Arsenal £75m transfer coup shows up the faults in Man City spending bores

There is much to admire about Premier League leaders Arsenal, driven on by the artistry of Martin Odegaard, skill of homegrown star Bukayo Saka and feverish passion of head coach Mikel Arteta.

Two players they would count as key to their title challenge (and potential title win) are former Manchester City players Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, who have been hailed for bringing the winning mentality needed for the squad to reframe their ambitions for the season. On top of their footballing abilities, Jesus convinced his teammates they could best Pep Guardiola's defending champions while Zinchenko has already captained the team and helped their recovery in the dramatic draw with Southampton recently.

The £75m pair have helped to bring the best out of a talented squad and enable Arsenal to exceed expectations. In doing so, the Gunners have helped to differentiate between spending and spending well.

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It wasn't that this was the first chance the North Londoners have had to spend money - they spent £72m four years ago on Nicolas Pepe and he has spent this season on loan at Nice after falling well short of expectations. Arsenal have actually outspent City over the last three seasons and their total for this campaign has only been surpassed in Europe by Manchester United and Chelsea.

Arteta has been backed to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds during his time as manager, and it has not all come off, but he has shown that it is possible to compete with City. Few could have imagined that Granit Xhaka would have been part of a title-challenging side yet his £35m fee from 2016 has never looked better value for money than it