After signing his new contract which will see him take charge of the club until 2017, Arsene Wenger has told fans they can expect the club to be very active in the transfer market.

It’s something we have heard before from the club, but last time around it was Ivan Gazidis telling people ‘We can do things that would surprise you’. Wenger is never usually so forthright about the summer activity, preferring to remain cautious about any possible spending.

However, asked by the official site if the fans should ‘expect a big summer’, he said, “Yes, they should expect that. What I can promise is that we work very hard on a market that is very, very congested with many people who have a lot of money.

“But we have a big advantage, players want to join us and if we find the right quality I’m sure we can strengthen the team.”

The other key difference is that this summer the money from new commercial deals and sponsorships kicks in. It’s not something that will happen in the future, it’s now, and on top of the resources the club already has it puts Arsenal in a good position to do quality business, something the Frenchman acknowledges.

“We have built a stadium, the fact that we have paid a big part of the debt back and the weight of the debt back now is not as strong and heavy as it was before. The fact that the Financial Fair Play rule comes in hopefully will stop craziness that happened on this market. With these two together, I think we can fight on a more even level than before.”

With fans used to business being done as the club try and bargain their way to better prices, there now seems an acceptance that the sooner we get things done the better.

“We know we have to have a successful June and July,” he said. “That’s where you strengthen the team. It’s very important that we are good now in the next two months until the end of August, that we can give to the team some more quality and go into next season with the belief we got from the FA Cup.

“It’s the start of a new team and I believe that victory was crucial in that belief.”

Arseblog News would suggest that some measure of caution is taken over these comments, but it’s certainly the strongest statement of intent we’ve heard for a long time.

Now, get shopping Arsene.