Mikel Arteta Ready To Smash Arsenal Transfer Budget To Sign Striker

Mikel Arteta is willing to break Arsenal's transfer budget in a bid to land a star striker to spearhead their Premier League title challenge next season. Arteta's side have now gone five years without a trophy as they approach the end of a frustrating campaign marred by injuries to key forwards Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus. That trio, as well as influential midfielder Martin Odegaard, all missed substantial chunks of the season as Arsenal failed to keep pace with Premier League champions Liverpool before losing the Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain.

A new striker is top of Arteta's wish-list with Havertz, who has not played for almost four months, still the club's top scorer in the league with just nine goals.

Arsenal are believed to have at least £100 million ($132 million) at their disposal for new players and have been linked with RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko, Sporting Lisbon's Viktor Gyokeres and Newcastle's Alexander Isak.

After failing to lure England striker Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa during the January transfer window, Arteta is willing to do whatever it takes to get a new striker in the summer.

"The thing is that the budget is like when you have your wedding, you plan your wedding with your wife and you give her a budget and never less, and it's always more," Arteta told reporters on Friday.

"When you build a house it's always more. Normally this happens. And you prepare for different scenarios. Then unfortunate things happen. Sometimes we want a player and suddenly we have an injury or that player gets injured.

"There are so many variables that can happen but there is a budget. There is always an idea of what we can do, what we can improve, what the priorities are going to