Transfer window review: a summer of light and shade
Defence and midfield strengthened without being the priority, attack left thin without a real replacement: a look back at Arsenal's uneven summer 2026 window, with the numbers and outside opinion behind it.
⚠️ UPDATE (03/09/2026) — Martinelli’s move to Al-Hilal is now official: £60m fixed plus a sell-on percentage, on a four-year deal. Full details in the dedicated article.
Arsenal’s summer window closed on Monday night, and honestly, it leaves a mixed taste.
At the back, on paper, it’s solid business. Hincapié’s move is now permanent, and Konsa arrives from Aston Villa to shore up a defence that just lost Saliba to injury. That wasn’t the priority coming into the summer, but with Saliba out, the timing works out. Same story in midfield: Bruno Guimarães arrives with a huge fee attached, even though that position was clearly not what this title-winning squad needed most.
The real problem is up front. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Defence and midfield: solid business, wrong priority
Piero Hincapié’s buy option was triggered after a successful loan season and a title: £34.5m, a five-year deal, wrapped up by 30 June without any fuss. Not much debate around this one, he earned it over the whole of last season.
Konsa is a different story. £51m plus add-ons for a centre-back when Arsenal already had eight in the squad raised eyebrows across the board. Gary Neville publicly asked why Arsenal needed a ninth defender with a squad that stacked, before concluding that exact kind of depth is what wins titles over a long season. Ian Wright, for his part, simply said he was pleased to see Konsa arrive. Opinions differ, but they land on the same point: he’s a good player, he just wasn’t everyone’s priority.
Bruno Guimarães cost £75m from Newcastle, the summer’s biggest outlay. Here too, opinion is split. Dietmar Hamann called it premature to label him “top class” before he’s proven it at the Emirates. Jamie Carragher went further, arguing Bruno tends to slow the game down and that he’d rather have signed Sandro Tonali. On the other side, analyst Rory Jennings praised the deal, saying a Rice-Guimarães midfield pairing looks properly intimidating. Bruno is probably a good player. But midfield was already the strongest part of this squad.
The attack: the summer’s real letdown
Where things actually needed to move, nothing moved the way it should have.
Morgan Rogers, identified early as the priority attacking target, went to Chelsea for a British-record £117m that Arsenal refused to match. Vinícius Júnior shut the door by signing a new deal at Real Madrid before Arsenal ever opened a serious approach. Bradley Barcola, the third option, ran into PSG’s asking price. Arsenal chased all three names for the whole summer, and none of them landed. The Athletic summed it up before deadline day: the left-wing question was still open, and Arsenal hadn’t answered it.
And the list doesn’t stop at those three. Arsenal were also negotiating for Jeremy Monga, a young Leicester winger, around £10m and thought they had his personal terms locked in, before Manchester City hijacked the deal with Enzo Maresca personally working to convince him. Malick Fofana went to the Premier League after Arsenal wouldn’t match Lyon’s asking price, with Sunderland and Crystal Palace fighting over him until the final hours. Pedro Neto stayed at Chelsea, who pushed his valuation up without Arsenal ever tabling a bid. Kenan Yıldız never left Juventus, with Luciano Spalletti shutting the door publicly. Victor Osimhen never even got a negotiation started, Galatasaray’s president refusing to sell at any price. Julián Álvarez stayed at Atlético, who wanted around €150m with no Arsenal bid on the table. Kerim Alajbegović chose to stay loyal to Atalanta rather than move to England. Arsenal also sent scouts to watch Kauã Elias at Shakhtar Donetsk without ever following up, while Eli Kroupi and Christian Kofane never got past being names on a list, with no bid attached to either. Antonio Nusa denied wanting to leave Leipzig, and his teammate Yan Diomande went to Real Madrid instead, with Arsenal never involved.
Meanwhile, the club sold from the front line. Gabriel Jesus left for Barcelona for a modest fee compared with what Arsenal paid for him. Gabriel Martinelli is heading to Al-Hilal for the club’s record sale, over £55m, even though the Saudi side still hasn’t made it official. Ethan Nwaneri, for his part, is off to Dortmund on a season-long loan.
Those exits didn’t sit well with everyone. Gabriel Agbonlahor said Arsenal should have kept Martinelli and offered him a new deal instead. Alan Smith, a club legend, admitted he couldn’t follow the logic of a young player like Martinelli heading to Saudi Arabia. Martin Keown took a more measured line, calling the Martinelli sale defensible in principle, but insisting Arsenal needed to bring in another forward before the deadline to cover it.
That signing never came. The summer’s only genuine attacking reinforcement is Christos Tzolis, who arrived in mid-July for £34m. He’s a good player at a fair price, but Ornstein and Romano framed him from day one as quality depth, not the attacking leader Arteta was after.
GG’s take
Bruno and Konsa are real, solid additions, and the timing worked out given the circumstances: Saliba’s injury made Konsa feel almost necessary in a way it didn’t back in June. But that’s not where Arsenal needed to spend this summer. The defence was already working well, midfield too. The title gets decided up front against opponents who are only going to raise their level, and up front is exactly where Arsenal went backwards: two exits confirmed, one loan out, one signing in to cover it all.
And I’m clearly not the only one who sees it that way. When Martin Keown himself says Arsenal needed to sign a forward after selling Martinelli, and it never happens, that confirms what it’s felt like from the inside: there was never a real plan B out wide.
Tzolis is going to play, and play well. But relying on him alone to cover Martinelli’s exit, Jesus leaving, and Nwaneri’s loan is a real gamble. One serious injury in an attacking position and the squad is exposed. Arsenal spent the whole summer chasing big names, and finished the window with fewer options than it started with.
My grade: 4/10. The position that actually decides the title is the attack, and that’s exactly the one Arsenal left thinner without ever building it back up. Everything else was solid work, but it doesn’t make up for that gap.