Arsenal are moving differently in the market to previous years. The club are targeting players of a higher calibre and, in the cases of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, players at the elite clubs too who are getting regular game time.
Mikel Arteta has led a strategy alongside technical director Edu to level up the recruitment model of the team. Ensuring that Arsenal looks toward Premier League quality that can have an immediate impact.
Arsenal might have signed players from fellow EPL sides in the past, however, these tended to be players surplus to requirement, cheap and facing the latter stages of their careers where a move presented no sell-on value. Petr Cech, Willian, Cedric Soares and David Luiz were certainly key examples.
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Danny Welbeck was also signed from Manchester United. Despite scoring some big goals, even against his former club, he left the club on a free without progressing his position in the Arsenal team.
With this new focus, though, comes new challenges, and Arsenal have found themselves beaten in their pursuit of some of their primary targets this summer. After bidding for both Raphinha and Lisandro Martinez, eventually, the Gunners were beaten to the signatures by Barcelona and, as is expected to be announced soon, Manchester United, respectively.
Yet this is part of it. If a club is going to chase the best, they will need to compete with the biggest clubs to sign them. Gabriel Jesus was a victory over some of the elite sides in the country and on the continent.
Arsenal had to fight off interest from the likes of Chelsea. The Blues were revealed to make a late push to hijack the deal, but they were not alone.
“Chelsea were one of the teams that tried to hijack the Arsenal move. They tried very hard in the final days to get him. By that point, we’d already chosen our new project,” Jesus’ agent told Freddie Paxton.
Chelsea also pushed in for Raphinha and agreed on a deal with Leeds prior to an agreement with Barcelona. This came after Arsenal had made an offer to sign the Brazilian.
Arsenal still have work to do in the window, and they need to ensure that priority positions are sorted. The midfield needs to be focused on even if Zinchenko arrives.
The links to both Youri Tielemans and Lucas Paqueta are encouraging, and either player would add more quality to what Arsenal could offer in an attacking sense. But with there now being less than three weeks until the season starts, Edu and his team need to accelerate their attempts otherwise risk missing the kick-off.
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