Arsenal are unlikely to finish in the top-six this campaign but Ben White will come good and ‘bring quality’ to the club.
That’s according to former defender Mikael Silvestre, who believes Mikel Arteta will be ‘worried’ after seeing a number of Arsenal’s Premier League rivals bolster their teams with big-money signings this summer.
Manchester United – who finished second last campaign – have spent more than £100m, while Chelsea – who finished fourth – broke their record on £97.5m signing Romelu Lukaku.
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Meanwhile, Arsenal have spent £50m on England defender Ben White and around £60m on incoming signings Martin Odegaard and Ramsdale.
‘When a team like Arsenal see the top teams spending a lot of money and bringing in quality players, it will worry them quite a bit,’ former Arsenal defender Silvestre told MyBettingSites.
‘They already had a tough task with having to improve from last season and closing the gap, but this has made it extremely hard for Mikel Arteta and his team to break into the top six this season.
‘That must be their main aim this season – to break back into the top six.’
He added: ‘There is a lot of pressure in England for teams to sign English players and as Arsenal already have quite a few foreign players, they leaned towards signing an English defender in Ben White.
‘Ben struggled on Friday against Brentford but he’s well-equipped, intelligent and is clever so I’m sure he’ll learn from his mistakes from the opening game.
‘It is a big step for him coming from a team like Brighton to Arsenal, but I believe that he’ll bring quality to the team at the back.
‘The defenders need to become more of a unit and must make sure they’re concentrating for the full game, and that hasn’t been this case at Arsenal in recent years, which is causing them to concede goals.’
