Sign up to FREE email alerts from Mirror - Arsenal FC Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Arsene Wenger is eyeing a new wave of home-grown signings to bolster his

Arsenal squad.

Gunners boss Wenger sent his chief scout Steve Rowley to check on Charlton's promising right-back Jordan Cousins, 19, last week.

Rowley has also watched Reading's highly-promising 24-year-old keeper Alex McCarthy, as the Gunners' current No2 Lukasz Fabianski is set to leave on a free transfer in the summer.

Arsenal are checking on the best English players, after also scouting Nottingham Forest defender Jamaal Lascelles, 20, as they look to improve their squad because recent academy recruits are struggling to make the grade.

Wenger, who has seen the club appoint Andries Jonker as their new academy director from next summer, has overseen a new generation of British players in the first team and is clearly moving in that direction.

They are still in the market for big foreign signings and have not given up on signing Schalke's Julian Draxler in this window even though the German club do not want to sell.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

But Wenger laughed off reports in the Spanish press that he had been on a scouting mission at Levante vs Barcelona in Spain on Wednesday night after being pictured at Heathrow airport earlier in the day.

He said: "Last night (Wednesday) I watched PSG-Montpellier and United-Sunderland. At home. I don't know (where that report came from), maybe my father was there.

"Yesterday, I was at Heathrow but (later) I was at home - and you can check with my wife.

"The transfer window is not very romantic. It was not a transfer trip."

