Arsenal are on course to complete a fifth signing of the summer as a move for Oleksandr Zinchenko inches closer to being finalised amid a £30m agreement with Manchester City.
Once all the formalities are sorted and the deal is announced on social media and the official website, the Gunners' familiar trend of spending at least £100m in summer transfer windows ever since owner Stan Kroenke became the club's sole shareholder back in September 2018 will continue.
In almost four years and nearly eight full transfer windows under the sole ownership of KSE (Kroenke Sports and Entertainment), Arsenal, excluding loans for Dani Ceballos, Denis Suarez, Matt Ryan, Cedric Soares, Pablo Mari and Martin Odegaard, have completed as many as 22 deals for incoming players.
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And the money spent on 19 of those players makes for interesting reading. In the summer of 2019, there was an outlay of £138million, with Nicolas Pepe arriving for a club-record fee of £72million in addition to deals for Kieran Tierney (£25m), William Saliba (£27m), David Luiz (£8m) and Gabriel Martinelli (£6m).
Then the following summer saw Gabriel Magalhaes arrive from Lille in a £27m deal, Pablo Mari signed permanently for £6.8m following his loan spell, and Runar Alex Runarsson complete a £1m transfer from Dijon whilst Kroenke stepped in to help fund Thomas Partey's £45m move from Atletico Madrid for an overall outlay of £79.8m
Interestingly, the summer of 2020 is the only completed transfer window in the last three years in which the Gunners haven't spent at least £100m and that can be attributed to the impact of Covid-19 and the effects of having to play games without any supporters in attendance.
But things got back to the 'new normal' last summer and when factoring in the well-documented £150million splurge to sign Aaron Ramsdale, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Benjamin White, Nuno Tavares, Albert Lokonga, and a permanent deal for Odegaard means £350million was spent across the first three summer windows under KSE's ownership.
Now into a fourth summer window and already £82m has been spent on Marquinhos, Fabio Vieira, Turner and Gabriel Jesus. This figure will rise to £112m once Zinchenko seals his £30m from Manchester City and there is still enough time to match or exceed the overall totals from the 2019 and 2021 windows.
With Mikel Arteta hinting that Arsenal have more moves planned after signing Zinchenko amid links to Leicester City's Youri Tielemans, Lyon attacking midfielder Lucas Paqueta and a winger, there's every chance this summer transfer window will set a new benchmark under the KSE ownership.
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