ARSENAL missed out on Mykhailo Mudryk when Chelsea stumped up £88million for the Ukrainian winger.
That is despite the rising star posting various messages on Instagram hinting at his desire to move to the Emirates.
Now the Gunners are looking at other attacking wide players to provide support and competition for Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
Bayer Leverkusen ace Moussa Diaby is one option while Raphinha reportedly snubbed a move for the second time in six months as he wants to stay at Barcelona.
Mikel Arteta will be sitting down with his scouts, recruitment team and sporting director Edu to work out their plan.
But how does Edu’s transfer record stand up since returning to the Emirates in July 2019, firstly as technical director?
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He has overseen 24 transfers, spending just shy of £500million.
Thankfully for Arsenal fans there are more hits than misses – and crucially most of the additions under Arteta have been successes.
HITS
Starting with the positives and SunSport reckons 11 of the 24 have definitely come off for Arsenal.
Eyebrows were raised regarding the big-money moves for Ben White and Thomas Partey, who cost £50m and £45m respectively – but the pair have become key components of the starting XI at the top of the table.
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Goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale is proving why Arsenal were so keen to spend £30m on him with captain fantastic Martin Odegaard arriving for the same price.
Centre-backs Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba both cost £27m and the Gunners are getting their money’s worth out of them – just like left-backs Kieran Tierney (£25m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£32m).
Gabriel Martinelli (£6m) was a superb acquisition directly from Brazil, Takehiro Tomiyasu (£19.5m) has starred when fit and Gabriel Jesus (£45m) made an excellent start to his first season at the club before injury.
MISSES
But despite the 11 hits, there have been arguably nine misses for Edu since the summer of 2019.
The biggest and most obvious of those is the club-record signing Nicolas Pepe – the Gunners splashed out £72m on the Ivorian but it has not worked out for him, so much so that he is now out on loan at Nice.
David Luiz (£8m) also joined Arsenal in 2019 while Dani Ceballos came in on loan from Real Madrid but made very little impact despite 77 appearances.
Arteta oversaw the additions of Cedric Soares and Pablo Mari as his first deals in charge – both initially on loan before free and £10m transfers respectively but they did not work out as planned.
Willian signed on a free transfer that failed spectacularly, especially given his eye-watering £200,000-a-week wages, while Gunners fans will be thankful the club only spent £1m on back-up goalkeeper Runar Alex Runarsson.
The Runarsson flop prompted the signing of Mat Ryan on loan in January 2021 while £7m Nuno Tavares is the only recent addition that it really has not worked out for.
JURY’S OUT
That leaves four players, with three of those only moving to North London last summer.
The exception is Albert Sambi Lokonga, who has failed to justify his £17m price tag and still seems unable to secure his role in the squad.
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The others are Fabio Vieira (£34m), the Portuguese playmaker starting to settle and shine, as well as teenage winger Marquinhos (£3m) and second-choice goalkeeper Matt Turner (£8.2m).
They are too early on in their Arsenal career to make a judgement call just yet but have shown glimpses of quality and what they can bring for Arteta.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
