You're playing up to the whole "we have no money" jargon. That's only related to wages. This summer coming a huge amount of wages will disperse. You're looking at £300k a week in just Özil and Alexis alone.
Wilshere and Cazorla will contribute another £190k p/w to that and then Mertesacker with a further £70k p/w. So the players who are out of contract will recoup £26m a year in wages.
AST firmly stated that there was a budget of £90M this summer. That was backed up by us with the £46.5M deal for Lacazette and then swiftly bidding £40-45M for Lemar soon after the Szczesny deal was done.
£43.5M (Budget left)
Szczesny sold (10M) (60K P/w)
Gabriel sold (10M) (50K P/w)
Toral sold (3M)
Hinds sold (2M)
Gibbs sold (7M) (65K P/w)
Oxlade Chamberlain sold (£35M) (65K P/w)
After Kolasinac and Lacazette we free'd up £240K per week in wages. The whole "Lacazette and Kolasinac wage is factored in" is absolute bullshit. We're well within the 7M extra guideline with the wages of the players we've sold now off the wage-bill.
So budget wise? Well we should have had £110.5M to spend. With that in mind and knowing a further £560K P/w in wages could be gone by the time we get to next summer we, Arsenal football club, should have £200M to spend on transfer fees without any outgoings from that window. If we get back into the CL even better, an extra £30-50M.
Positions I think Arsenal business LTD will address next window -
Centre half.
Central midfield.
Alexis replacement.
Özil replacement.
Who would I sign knowing we have a budget of £200M and are allowed to dig in with wages in quite a big way? Well...
First things first you go and get Draxler in the winter window, Mbappe and Neymar are going to take his game time and ahead of a world cup I don't think he'll like that. The price? Probably around £35-40M with all things considered. Draxler is currently on £90K P/w at PSG. Offer him £100K P/w here, job done.
Budget left - £160M and 400K P/w in wages.
Next summer you go out and sign Thomas Lemar for £92M, no ifs no buts that's the price. Wenger confirmed we'll go back in for him, that's what we'll have to offer. £125k P/w in wages, job done.
Budget left - £68M and 275K P/w in wages.
So you've sorted out the Özil and Alexis replacements, got in your number one target in the process. You now turn to centre half and central midfield as we're losing two from midfield and one from the back. £68M is enough to buy quality players in both of those areas.
I'd personally spend £30M on Seri (100k P/w) and then go for Koulibaly as the tall, dominant centre back to replace Mertesacker. However that may be an issue in our budget, we'd need CL football. He'd cost around £60M. Make CL football, get the extra £30M in and go for him. £150K P/w.
Money spent - £230M. Wages now null/void.
Players out - Özil, Alexis, Mertesacker, Wilshere, Cazorla. Players in Koulibaly, Seri, Draxler, Lemar.
Anyone else wants out like Bellerin, Mustafi etc then you replace them with the likes of Manolas and such. I'm pretty sure we'll look to shift at least one of Welbeck/Walcott/Ramsey who are on the last year of their deals as well. Ideally I'd look to sell Welbeck and bring Perez back into the squad after his loan.
(Hey, if you believe reports out of Spain, he sounded out Arsenal before signing his last contract.)
