The other addition of note is Michy Batshuayi, with the Belgian arriving for a fee of around \u00a330 million. Given Diego Costa\u2019s combustible nature and the fact that he should have been sent off in two out of Chelsea\u2019s three opening fixtures means that the young attacker will likely be starting games sooner rather than later. The re-emergence of Eden Hazard after a poor campaign last season will also be a bonus for the Blues if he can keep his good form up as he did two years ago. They\u2019ve improved, but they\u2019ll still be turning to Terry more than is ideal and an injury to Hazard could see them struggle to create much going forward. That they missed out on some of their top targets is something that they haven\u2019t really experienced before, either.<\/p>\n
The Gunners rarely go crazy in the transfer market, with Arsene Wenger\u2019s reluctance to spend big causing problems with his own supporters. They finished second last year but have received no credit or praise for it as Spurs essentially threw the runners-up spot away when the title slipped from their grasp. Has the Frenchman broken the habit of a lifetime and improved things at The Emirates?<\/p>\n
Arsenal have reached the top four so consistently over the past decade that it\u2019s become something of a joke. The \u2018Wenger Trophy\u2019 might be used as a stick to beat Arsenal with, as is the fact that the Gunners have only won two FA Cups since moving to The Emirates in 2006. Yet players want to play in the Champions League and knowing that Arsenal are almost guaranteed to be there is attractive for the best footballers in the world. Just look at Alexis Sanchez\u2019s decision to turn Liverpool down for their London rivals a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n
Celso Pupo \/ shutterstock.com<\/p><\/div>\n
Everyone knows where Arsenal need to strengthen and it\u2019s been obvious for years. The only person who didn\u2019t see that a new goalkeeper, better defenders and a world-class attacker were the order of the day was Arsene Wenger himself. Arsenal fans thought the tide had started to turn when Petr Cech arrived last summer, but this summer showed that the Frenchman remains as stubborn as ever. Cech is a great goalkeeper but he\u2019s ageing now and doesn\u2019t command quite the same respect as he did when Chelsea were sweeping aside all in front of them, whilst the defence is still lacking that bit of quality; especially with a long-term injury to Per Metersacker leaving them looking light, too.<\/p>\n
How Have They Improved?<\/h3>\n
The signing of Granit Xhaka is a good one and he\u2019ll add steel to the middle of the park. He has been sent off a fair number of times in his career, however, and was lucky to stay on the pitch when we played them even though he only came on as a second-half substitute. It\u2019s also not as if Arsenal have had a terrible midfield in the past and Wenger\u2019s finally got around to noticing the problem. The midfield isn\u2019t the area the Gunners needed to improve the most so how much of a difference Xhaka will actually make will be interesting to see.<\/p>\n
The signing of Shkodran Mustafi from Valencia is one that did need to be made, though \u00a335 million is a huge sum for a central defender who is unproven in the Premier League. If he fits in well and takes the move from Spain in his stride then he could prove to be an astute and important signing. Likewise the signing of Lucas P\u00e9rez could turn out to be a masterstroke. He scored 18 in 37 for Deportivo La Coru\u00f1a last season and if he gets a similar return for Arsenal then they could well be in the mix at the end of the campaign. He\u2019s had a mixed career, however, and is normally more of a 1 in 3\/4 man than a 1 in 2 striker.<\/p>\n
Part Two will be with you in a couple of days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The period of the transfer window has come to a close, only really being talked about at any length right now because it\u2019s an international break and there\u2019s nothing else interesting to talk about. Last week I had a look at how I felt it had gone for Liverpool, but football clubs don\u2019t exist in a vacuum. Just as J\u00fcrgen Klopp spent the summer strengthening his squad, so too did all of the other managers in the league. There\u2019s no way to tell right now who Liverpool\u2019s rivals will be this season. After all, few expected Chelsea to be worried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}