We’ve spent the guts of 400 million between last summer and this one 
Yups, even when you remove the inflated prices… it’s still a good £250m+, we really need to bring home 1 major championship next season tbh. Now’s the time for Mikel to deliver.
Really wasn’t the point I was making. Not seeing that the title or the champions league is a necessity this season at all. Totally unrealistic to “expect” either.
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We should expect to compete. But yeah, outright winning a top honour(in our case PL or CL) is easier said than done.
Not to glorify “putting the pressure on” but we are competing in the toughest league in the world and will have to dethrone one of the best sides to ever play the game to win either competition.
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I should’ve separated the points. My response to you as in agreement that we’ve spent a lot of money; even if you remove inflation it’s still north of £250m.
Separately… I feel that we should be expecting to bring 1 major title home next season. If we’ve spent this much just to get top 4, that’s pretty sad.
Yeah absolutely, be there or thereabouts sure. But there’s too many variables to expect to win either of the big competitions.
TBH it may well be that we had to spend this much just to stand still.
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True. though I think we’ll be hamstrung in future windows if we outlay this much spend and can’t replace it with the revenues from winnings / selling players. Then FFP will come calling 
By the end of the window Man Utd would have spent the same as well.
The margins are so small in the PL that you honestly have to spend 100+m every window to maintain your spot and even then there’s no guarantees.
That’s true, but I think their sponsorships allow them to go that extra mile.
What do we think the expectations should be for us next season then?
3rd/4th and last 16 UCL would be a decline from my perspective.
20 years without a major trophy is very concerning, we fell short last season so we should look to do one better, no?
Yeah, it might well go that way. That’s why I feel a bit sorry for people who didn’t enjoy last season while it was happening and whose only context for success and enjoyment is whether we win the trophy in the end or not.
I wouldn’t be upset with a domestic trophies, Quarter Finals of the Champions League and top 3 as long as we are in range of City.
This is a team still yet to peak.
First season back in the CL could be a lot harder than people expect.
It takes a while to build up a pedigree in the competition.
Well, winning trophies should always be the goal at Arsenal but the competition is so fierce at the moment that you can’t really “expect” them.
Let’s not forget how easy it is to go bad from a great position.
Man Utd went from finishing 2nd, reaching the QFs of FA Cup, SFs of League Cup and final of EL to barely finishing 6th and not going deep in any cup.
Liverpool went from almost doing the quadruple to finishing outside the Top 4 and not going deep in any cup.
That’s after significant investment too.
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Hard to judge having not actually watched the full games v Barca or yesterday but what the fucks happened to our defence?
Thought it was some end of season shit, been a bit figured out, Saliba being injured and just lesser confidence. Based on pre-season seems we really have turned into the mustafi clown show days again at the back.
Need them to fix up when the real games start rolling otherwise we’ll be relying on 3-2’s and 4-3’s ffs
We’ve spent the guts of 400 million between last summer and this one
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That’s true but after seasons of no spending and selling our best players we are just spending our own money, generated by the club, rather than laundering money from dodgy owners. 
The money we’ve spent is based on very favourable loans from KSE, not Arsenal’s own revenue.
This is exactly my point.
But the general consensus seems to be “pre-season doesn’t matter, has no indication of future performance”, but from my view, it’s harrowing how poor we are at defending.
Definitely reminiscent of the days pundits called us “uncoachable”.
I look forward to the first goal we concede this season to see the people saying “Seeeeeeeeeee, we can’t defend anymoooooooore”
Wait till we lose a game and we can read how shit we were in pre-season so we should have known
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