Inside Arsenal’s biggest transfer window in a generation and the players needed to become champions

It was a message some of the Arsenal players didn’t quite expect. In the hours between the Champions League elimination to Paris Saint-Germain and Sunday’s trip to Liverpool, the mood was naturally downbeat, and a few players needed to be picked up.

Mikel Arteta didn’t quite indulge self-pity, though. Anyone feeling that for too long will be discarded. The Arsenal manager instead proclaimed that he has never been more convinced his team is on the brink of glory.

Some in football will feel that such stories are typical of the “delusion” around the London club, especially as they travel to Anfield having to give a guard of honour to a team that stole in ahead of them for the title.

This Arsenal might yet become the fifth English team to finish as runners-up three times in a row, and that’s only if they actually hang on to second place. Arsenal have to battle to just be bridesmaids again.

All of the four sides previously responsible for that record, including Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal 1998-2001, actually won the title around those periods. The closest parallel is probably Sir Matt Busby’s first Manchester United, who eventually built up to the Scot’s first title in 1951.

Arteta has to convince himself that Arsenal are on a similar path. Otherwise, that semi-final defeat to PSG will only foster the sense of a “nearly team”, of a club that has suddenly gone backwards. A trip to newly-crowned Liverpool couldn’t come at a worse time. It just emphasises another disappointment. Arteta found it difficult to watch Liverpool’s title celebrations and now has to be in the middle of it all.

The message to the players will be to remember what it feels like. Arteta’s staff don’t necessarily feel the same as everyone else, though. They would describe this as a “frustrating season”, rather than a bad season.

The PSG match is even cast as an illustration of all this, and how it’s frustrating rather than concerning. Those at the training ground can’t but compare it to last season’s quarter-final elimination to Bayern Munich. Then, in an earlier round, the sense at their London Colney base was that the squad expended too much nervous energy and then couldn’t lay a glove on Bayern. Now, they’ve gone further, and dominated a PSG team cast as European champions elect. There was no inferiority complex, as Arsenal genuinely felt they were much better. Arteta isn’t the only one pointing to far superior xG, how all of PSG’s goals were long shots and Gianluigi Donnarumma’s star performance.

All that was missing was the finishing touch, and Arsenal feel that was mostly down to the missing players. They didn’t even have a striker, and they still got so close.

That is what has Arteta so convinced. It’s not like Arsenal are in a situation where they have gone to their limits and failed, struggling to figure out exactly what went wrong.

They know precisely what they need to do: signings at some key final positions and injury prevention.

It’s why there is little indulgence within the club for the growing argument that Arteta just “isn’t a winner”, and that he himself represents the missing piece.

Arsenal believe the core of the squad is in a very promising place, especially given its prime average age of 26.9. They just need to complete or complement key positions, which is what the recruitment team have been working on for months. Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi is said to have been “wrapped up” since last summer, and they are close to signing Espanyol’s Joan Garcia as a challenger to David Raya.

The main focus will obviously be on a forward, and those within the club say there are now so many options there are “no excuses”. Arteta would love to sign Alexander Isak, who is known to be interested, but few see that as having any chance. Arsenal just aren’t going to rise to a figure in the region of £150m that would start any Newcastle United auction, something that would only happen in the unlikely event Isak agitates to leave.

Such reticence about spending has played into frustrations around Arsenal, especially given the club now have the seventh-highest revenue in world football. Their firm stance is nevertheless that they do not just want to be at the limit of PSR. “That’s not how we go about things,” one source inside the club said, while senior figures talk of “wanting to be good citizens” in a manner that befits their establishment status.

Others have bitterly quipped about rivals who are barely compliant with PSR but “don’t care”.

Arsenal want to be sustainable and organically put money back on the pitch.

All of that means that most of the work to date has been on Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko, whose contract clauses make him available for around £70m. There is also interest in Sporting’s Viktor Gyokeres and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Hugo Ekitike. Ollie Watkins isn’t off the radar either.

The most fanciful signing would be an explosive left-sided forward, but the club are now aware they badly need to match Bukayo Saka’s productivity on the other flank. They’ve become lopsided. Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams, who has a buyout clause thought to be in the region of £50m, is the ideal option, but his wages would be high, in contrast to a higher fee for Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo. Arsenal also like Brentford’s Bryan Mbuemo but he would have to be retrained on the left.

