Arsenal to ‘sacrifice top transfer targets’ in favour of blowing whole budget on Premier League pair

Arsenal are willing to abandon their other transfer plans this summer in order to land both Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo, according to reports.

Mikel Arteta insists Arsenal must “nail” their transfer business in the summer if they want to compete with Manchester City again next season.

Arteta told reporters: “We are really lucky because when you open the doors of Arsenal and you talk about Arsenal to any player, they want to come.My experience has been that, regardless of Champions League [football].

“Champions League helps, because every player wants to be involved in that competition and it’s going to help us, because we are going to have to nail the recruitment, because we know that we are going to have play a different level and the demands are going to be even higher.”

Arteta has a number of positions in mind that he’d like to strengthen but midfield has always been his priority this summer with Football Insider claiming that Arsenal could now spend their whole transfer budget on two players.

The report adds that Arsenal are ‘favourites to sign both Rice and Caicedo this summer, but affording both star midfielders would require the North London club to give up on other targets.’

Buying both players would likely cost the Gunners around £180m and ‘would burn a large portion of Arsenal’s transfer budget’.

Reports have claimed West Ham are looking for around £100m for Rice – although Arsenal are hopeful they can pay less – while the Gunners are looking at between £70m and £80m to land Caicedo from Brighton.

Arteta also has his eye on a centre-back, right-back and striker but Football Insider insists that those deals ‘would all be put on pause in order to finance deals for Rice and Caicedo’.

Former Aston Villa striker Gabby Agbonlahor reckons Arsenal need to sell as many as ten players and bring in seven more this summer to be successful.

Agbonlahor said on talkSPORT last week: “The players that I would sell are Xhaka, Pepe, Lokonga, Smith Rowe – I’ll be looking at £30 million-£40 million, he’s come back from his injury, he has not played much, you could get a good lump of money if you sell him.

“Balogun, I’d sell him, Mari, Cedric, Tavares, Holding and I wouldn’t want to sell Tierney but there’s been talk that Newcastle are after him. So if that’s where they are looking, you let Tierney go to Newcastle.

“And I say Arsenal need to go out and sign seven players.”

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