Arsenal will reach the end of the 2024 January transfer window without having dipped into the market, leaving the squad as it is to challenge for the Premier League and Champions League.

Edu and Mikel Arteta have built the squad together over a number of recent seasons to a point where they mounted a first Premier League title challenge in 15 years in 2022/23, falling short at the end.

Nealry £200m was spent off the back of that progress to kick on, with only £70m brought in. That was always likely to make more deals in January a financial juggling act, but given the way that Liverpool and Manchester City are threatening to make this season’s title race a two-horse race without Arsenal, perhaps another body or two in targeted positions would have boosted their chances.

Arsenal’s defensive record, conceding 21 goals in 22 Premier League games so far this season, is bettered only by Liverpool (19 in 22). But the Gunners trail both the Reds and Manchester City in the goalscoring charts. Tottenham have also scored more, while they are matched by Aston Villa and Newcastle. Gabriel Jesus has admitted that finding the net isn’t his biggest strength and last season’s top scoring Arsenal players were all wingers or midfielders maxing out at 15 goals.

Arteta said in the middle of January that signing a striker wasn’t “realistic”. Certainly, splashing out the £80m or more Brentford were believed to want for Ivan Toney might have looked a slightly desperate and reckless move in the circumstances, but a more considered approach for a ‘number nine’ not governed by the indisputable ‘Premier League tax’ could have worked.

As 90min reported, Arsenal have watched Feyenoord striker Santiago Gimenez in action this season. The 22-year-old Mexican has scored 19 goals in 19 Eredivisie games so far in 2023/24, on top of his 28 in all competitions last season. Feyenoord have been understandably stubborn about his future, trying to scare off suitors with a price tag as big as Toney’s. But a team outside Europe’s top five leagues without the same guaranteed riches usually has a greater incentive to sell for a more sensible price, while Gimenez is five years younger than Toney and a better long-term investment.

On a similar theme but a potentially more immediately affordable option, Serhou Guirassy has left Bundesliga defences battered and broken in his wake this season. Prior to heading to the Africa Cup of Nations with Guinea, the 27-year-old striker had netted 17 times in 14 league games for Stuttgart.

Guirassy is a product of French football and something of a late bloomer, having failed to make a permanent breakthrough at Lille and later Koln in Germany – think along the lines of Premier League legends Didier Drogba and Olivier Giroud, both of whom came to success later. He started to find his feet at Rennes in 2020, but it wasn’t until joining Stuttgart in 2022 that things truly clicked.

90min reported back in December that Arsenal were among a handful of clubs, alongside Manchester United, contacted by intermediaries about an approach for Guirassy. Those representing him were particularly hopeful of securing a Premier League transfer and a release clause of just £15.2m looked appealing for a striker in such form in a high calibre league. Even though he will now finish the season with Stuttgart, a summer transfer somewhere looks inevitable.

Arsenal paid £50m for Ben White after he made his name with Brighton as one of English football’s up and coming centre-backs, only to spend most of his Gunners career to date at right-back. That encouraged the club to part with almost £40m for Jurrien Timber, only for an ACL injury on his Premier League debut to rule him out for most, if not all, of this season.

Takehiro Tomiyasu has only started 23 total club games since the beginning of 2022/23, mostly because of injuries, while it’s a surprise that Cedric Soares is even still around. It stands to reason that targeting a right-back, not necessarily an expensive one – or possibly a loan – given Timber will return in 2024/25, would have been a sensible recruitment strategy.

Bayern Munich were interested in Paris Saint-Germain’s Nordi Mukiele as they assessed their own right-back needs amid similar interest in Kieran Trippier. The German champions went for Sacha Boey instead, which could have left the Gunners with a free run at fellow Frenchman Mukiele had they wished. The 26-year-old has mainly been a back-up at PSG since joining from RB Leipzig in 2022 and, as 90min reported when Bayern were weighing things up, he wanted to move this winter.