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Arsenal fans feared the worst at the start of the summer, when reports emerged from the club that Unai Emery had a budget of only £45 million to spend on new players.
Yet the deadline day arrivals of Kiernan Tierney from Celtic and David Luiz from Chelsea took the total value of players arriving at the Emirates to £141 million.
Despite this, though, it looks like the Gunners kept within the £45 million limit through a combination of player sales and the clever structuring of transfer deals. In terms of sales, more than £60 million was raised from the sale of Alex Iwobi, Laurent Koscielny, and a host of other players. The transfer kitty was also swelled by the add-on fee which was secured when former Gunner Ismael Bennacer moved from Empoli to AC Milan.
Meanwhile, deals for Nicolas Pépé and ST. Etienne defender William Saliba have been structured in such a way that only a part of their transfer deals had to be paid up-front, with the balance of the payments spread over several years.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.