Arsenal boss, Mikel Arteta says the club will need to sign senior players during the summer transfer window ahead of the 2021/2022 season.
Currently, the Gunners have made two recruits, signing Nuno Tavares from Benfica and Albert Sambi Lokonga from Anderlecht.
The two new recruits are both 21 years old and have limited experience. And with Granit Xhaka likely to leave the club for AS Roma, Arsenal will be left with Aubameyang, Willian and Thomas Partey.
“We need some senior players,” he told the official website. “Players with different types of leadership in the team, with different qualities, people that complement each other.
“At the end of the day, it is about the cohesion of the team, so we need a squad that is cohesive that can develop and adapt, that offers different qualities to change games, protect games when we need to and this is what we are trying to build.”
Tavares played and scored in our most recent pre-season game, the 2-2 draw with Rangers, and Arteta sounded impressed with the player, as well as paying tribute to the in-house identification of the left-back.
“We wanted to have more strength and specific qualities in the left-back position, and we identified Nuno a while ago,” he said.
“To be fair to the scouting department, they have done brilliantly to identify talent with the qualities that we required, at the age we required, and financially it was something we can afford.
“The boy has already been pretty impressive. I think he is the right profile for what we are trying to build here.”
Sambi is expected to take part in the Florida Cup games in Orlando, starting this weekend when Arsenal face Inter Milan.