Arsenal will back Arsene Wenger in the transfer market ‘to win major trophies’ vows chief executive Ivan Gazidis
Gunners announced revenues up by more than £70million in 2016 with board ready to give French boss what he needs to get back into the Champions League next season
ARSENAL will continue to financially back Arsene Wenger as they chase domestic and European trophies, vows chief executive Ivan Gazidis.
The Gunners have shelled out over £200million in the last three years and Gazidis claims the club will make “all available revenue” to Wenger as they hunt for major honours despite no Champions League football.
Arsenal broke their transfer record to sign Alexander Lacazette in the summer and also spent big to land Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka last year.
Gazidis who said last season's poor showing was a "catalyst for change" was speaking after the Gunners announced turnover in 2016 of £422.8million, up more than £72m on the previous year’s results.
He said: “Our ambition is clear - to win major trophies.
“In order to compete at the top, we need to strive to be better than our competitors in everything we do.
“That is why during the past season we have continued to make substantial investments to drive the club forward.
“At the top of the pyramid, we have scaled up our investment in our first team squad significantly in recent years, spending a net £203m in transfer fees in the last three seasons.
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“With few notable outward transfers during this period, our squad size had grown and we therefore had two major objectives for the summer transfer window.
“To add to the squad only where we could improve the quality of the players available to our manager – quality over quantity – and to reduce our overall squad size.
“To that end, we secured Sead Kolasinac and Alexandre Lacazette, our two primary targets for this transfer window."
Gazidis added: “At the same time, we retained Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil and promoted new young talent from our academy pipeline into the first team. These decisions, taken as a whole, have again strengthened our squad for this season’s competitions.
“We will continue this long-term approach of progressively reinvesting all our available revenue in our playing resources as we look forward.”
