Seven players Andrea Berta can sign for £300m to win the Premier League title

Andrea Berta has been welcomed to Arsenal with the promise of £300m to spend in his first summer as the club’s new sporting director.

That at least provides something to look forward to for a fanbase who will likely be feeling pretty glum in two weeks’ time after the Champions League Gods inevitably shine on Real Madrid once again to bring the Gunners’ season to an end, with just a third consecutive second-placed Premier League finish to show for their efforts.

Mikel Arteta will hope the summer transfer window – which he vowed will be “a big one” – can provide the added quality and depth to his squad for them to take that last step and win the Premier League title next season.

A report claims ‘Berta wants to alter the spine of Arsenal’s team, leading to a new second-choice goalkeeper, left-back, defensive midfielder, left-winger and striker being targeted, while cover could also be brought in for Bukayo Saka and recruiting an all-action central midfielder is a possibility’.

With that in mind we’ve picked six players Berta should sign for exactly £300m for Arsenal to go all the way in 2025/2026.

Joan Garcia (Espanyol): £25m

Arsenal had a couple of bids for Garcia rejected last summer before signing Neto on loan from Bournemouth, but are confident of getting their man a year on.

It does though feel like they could maybe find a better middle ground between a 35 year-old who’s spent a large part of his career watching from the bench and doesn’t look hugely concerned by the prospect of doing that for the rest of it, and a 23-year-old who currently has the third-best PSxG minus goals allowed score (+3.5) in La Liga.

That’s significantly better than David Raya (+0.9), though there are reasons for his only moderately positive score, and while we understand why Arteta wants something more like the Aaron Ramsdale/Raya-off he had last season, we can’t get our heads around the idea that a clearly talented young goalkeeper would be happy with playing domestic cup football for a big club rather than every game for a slightly smaller one.

Anyway, makes perfect sense for Arsenal if Berta can pull it off.

Jorrel Hato (Ajax): £40m

In almost all other cases, signing a left-back for a club that’s about to lose three of them, or maybe two-and-a-half if we’re counting Oleksandr Zinchenko and Kieran Tierney as Proper Full-Backs and Jakub Kiwior as more of an all-rounder (albeit one of those that can’t really bat or bowl but is great value after you get a couple of beers in him), would be a no-brainer.

But that’s because most other clubs wouldn’t have any left-backs if that many left-backs left the club. They’re Arteta’s absolute favourite though. He will still have Myles Lewis-Skelly, Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori as top-quality options, while Takehiro Tomiyasu – assuming he at some point returns from injury – could also do a job there.

Absolutely not needing a left-back won’t stop Arsenal signing a left-back though, and if there’s anything Arteta likes more than left-backs it’s a left-back who used to be a centre-back, as 19-year-old Hato was in his breakout season for Ajax before moving to the flank this term.

Martin Zubimendi (Real Sociedad): £51m

We wouldn’t be so naive as to claim any deal involving Zubimendi is done after the midfielder embarrassed Liverpool last summer in what was about as done a deal as it’s possible to be without crossed t’s and dotted i’s, but it might just be the most done deal on this list.

Zubimendi is now very much open to leaving his boyhood club and will presumably be encouraged by the Zubimendi-shaped hole in Arsenal’s midfield and the prospect of reuniting with Mikel Merino, though the latter would presumably be pushed further down the pecking order as a result.

Berta should be looking to tie this one up as a priority as there are slightly concerning reports of growing interest from Real Madrid.

Nico Williams (Athletic Bilbao): £48m

Arsenal approached Athletic Bilbao and Williams’ representatives after his star turn at Euro 2024, and reports suggest Mikel Arteta hasn’t wavered in his belief since that the 22-year-old is the ideal left-wing addition to his squad and starting line-up.

An uptick in form that’s seen Williams score five goals in his last seven games, including a brace in the 3-1 victory over Roma to send them through to the Europa League quarter-finals, appears to have strengthened Arsenal’s resolve to get the deal done, with Berta’s arrival also expediting negotiations as the sporting director is said to have met with Williams’ agent this week.

Matheus Cunha (Wolves): £62m

“I’ve made it clear that I need to take the next step. I want to fight for titles, for big things. I have potential,” Matheus Cunha said last week, putting Premier League suitors delighted by the thought of a player of his ability wanting to fight for titles rather than with human beings on red alert, before the Brazilian rowed back from his position of international break-provoked bluster to insist he meant he wanted to win stuff for Wolves.

That’s not going to happen. He knows it, the buying clubs know it and Wolves know it having got their prized asset to sign a new deal in February to ensure they get decent buck for their bang this summer. Berta’s arrival means the Gunners are now in ‘pole position’ to land Cunha having signed him for Atlético Madrid in 2021.

He’s in our Premier League XI of the season so far.

Benjamin Sesko (RB Leipzig): £58m

There’s some weird sniffiness from Arsenal fans surrounding the club’s supposed heightened interest in Viktor Gyokeres courtesy of the arrival of Berta, mainly based around the idea of him not being Alexander Isak.

But the Gunners are unlikely to be putting £100m on the table for Isak given the improvements they want to make elsewhere, and anyway, Newcastle will probably be after more than that, and a move to Liverpool feels more likely in any case if he is going to jump ship.

Other Gyokeres issues include his age (26), 18 of his 42 goals this season being penalties, those goals being scored in a Farmer’s League and the very odd claim that if he was all that then he would already be playing for a top team.

The 21-year-old Sesko has scored just three of his 17 goals in German football from the penalty spot and has taken the well-trodden path from RB Salzburg to RB Leipzig ahead of bigger and better things to make him a more intriguing purchase, if not a better one.

Yasin Ayari (Brighton): £14m

We were missing the ‘all-action midfielder’ and assuming Arsenal want Berta to spend exactly £300m were offered a choice between Nottingham Forest’s Nicolas Dominguez and Ayari having whittled down Premier League midfielders according to Transfermarkt’s market values.

We actually reckon either could be decent additions for Arsenal, but plumped for Ayari as he’s a 21-year-old midfielder who plays for Brighton, meaning there’s every chance he could imminently be worth £100m.

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