Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and technical director Edu could soon reap the benefits of reducing the club's wage bill over the past year.
Contract renewals are a hot topic for the Gunners at the moment with many supporters hopeful of announcements confirming that William Saliba, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, in particular, have all committed their futures to the club as their current deals expire in June 2024.
Ideally, Arsenal must reach an agreement regarding the trio before the end of the season in order to avoid a worst-case scenario where all three enter the final year of their contracts and the club risk losing them for a cut-price fee in the summer transfer window - or for free in 2024.
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To Richard Garlick, whose main role entails negotiating contracts with both existing and new players, Arteta and Edu's credit, attempts have been made to tie down Saka amid reports that the 21-year-old has been 'formerly offered' a new £200,000 a week contract which would see him become one of the highest earners at the club.
Meanwhile, following the North London Derby win over Tottenham Hotspur, Saliba confirmed talks over a new deal have taken place with the club and his representatives: "Yeah, we will see. They [Arsenal and my agent] talk a little bit," he revealed to the Evening Standard.
"[When I spoke with Arteta in the summer], he talked about my last season and he explained the project for this season. You have to wait every time and I wait a long time for my first North London derby. I enjoyed it since the first minute to the end, and now I am so happy. We are so happy to win at home against Tottenham. It was a hard game, but we were focused all the game. We deserve this win."
Interestingly, the Gunners can afford to prioritise Saka and Saliba's contracts over Martinelli as according to transfermarkt, the club hold an option to trigger a one-year extension in the Brazilian's deal which would keep him at the Emirates Stadium until 2025 at the very least.
Whatever the case is, for Arsenal to hold on to all three, they'll have to offer enticing wage packages as well as ensure a challenge for major trophies and playing Champions League football is part of the plan to fend off interest from the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.
Having emerged as potential Premier League title challengers - albeit surprisingly - following a near-perfect start to the season, Arteta's side look well-placed to seal a return to Europe's top table for the 2023/24 campaign, but recent history shows they've had trouble with the wage bill.
When the Spaniard took over from Unai Emery in December 2019, the club's annual wage salary was £128m, as per Spotrac. This was partly due to Mesut Ozil being the highest earner at a reported £350,000-a-week, a figure later matched by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang whilst the likes of Willian, Alexandre Lacazette and David Luiz were earning at least £100,000-a-week.
But following mutual contract terminations for Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Willian and Sokratis in 2021, as well as Luiz leaving on a free, by November of that year the Gunners were spending £99.8million on player wages.
Today, that figure stands at £85.5m thanks to another summer of upheaval with Lacazette, Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Hector Bellerin the senior players to leave permanently, whilst another six including Nicolas Pepe are out on loan.
Taking the deals Arteta and Edu have overseen in just under a year into consideration, they have managed to reduce the wage bill by a further £14.3m which should highlight the great progress made in this area and perhaps it can be used towards future investment in the first-team squad such as new contracts for Saka and Saliba for a start.
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