field success that’s allegedly being targeted.

Arsenal’s investment in their squad has increased a lot in recent years. Significant fees were paid to bring the likes of Shkodran Mustafi, Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Alexandre Lacazette to the club, while few players left.

However, for some, that investment hasn’t gone far enough, and there’s still a feeling that Arsenal are holding back on spending their considerable wealth.

The “catalyst for change” line Gazidis dropped before the end of last season has been especially damaging to his reputation.

With Arsene Wenger’s future uncertain and results poor, fans interpreted to line to mean that radical change was coming to the club in the form of a new manager and raft of changes to the playing and non-playing staff.

However, Wenger went on to sign a new contract and Arsenal signed just two players, albeit two very good ones.

Changes were made to the backroom staff, in as much that some new faces such as Jens Lehmann and Darren Burgess arrived. The old faces, however, remained.

Going back a few more years, Gazidis once claimed that Arsenal were aiming to be in a position where they could compete with any club in the world.

“We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich. I’m not saying we are there by any means but this whole journey over the past 10 years really has been with that goal in mind,” he said back in 2013.

“We are moving into a new phase where, if we make our decisions well, we can compete with any club in the world.”

That stance changed, as it became apparent that club spending was growing at a far faster rate than anyone anticipated. Suddenly, Gazidis was urging caution and downplaying Arsenal’s ability to compete.

“We can’t afford to outgun competitors that have far more money. We have to be very careful, very selective,” he told The New York Times in 2016.

It should come as no surprise, then, that fans may be reluctant to buy Gazidis’ latest comments about continuing investment from the club in new players, and their supposed plan to win major honours.