Arsenal Finding It Tough To Sign Players – Wenger

Arsenal Finding It Tough To Sign Players – Wenger

When Gunners chief Ivan Gazidis claimed that Arsenal have all new ‘financial firepower’ to sign players’ of the calibre of Wayne Rooney at the end of last season, big money signings were expected to roll into the Emirates and turn the north London side into the ‘invincibles’ once again.

However, Arsenal are yet to announce any major signings, with only 20-year-old France youth international Yaya Sanogo to show for their efforts.


Wenger has been desperate to add a prolific forward to take his beleaguered squad to the next level and the likes of Gonzalo Higuain and Stevan Jovetic were targeted by the Gunners. However,  A combination of Arsenal’s unwillingness to spend big despite their ‘financial firepower’, and rival clubs offering better chances of winning titles, resulted in the club missing out on those targets.

The Gunners turned their attention to Liverpool forward Luis Suarez and a bid of £40 million plus £1 did not activate the buy-out clause as Arsenal had hoped. Instead, the transfer is currently in limbo as Suarez is embroiled in yet another controversy, this time with his own club.

Arsenal have, so far, been unable to make any substantial headway in the transfer market and Wenger has now revealed that the current market is proving tough to sign quality players. He said that Arsenal are behind in terms of transfer activity since big spending clubs like PSG acted early in the transfer window to acquire their targets, whereas clubs with quality players in their ranks do not want to sell.

According to Metro, he said, “Some clubs acted very early so the choices were reduced and there is more competition coming from France with Paris Saint-Germain, who buy big players for huge amounts of money, so it’s tough, difficult and slow.”

It could have been a different story had the Gunners acted early but, nonetheless, Wenger remains confident in signing top-class talent with the money at his disposal. The bid for Suarez proves they are ready to spend some serious money and Wenger has called for patience as he seeks to recruit some new faces.

He said, “We try and get what we want, if that doesn’t work we will look somewhere else. The clubs with talented players don’t want to lose them. I can assure the fans we will try very hard to keep them happy. We are certainly ready to spend the money, but the process is going slowly, but surely.”