Judge this Arsenal team on the pitch, not the Transfer Window

The good thing about us playing on Monday night was that it means we’ve got less time to wait until the weekend, and easily the biggest of the three games so far this season against Chelsea. Because of that, I’m hopeful that the thnkpieces from journos (and to be fair, bloggers like me) about how the transfer window has left Arsenal fans unhappy will start to die down.

It’s funny because I’ve spent many a summer transfer window over the years feeling frustrated with our business – or lack thereof – and have written about that on many a post-Transfer Deadline Day lament. “We always leave ourselves one player short” I feel was the mantra every season. And whilst I think all of us can appreciate that the left-wing spot that we all wanted feels like it is just one player short again this summer, I really can’t get myself worked up at all.

As a bit of an aside – I really like this “Who won the summer 2026 transfer window?” piece on the Cannon Stats site. Adam, who wrote the piece, is a very level-headed Arsenal fan from the States and I echo his sentiments exactly.

It’s the reason why, for this summer right now anyway, I’m kind of happy with where we are at. It was perfect, of course. But you can’t say we aren’t well-equipped to have a proper go at both the Premier League and Champions League. Look at all of our domestic rivals; they have all had quite a bit of upheaval, and you can’t tell me that every single player they have signed is going to absolutely ‘bang’ – it just doesn’t happen. In fact, to assess that, I had a quick look at the transfers from Man City, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Man United, Chelsea and The Scum from last season, to see which ones were successful. I’ve decided to – completely subjectively, I’ll admit – group them into ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in my opinion:

Man City Success Failure Semenyo Reijnders Cherki Ait-Nouri Donnarumma Trafford Guehi Aston Villa Success Failure Lindelof Guessand Abraham Madjo (so far) Alysson Douglas Luiz Harvey Elliot Jadon Sancho Liverpool Success Failure Ekitike Isak (so far) Wirtz (so far) Frimpong Leoni (so far) Man United Success Failure Sesko (only just) Chido Obi Mbuemo Cunha Lammens Chelsea Success Failure Joao Pedro Jamie Gittens Estevao (just) Alejandro Garnacho Jorrel Hato (just) Liam Delap Dario Essugo Mamadou Sarr Kendry Paez Buonanotte The Scum Success Failure Palhinha (if I’m being kind) Simons Kudus Gallagher Tel Danso Souza Vuskovic Takai Kolo Muani

Apart from United, who didn’t make many deals, you can hardly say that’s been a glowing rap sheet from any of the so-called ‘big clubs’. So getting worked up over the volume of signings is just not something I can get behind. Would I have liked us to get that winger in? Sure, but not any old blagger; we are not in that space right now.

I certainly think Berta has some questions to answer, however, but that is more about his ‘plate-spinning’ style that I think a few of us are a little concerned with. And I think that is right; there’s a very real argument to be had that the reason we lost out on Morgan Rogers was that we didn’t strike super-quick. The noises that I heard were that Arsenal were led to believe that £80million gets him. If they’d have acted sharpish and gone for him before the Anderson deal became the yardstick by which every club measured their big players, I think we’d have seen him in an Arsenal shirt. But we waited, and the result was that Rogers now rocks up at that reprehensible club, Chelsea. Anderson signed for City on 23rd July – that is more than enough time to move for the player. But Berta’s approach has always been more measured, and perhaps that has had an impact.

But I’m nitpicking here, because you can’t argue that our squad isn’t deep and strong. Even in that left-wing position, we’ve lost two players, but we still have Eze and Madueke as well as the new boy Tzolis. Plus, with a September extended international break which goes on for three weeks, then by the time the season starts going you’re in to October/November anyway. The January transfer window then becomes a few short weeks away and if the need is really that pressing by then, you can pull the trigger. I know it sounds very ‘The Neverending Story’, and it used to wind me up when Wenger would give us the ‘Judge me in May’, then we’d finish fourth, and repeat the cycle in that summer, but I do feel like this team were judged last May, as Champions, and they are now stronger in the areas of our team that really made the biggest contributons to our title defence – at the back and in midfield.

As a reminder, our signings last summer were:

• Zubimendi – success (despite the end, he was brilliant for 75% of the season – so that counts for me)
• Eze – success (just – he got important goals and contributed to some big games, including the two NLDs)
• Gyokeres – success (just – we all know he’s a bit of a wardrobe, but still bagged 21 goals, even if he probably should have had more)
• Madueke – success (just – I think the jury is still out)
• Mosquera – success
• Norgaard – failure
• Kepa – failure (based on the League Cup final
• HIncapie – success

So I think our recruitment was pretty spot on, and I think this summer’s additions will only demonstrate that further, which will ultimately mean we are in a stronger position than we were last season – where we finished as Champions.

Honestly guys and gals, I’m not drinking the company Kool-Aid here; I think we’re in a great position, a great squad, we’re set up for success and now it is about delivering it on the pitch. So let’s all get back to focusing on that.

Catch you all tomorrow as we start to look ahead to Chelsea and the weekend’s fixtures.