Room will at least be created by Jorginho going to Flamengo and Kieran Tierney to Celtic, with the likelihood of one other significant exit.

One of the reasons that Andrea Berta has been brought in as sporting director is because of his immense experience in player trading at Atletico Madrid. That is now essential in a world of ‘PSR churn’.

Should Arsenal be as successful in the market as they hope, there is then this season’s biggest problem to solve. That is actually keeping their best talent on the pitch in the way Liverpool did. Availability has really been the major difference this season, although some Arsenal insiders continue to point to refereeing decisions above all else. When one discussion arose about how Arsenal had suffered the bad luck of typical overzealous application for new rules, like bookings for kicking the ball away, one senior figure interjected “nudging the ball away”.

Some in football talk of how such attitudes hardly help their pursuit of success. There’s a belief it just creates a propensity for self-destruction, rather than defiance. The club is prone to being engulfed by this emotional angst, and Arteta is sometimes central to that.

The very mention of injuries can provoke eye rolls elsewhere, but it’s still a fact that Arsenal have had the worst record in the Premier League this season. Half of their preferred XI have been out for extended periods, including all of the attack. Worse was how they had clusters of injuries in the same positions, like Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus being out at the same time.

The constant counter-argument is “that’s football” and the need to adapt, but Arteta’s staff would say that’s precisely the point. They talk of how Jurgen Klopp missed key players in 2020-21 and 2022-23 and tried to play the same way, but suffered drastic drop-offs. The same was true of Pep Guardiola in November, before Manchester City spent close to a quarter of a billion.

Arsenal were conscious of this, so decided they had to temporarily switch up. If you try to play the same way without the same players, there are going to be gaps. This is how systemised football has become – especially Arteta’s. This logic has been the source of more cautious approaches and an over-reliance on set-pieces. Without Havertz now, or Martin Odegaard in autumn, Arteta’s side haven’t been able to press in the finely-tuned way that brought 91 goals in 38 games last season. They get the system so much – with instant responses to certain pressing triggers – that it’s very difficult to replicate. That explains a reticence about signings in attack.

One of the fairest questions about Arteta is nevertheless whether he has gone too far with that; whether he’s become too controlled, with too much of a shift towards defensive structure.

Arsenal believe there will be a reversion once they have close to a full squad.

The greatest debate should really be about the fitness approach. Arteta is described by some as “a control freak” in a similar way to how Klopp was, and there have been constant questions over whether he has overplayed some players. Muscle injuries are usually a giveaway.

They are a sign that this isn’t just “luck”. Liverpool significantly changed their preparation approach after Klopp and won the league again. That’s how there are other lessons for Arsenal at Anfield.

Arteta, for his part, has already been considering this. It is going to be a big theme of Arsenal’s summer, especially now they have the data from the first season of the expanded Champions League.

That also plays into why there isn’t that much worry about the drastic domestic points drop-off. Arsenal feel they actually did OK given the many injuries, to the extent that the players felt so secure in second for so long that they have taken their eye off the ball in the league. It may yet have an effect against Liverpool, just as it did against Bournemouth last week.

Arsenal again listed. Some of that was again down to this inability to finish things. There have already been 17 games where Arsenal have scored just one goal, compared to 11 last season. A total of 21 points have been lost from winning positions. A stretched team left too many wins on the pitch, and too many influential players on the sidelines.

Again, they see this as solvable.

If all this seems a little too serene for a club enduring more frustration, there are going to be other challenges. This summer will make it two years until the contracts of Saka, Gabriel, William Saliba, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus all run out. That is the time to start talking seriously. As one source put it, these are key renewals, at a club that haven’t faced this for years. You’re suddenly negotiating with players who want to maximise their careers, and have a lot of suitors.

That makes winning next season all the more important.

That does run alongside another message from within the club. The team is close. The absolute wrong thing to do now would get panicked into recruitment decisions that don’t fit with this step-by-step process.

As those around Arteta stress, the closer you get, the more important it is to hold your nerve.