Arsenal are on course for an 18th consecutive year qualifying for the Champions League.
Arsene Wenger has announced that his club has entered a new era; being able to financially compete for the best players in the world as the Emirates Stadium starts to bare fruit.
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For a number of years, Arsenal unable compete on a level playing field with rivals Man United, Manchester City and Chelsea spending hundreds of million pounds without any restraints, whilst the Gunners had to generate a profit in order to finance the move to new ground.
Profit was made through player sales and the likes of Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Alex Song were all sold for large sums of money and replaced by players not similar in stature.
However, the £42.4m signing of Mesut Ozil was a sign of things to come and Alexis Sanchez soon followed – Wenger has revealed that this will become a regular occurrence.
“What people forget is you have to build a new stadium,” Wenger told BBC Sport.
“Now we can compete for the best players and that was not the case five years ago.”
With more finances comes extra expectations and Arsenal spending over £100m over the past eight months means fourth places finishes are no longer good enough, something the Gunners boss will have to accept.