Mikel Arteta's broken Arsenal transfer promise shows where Edu must improve in the summer

From a financial perspective many would argue that the January transfer window was a successful one for Arsenal.

Edu was able to get some of the wages of Pablo Mari, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Folarin Balogun off the bill until the end of the season, while the permanent departures of Calum Chambers, Sead Kolasinac and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in particular, removed a considerable financial millstone from around their necks.

This free up funds for the summer where the Gunners plan to bring in at least one striker to replace the outward bound Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah, some back up for Takehiro Tomiyasu and a new central midfielder.

However, things may not actually be as rosy as they appear.

In recent transfer windows, the termination of player contracts has become relatively commonplace at the Emirates Stadium. Henrikh Mhkitaryan, Mesut Ozil, Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi, Willian, Sead Kolasinac and now Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all essentially being paid to leave before their deals had expired.

At the best of times the consistency of these financial blows that Arsenal have had to deal with would be difficult to take, but in the current footballing climate they are being felt even more keenly.

Last year the Gunners recorded a loss of £47.8million for 2019/20 financial year, while a recent UEFA report revealed that their revenues dropped by 12% in the 2020 footballing year.

Meanwhile, the club had the 10th highest wage bill in Europe during that period, and Reach Sport Data can reveal that they have the fifth most expensively assembled squad in the Premier League.

As they seek to build themselves back up to challenging for the very top prizes in world football, Mikel Arteta has admitted this is a financial