If Arsenal stop here, Andrea Berta’s summer will be good. It will also feel incomplete.
That distinction matters because transfer windows have become stupidly binary. Sign the glamorous player and the sporting director is a genius. Refuse an absurd fee and suddenly the club has “failed”. Berta’s job is harder than that, particularly after Arsenal won the league.
Look at what has actually happened.
Piero Hincapié’s loan became permanent. Illan Meslier arrived without a transfer fee to compete with Raya. Tzolis cost £34 million. Then Berta did something Newcastle insisted they did not want to facilitate and took their captain Bruno Guimarães for around £75 million. Newcastle later confirmed that selling Bruno had not formed part of their summer plan until the player pushed for the move.
That is serious recruitment.
Bruno already changes Arsenal’s midfield equation. Cardiff gave the first glimpse. Arteta started him with Ødegaard and Lewis-Skelly, then brought Rice into the match at half-time. Zubimendi was available too. Arsenal beat City 3-0 while Rice, Saka and Zubimendi all started on the bench.
Berta deserves credit for getting Arsenal to that position.
The harder question is whether the window has addressed the opportunity Arsenal have right now.
Arsenal pursued Morgan Rogers and explored Vinícius Júnior. Rogers eventually went to Chelsea for £117 million, a fee Arsenal were sensible to resist. Vinícius committed his future to Madrid. Walking away from either deal does not constitute incompetence. Sometimes the market tells you no, and paying almost any number because supporters want a signing is how clubs spend three summers repairing one.
But those pursuits tell us something about Arsenal’s own assessment of the squad. They were looking for an attacker capable of changing its ceiling.
Tzolis may become far better than the market expected. His performance against City makes that possibility much easier to believe. He was involved in all three goals, created two of them directly and looked comfortable operating within Arsenal’s positional game.
The question for Berta is whether an excellent £34 million winger should change the bigger plan.
Arsenal are champions. They reached the Champions League final. City have changed manager, are rebuilding their midfield and are dealing with another major transition. Liverpool are adapting under new leadership. Opportunities this clean do not arrive every summer.
Arteta said earlier this month that Arsenal expected more movement and would not sit still. Since then Bruno has arrived, but Arsenal’s continued work on Quansah and Konsa suggests the club still sees problems to solve at the back after Saliba and Timber’s injuries.
The attacking question remains.
Arsenal have Saka. They have Havertz and Gyökeres. Tzolis has made a superb start. Eze gives them another technician. The squad contains enough good attackers to win another Premier League.
The ambition should be higher than enough.
A genuine elite attacker changes knockout football. He gives Arsenal an answer when the positional game has produced nothing for 70 minutes. He makes opponents alter their defensive plan before the game begins. Arsenal’s original interest in Rogers and Vinícius suggests they understood that difference.
So would no further blockbuster make Berta’s summer a failure? No. Bruno alone prevents that verdict, and paying £117 million for Rogers simply to prove ambition would have been irresponsible.
It would leave an opportunity unused.
The best sporting directors know when discipline is protecting the club and when discipline has quietly become conservatism. Berta has strengthened the champions without doing anything reckless so far.
For this Arsenal squad, with City entering a new era and the title race shifting around them, “good enough” would be a strangely modest place to stop.
