Cast your mind back to the summer of 2022. What were you doing? Covid measures had been finally lifted at the beginning of the year and we were in the midst of our first proper summer in 3-years.
Arsenal had just finished 5th in Mikel Arteta’s first full season, with 2 defeats in the last 3 games of the season (including one away to Spurs), leaving everyone a bit deflated. In response, we acted quickly and decisively in the market with the bulk of our business done before we stepped on the plane to our USA tour.
The result was we thrashed Chelsea 4-0 in Orlando as a taster of what might come, before beating Sevilla 6-0 in the 2022 Emirates Cup.
Following pre-season, there was excitement in the air of North London. Everyone was delighted with the business we had done and how quickly we had concluded the deals.
The pre-season results springboarded us into the new campaign and we won 9 of our first 10 games. Proof, if needed, that getting your business done early can lead to an explosive start to the season.
Considering the tough start we have to the 2025/26 season, we need to look at that summer of ’22 and try and replicate. Try and get the deals done quickly and have the squad settled before we go off to Singapore.
You would find very few, if any, that would disagree with the above. That like in 22, we “must act fast” and that by taking our signings on tour it could catapult “the team to an electric start of the season”.
So lets have a reminder of what happened in the summer of ’22:
10 June 2022- Arsenal sign Marquinhos from Sao Paulo on long-term deal
21 June 2022 – Porto agree to sell Fabio Vieira to Arsenal in £34m deal
27 June 2022 – Matt Turner: United States goalkeeper joins Arsenal from New England Revolution
4 July 2022 – Gabriel Jesus: Arsenal sign Brazil forward from Manchester City for £45m on long-term deal
22 July 2022 – Arsenal sign Oleksandr Zinchenko from Manchester City on ‘long-term’ deal
Now reading above, your first thought might be “really?” when you look at those dates Gabriel Jesus and Olexsandr Zinchenko signed.
By the end of June all we had signed was an unknown talent from Brazil a back up keeper and a big money risk from Portugal. Our two big name signings were not secured until July.
This will probably raise eyebrows from those moaning how slow off the mark we are this summer and saying we need to act more like it is 2022. Those people are clearly misremembering the facts. And as an example, Zinchenko did not actually sign for us until halfway through the Florida Cup tour, a day before we played Chelsea.
By the time this blog is live, we might have already announced Kepa and Martin Zubimendi. That will mean we are ahead of where we were for the 2022 summer transfer window – a number 2 keeper signed (same as 2022), and a first team player signed (which did not happen in 2022 until July).
Imagine the outcry if come the end of June, we have still not secured either Benjamin Sesko or Viktor Gyorekes? Yet the same people will point to the summer of 2022 window as a success, when we did not sign Gabriel Jesus until July!
And we fly out to Singapore on 23 July. That is more than a month away so plenty of time to secure our major signings before we go out on tour.
I think it is important to remember that if you are pointing to another year and saying “this is how it should be done”, you can not then criticise the club when those corresponding dates have not yet passed.
The summer of 2022 we acted quickly. But lets not pretend that all the deals were done before 21 June. At that point we had only signed the unknown from Brazil.
So yes, we need to replicate the summer of ’22. But let’s not then change the narrative of what actually happened during that window.
Have a good Saturday!
Keenos