Speaking after Saturday’s 3-1 win at Watford, Wenger said: “We have bought two players in Mustafi and Lucas Perez”.
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They join Granit Xhaka, Takuma Asano, Rob Holding and Kelechi Nwakali as new signings made this summer.
On Friday Wenger denied that the pair were “panic buys” in the wake of criticism from Arsenal’s fan base, and sees £17m Perez – who scored 17 goals in La Liga last season – as a similar striker to Vardy after missing out on the Leicester star before Euro 2016.
“They had medicals. We have to finish the paperwork and I don’t know exactly when we will announce it but look, I think it could be announced at the beginning of the week”.
The 24-year-old is said to be on the verge of securing a move to north London from Valencia, with Arsene Wenger finally set to end the wait for new arrivals at the club. “But I think it will be announced early next week”. I try to make the decision.
The Arsenal boss said of Mustafi’s reported £35-million deal: “When you restart, when you handle some leagues they are [on] holiday, there was the European Championships and nothing happened, you couldn’t find anybody. If we get it done, we get what we wanted”.
Wenger joked that he is “scared” of the total sum that Arsenal seem certain to spend and predicts the Premier League clubs will easily top £1billion in summer transfer spending.
Wenger also went on to note that the transfers were rather hard to get across the line and that it represented the final bit of Arsenal’s transfer business, saying “We had to work very hard to get signings done”.
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“First of all we have a very big squad and we’ve spent a lot of money as well”.
