Unai Emery will only be given £40million to spend on new signings this summer if he fails to lead the Gunners to the Champions League. The Gunners boss wants to overhaul his squad by bringing in at least FIVE players. Yet Emery is facing a restricted budget from Emirates chiefs unless he can finish top four after two seasons in the Europa League wilderness. That looks increasingly unlikely with the Gunners sixth in the Prem. Even if they did, his budget would only be about £60m.
The Spaniard wants two wingers, a couple of full-backs and at least one centre-back. That has cranked up the pressure on Arsenal to find a buyer for £350,000-a-week Mesut Ozil — who does not figure in Emery’s plans. It also raises questions over the decision to let Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck leave for free this summer. Arsenal spent £69m on Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Matteo Guendouzi last summer.
But they could only afford Denis Suarez on loan from Barcelona in January as Europa League football hurts their spending power. Yet the Gunners could still land a cash boost by winning Europe’s second-tier tournament, which earns Champions League qualification. But without that extra cash Emery will be left with no room to manoeuvre in the summer transfer window. He knows that Barcelona winger Suarez will cost £18million if he wants to keep him at the Emirates which would eat up almost half of his limited summer budget.
Emery recently said: “The club is telling me that it is not a good moment to buy players but they say it is going to be different in the summer. Then we are going to have chances to spend money and buy players.”
Meanwhile, Arsenal have seen their appointment of Unai Emery and subsequent lack of transfer activity questioned, with Emmanuel Petit asking “what was the point of sacking Arsene Wenger?” The former Gunners midfielder is struggling to see why the club would replace a long-serving boss with Unai Emery but make little money available. The Gunners opted to make a change in the dugout during the summer of 2018.
After 22 years working under the guidance of Wenger, the long-serving Frenchman was moved out a year before his contract was due to expire. Emery was appointed in his place but has faced many of the same obstacles which hindered his predecessor, with little funding made available with which to improve a squad that had tumbled out of the Premier League’s top four.
Petit, who tasted title success during his time with the Gunners, told the Irish Independent of a series of bemusing events in north London: “The frustration level must be very high for Emery as in only his second transfer window as Arsenal manager, he was told he cannot sign anybody. You look at the money Manchester United , Liverpool and Manchester City spend and unless you join them and put the cash on the table to compete for the best players, you are going nowhere.
“Tottenham are not spending money, but they are in the position Arsenal were in a few years ago building a stadium, but there is no excuse for Arsenal now. If you sack Arsene Wenger and then say to the guy who replaces him you have no money to spend on new players, I would ask what was the point of sacking Wenger in the first place?”