Wenger eyes defensive reinforcements

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has revealed he will attempt to bring in defensive reinforcements when the transfer window re-opens in January.

Laurent Koscielny expected to miss Saturday’s clash against Hull City with inflamed Achilles tendons,

“I believe we have done remarkably well on the transfer market. I agree we could have bought one more player, [but] we did not find.

“We will try to rectify that, because we are a bit short with the injuries we have [defensively], and overall I think we will rectify that in the transfer market in January.”

Meanwhile, Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has rubbished suggestions that the club are sitting on enormous cash reserves.

“There is quite a lot of inaccurate and superficial analysis about the cash that we have available for investment in the squad. That leads to stories for some unspecified reason, we are hoarding a vast cash balance and that is simply not the case,” Gazidis said.

“There are obvious reasons why we don’t broadcast to the world what our player spending position is, but the position is much more complex than is broadly understood.”

Gazidis went on to add the club’s ‘substantial’ amount of cash is merely used to comply with debt obligations.

“The second thing to understand is that we have to, always, keep a substantial amount of cash in reserve in order to comply with our debt obligations,” the Oxford graduate added.

“Most of the remaining cash is needed to run the club across a full season with all the costs, including player salaries, associated with that.

“We do try to keep a reasonable amount of cash available for future investment in the team and we think it is always wise, if possible, to have something in reserve.”

During the summer, the Gunners splashed out around £50 million on Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck. It is now being reported the North Londoners are preparing a £32 million bid for Borussia Dortmund centre-back Mats Hummels, who is also reportedly attracting interest from Manchester United.

Can the Gunners outbid United for Hummels? Surely not.

In other news, Wales captain Aaron Ramsey will return to training on Monday ahead of the Gunners’ UEFA Champions League tie against Anderlecht in midweek.

“He will be back in full training on Monday and certainly in the squad for Wednesday,” Wenger said.

Meanwhile, Theo Walcott will play for the Under-21 side on Friday, so do not expect him to be in the match-day squad for Saturday’s fixture against Hull.