Arsenal manager Unai Emery has said that he may only dip into the transfer market judging by the performances of the players during the forthcoming weeks.
The Gunners have recently gone through a tough period with both Rob Holding and Danny Welbeck ruled out for the season and they have recently been joined by Hector Bellerin in the treatment room, although for a short interval until the turn of the year.
Amidst this, Emery has recently been asked about the club’s transfer plans for the New Year to which he has suggested that the board are working into potential deals to strengthen the current squad.
Nonetheless, the Spaniard tactician reiterated that he would prefer to offer opportunities to some of the young guns before deciding whether any spending is essential when the transfer window reopens.
“Only if we think the players can’t help us with a good performance. January is not a good transfer window for this reason, but we are going to look and the club is working for transfers in January, but also we are in a [good] way,” he told Sky Sports.
“We are making progress with young players and giving them chances, and when we need to give them more chances to play and show their progress we are going to do that.”
Arsenal recently witnessed a 22-match unbeaten run cease after a 3-2 league defeat at Southampton where Emery had to go with a makeshift central defence of Stephan Lichtsteiner, Laurent Koscielny and Granit Xhaka.
The situation should return to normalcy for the midweek League Cup quarter-final against Spurs with Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos serving their one-match domestic suspensions but there nevertheless remains the lack of depth in the central defensive position.
At present, Mustafi, Sokratis and Koscielny remain the only fit specialists for the central defensive role and the latter of trio is genuinely lacking match sharpness after struggling to cope with the aerial threat at St Mary’s.
