Edu on... new signings, squad balance, Auba, Saka

It's been a very busy summer at London Colney.

Aside from a raft of new signings, we have also tied down Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to new contracts.

So now that the dust has settled, we sat down with technical director Edu to assess the transfer window. This is what he told Arsenal.com:

on how pleased he is with the transfer window...

I am pleased with the way we worked because we are facing a very difficult situation with Covid and in the market, everyone is quite worried about the future, the planning, whether they have the money or not, the revenue, so it is quite challenging but the way we did it was amazing. It is not only Edu, it is not only Mikel Arteta, we have a lot of people around us in the club that it is important to mention as well, financial, legal, medical, recruitment, our loan manager, but we cannot forget of course the support, of which I received a lot of, from the board and the owners. Without them, we cannot do much and I feel really comfortable with the way we are working and communicating together, we are talking almost every day right now so that is brilliant. I tell them with that possibility to have that type of relationship, I feel much stronger. That is the way they give to me and to Mikel as well, so that is the way we are working right now.

on the squad looking stronger...

I think we improved the squad's quality and physicality. Thomas, who we had in our plan for the future, when me and Mikel sit and talked, I think you get all the players who we really focused on. If you see Willian, he brings us experience and a very special physicality in terms of speed. If you see Gabriel, he gives us a lot of physicality and presence. Dani, quality. Thomas, physicality, quality and mentally he is very strong. But in the end if you see all these players we brought to the club, they are very good here (points to legs), but they are better here (points to head) which for me is very important because when you talk to the players, they have a lot of ambition, they are excited and they are hungry to win a title again. This, for me, is important to have in the players to not only be good here (points to legs), but good here (points to head). And they are.

on renewing the contracts of Auba, Saka, Martinelli...

This is another good point I want to mention because normally people are talking about signing players but for me and Mikel, we dedicate our time to what we have at home. So we have to renew players, we have to give our respect to the players we have here, so let's do it as soon as possible. If you see, Martinelli was the first one we did even before the window, Bukayo was during the window and Auba was in the window as well. Those three, in my plan, was to try to get them done before the window even opened but of course there are negotiations, there are talks, there are meetings but we did it and it's an important point as well.