Arsenal just let the purse strings loose in the transfer window and spent close to $250m on Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber. The verdict from a lot of bystanders is that with this outlay, we are trying to "buy the league" but not in the way Manchester City did it.
Strangely, some detractors have been looking at the project and insinuating that with this outlay, Arsenal "must" win the title this season. It is a very strange way to look at transfers in 2023 but that's understandable because whenever Arsenal is concerned, people always change the narrative.
It wasn't too long ago that Arsenal ended our trophy drought with an FA cup triumph. That triumph was followed by two more, with one more coming under Wenger and another under Arteta.
Since we got those trophies, the story, at least for Arsenal, was that winning an FA cup doesn't exactly count as a milestone and a club of our stature should be competing for "major honours". Obviously, the FA Cup, unlike the mickey mouse carabao cup falls under major honours but they actually meant the Champions League and of course, the Premier League.
Until last season, Arsenal hadn't been in a title challenge, so in a way, we could say that all the detractors wanted was for Arsenal to be more competitive. After scores of very unbiased and completely objective opinions from Gary Neville and pundits alike, Arsenal got competitive last season, pushing for the title but fell short due to a lack of squad depth and mental fortitude to handle the pressure from the latter stages.
Today, deals for Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber were confirmed and as Arsenal faithful celebrated, rival fans claimed that our "spending spree" means that we must win the title or it is a failure. How caring they are to take their time away from focusing on their own club to spur Arsenal towards the title.
Nobody is rattled
How rather refreshing it is to see Chelsea fans saying things like "Arsenal spent over 200m, so they must win the league". I never thought I'd receive so much support from the blue(no pun intended) side of London because lets face it, things are looking pretty down this period.
Manchester United fans are never far away from conversations about Arsenal and many of them like @deniskj love to remind us about how much we have "spent" in this window. They're always cheering us on and saying positive things like "You have signed Declan Rice for 100m, so you must win the league".
In the past 5years, Manchester City have won 4 EPL titles but in that period, every club that's claiming Arsenal must win the league have invested a significantly larger outlay on their squad.
Just last season, Chelsea invested around $700m on a host of players, Manchester United also spent about the same on Antony as we did for Rice, despite having a squad that cost a bit over $1B pounds to assemble but hey, Arsenal must win the league because, like I said, standards are different for Arsenal.
I'd understand it if Spurs fans like @blanchy make the comments that Chelsea fans are making because Spurs live in our shadow and frankly speaking, we give them a lot more entertainment than their own club. However, for supporters of Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool to even make these comments about Arsenal winning the league because we "spent money", it really begs the question, where is the self-awareness?
Until we meet again, up the Arsenal
