Mertesacker admits Arsenal ‘fell flat on their face’ with spending spree
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Former Arsenal star Per Mertesacker has admitted that the Gunners ‘fell flat on their face’ with their attempts to spend their way back to the top of the Premier League.
Mertesacker spent seven years as a player, helping them to win three FA Cups, after moving to the Emirates Stadium from Werder Bremen.
His time at the Gunners also coincided with the downturn in results and performances under Arsene Wenger, which left Arsenal far behind the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City.
Wenger had attempted to correct that trend with a series of big-money moves, with Mesut Ozil, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang all arriving for fees of more than £40million.
The big spending has continued even after Wenger’s departure, with Nicolas Pepe arriving for a club-record £72m in 2019.
Despite that high spending, results on the pitch continued to be poor, with Arsenal failing to qualify for European football last season.
Mikel Arteta has since steadied the ship, moving on Ozil, freezing out Aubameyang and all but replacing Pepe with academy stars Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe.
Though he went on a major spending spree in the summer, paying out more than £130m on the likes of Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale, Arteta’s recruitment has been successful.
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Mertesacker has watched this change in transfer strategy play out from his position as Arsenal’s academy manager.
And it appears that the first steps to spending big money under Wenger did not sit right with him as the Gunners continued to struggle.
The German has now blasted that strategy, but insisted that the Gunners are finding their feet again under Arteta.
“We are in a state of upheaval and are building a team capable of development, which should be peppered with players from our own youth and professionals from abroad,” he told Suddeutsche Zeitung.
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“In the meantime, we had lost our way. We tried to make the connection to the top faster with costly commitments. We fell on our face with that.”
With the help of Mertesacker’s work with academy stars such as Saka and Smith Rowe, Arsenal are well placed to finish near the top of the Premier League this season.
- Arsene Wenger
- Premier League
- Arsenal FC
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