Arsenal legend Sol Campbell is hoping the club’s new signings will at begin to ‘click’ soon, after a big-spending summer which could take some time to bear fruit.
The Gunners have spent the most of any Premier League side this summer, and are also the biggest spenders in Europe, capping off £149million worth of transfers with a deadline day deal for Takehiro Tomiyasu from Bologna.
Their spending this summer has seen Arsenal‘s squad become one of the most expensively assembled in world football, and yet Mikel Arteta’s side have yet to prove value for money.
The north London outfit currently sit rock-bottom of the Premier League table, with zero point and zero goals after three games in the 2021/22 campaign.
Gunners legend Sol Campbell joined talkSPORT to offer his verdict on their summer spending, and reiterated he’s happy to help his old club find a solution to their struggles, particularly at the back.
Former centre back Campbell, a two-time Premier League and three-time FA Cup winner with The Gunners, is currently out of work after management spells at Macclesfield and Southend.
And he sympathised with manager Arteta and technical director Edu, as they now aim to turnaround their season with a new-look squad, with Campbell saying they have a ‘serious problem’.
“I’d love to go there and help them out, I would,” the Invincibles legend said on Wednesday’s talkSPORT Breakfast.
“There is a serious problem there and I’m happy to help, even if it’s a couple of days a week.
“The tricks of the trade and little things, there is a blindspot there and I’d help them out all day long.”
Despite spending big money on England international Ben White, Arsenal have still had a very poor start to the season, but Campbell believes it runs deeper than individuals.
“It’s been happening a lot and it doesn’t matter who plays at the back, it seems to be the same type of occurrences,” he said.
“I think it’s a young team, there’s a lot of excitement in there, there’s great footballers but I think they just need the know-how, the tricks of the trade, picking up little things, little nuggets of information that someone like me or someone else can give over to them.
“Those little details I think will make the difference. Yes they’re a young team but it has been a regular occurrence and it doesn’t seem to matter who’s playing.”
Campbell thinks the key is moving on from a difficult time for the club, and hopes this new-look Arsenal side will click soon and rocket up the table.
“I think they’re trying to reboot the team and change the team, change the dynamic,” he said.
“It’s a difficult scenario because they’re bottom of the league. I know it’s a long season and there’s a lot of things that can happen but I think they’re just trying to make things move on and hopefully one or two of these signings will click.”
Things look pretty grim for Arteta and Edu, though, with transfermarkt.co.uk ranking Arsenal as the SIXTH most expensively assembled squad in the world.
According to figures from the transfer aggregator site, the Gunners’ current squad cost a stunning £495.95m to assemble, more than the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Juventus.
Arsenal broke their transfer record in 2019 to bring in winger Nicolas Pepe from Lille for £72m, and he has since managed just 15 goals and seven assists in the Premier League.
After Pepe sits £57m captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, followed by summer arrival Ben White who was bought for £50m from Brighton as the club’s biggest signings.
The list also contains some recent shockers, namely in the shape of £36m Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia and £30m Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was involved in the Alexis Sanchez swap deal with Manchester United.
Former Arsenal player and now transfer chief Edu has managed some difficult work, too, this summer, offloading the likes of Willian, Matteo Guendouzi, David Luiz and Hector Bellerin, taking some big wages off the books as well as recouping £27million.
But, again, transfermarkt.co.uk shows how tricky things have been at the Emirates, ranking the market value of Arsenal’s 13 departures at £176million, although many have gone on loan.
World’s most expensively-assembled squads
- Manchester City – Total cost of squad: £907.92m
- Manchester United; £801.21m
- PSG; £750.51m
- Chelsea; £586.62m
- Liverpool; £509.36m
- ARSENAL; £495.95m
- Real Madrid; £476.55m
- Atletico Madrid; 423.27m
- Juventus; £403.83m
- Barcelona; £394.56m
Download talkSPORT Edge NOW!
It’s the free football app that keeps you one step ahead of your mates with short, sharp and shareable content.
Whether it’s goals as they go in or the latest from your club, stay up to date with everything going on in football with breaking news, live scores and in-app betting.