Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Want To See New Players In January?

We all know what Arsenal’s priorities are this season.

The FA Cup is the best chance of silverware, although with all the big boys still in it’s going to be difficult to win. If Arsenal managed to lift the FA Cup and grab fourth spot come May I don’t think many Arsenal fans would be disappointed. In fact, I hazard to guess that most fans would be pleasantly surprised. I would be anyway.

The league is a pipe dream, and the Champions League is a lottery – although we’ve got a ticket so you never know.

That being said, everyone is hoping Arsene Wenger adds to the young squad in January.

But I don’t.

Last January was the time to spend the money.

We struggled in the last 10 games of the season in both the Champions League and Premiership and those extra couple of players were the difference in winning and losing the league. Don’t forget in the end we were only 4 points from lifting the title.

A couple of decent additions would have been enough to get us over the line, and more importantly it would have given Arsenal something to build on in the seasons ahead. We would have been Champions and players would have loved to join us – but as it stands we actually got weaker in the summer and lost some of our most experienced players.

It’s just amazing to think where Arsenal were only 12 months ago.

The big question is do Arsenal have money?

It depends on who you believe. The Arsenal board always come out and say Wenger has money to spend whenever the summer and January transfer windows come around. But is that actually true?

There have been theories floating around that Arsene Wenger actually knows there’s no money to spend and that he’s the fall guy to protect the board. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I know that Wenger is one of the most intelligent men in football so I wouldn’t put it passed him. And are the additions of Silvestre (750k), Bischoff (Free) and Ramsey (£5 million) signings of a manager who has money to spend? Yes, we brought in Samir Nasri too but we let go of Hleb, Flamini, Lehmann, Gilberto, Senderos and Diarra. And some of those players have gone on to play for massive clubs such as AC Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

So all things considered, it’s pointless to buy in January.

Why make more long-term problems for the club? If Arsenal actually do have money to spend on new signings (and if we do have funds then we know they’re limited at best) then I would much rather Arsene Wenger use the money in the summer when he can carefully assess the current squad and see what we need, rather than panic buy in January.