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In June 2013 Ivan Gazidis invited a group of journalists into the Arsenal boardroom to talk turkey. “We are moving into a new phase where, if we make our decisions well, we can compete with any club in the world,” the club’s chief executive said. “This year we are beginning to see something we have been planning for some time – the escalation in our financial firepower.”
Gazidis is a man who chooses his words carefully and, on this occasion, he was happy to project bullishness; to give the supporters what they wanted to hear. There was a sense of liberation behind the mission statement; Arsenal had, at last, emerged from their post‑Emirates Stadium move austerity period, when they had been compelled to lock into long-term sponsorship deals that had guaranteed money up front.
The contrast in tone to Gazidis’s comments over the past week or so has been instructive. “We’re making progress in what is a fiercely competitive world, against competitors that have the capability to spend far more money than we do,” he told ESPN. Then there was the soundbite to the New York Times. “The keys to success will be how well you do things and not just about financial firepower,” he said.
It is impossible to kick off an Arsenal season preview without turning the focus on to money. Because what does money mean? New signings. And if there is one obsession of recent years among the Arsenal fanbase, it is new signings. Arsène Wenger, perhaps against his instincts, has overseen three big ones since 2013 – those of Mesut Özil, Alexis Sánchez and, this summer, Granit Xhaka, the £35m midfielder from Borussia Mönchengladbach, who looked so polished at Euro 2016 for Switzerland.
But, right now, it does not seem to be enough, particularly as Arsenal’s cash reserves are so eye-watering and, even more so, there are areas of Wenger’s starting XI that look ripe for an upgrade.
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