Ivan Gazidis says Arsenal’s spending potential could see the club compete with the likes of Bayern Munich, a club which generates its own income and isn’t reliant on sugar daddy funding.

Expanding on comments made earlier in the day, the Chief Executive said that the club is moving into a new dimension in terms of its financial situation, and compared us with the German giants while admitting we’re still some way away from what they do and how they do it.

“We have got fantastic support from Emirates through the new deal we’ve done with them”, he told a group of reporters yesterday.

“We’re very confident with the new deals we’ve got coming through, although we can’t talk about that in any detail. That’s showing really positive progression. We should be able to compete at a level like a club such as Bayern Munich.

“I’m not saying we are there by any means, we have a way to go before we can put ourselves on that level. But this whole journey over the past ten years really has been with that goal in mind which is why I say that this is an extraordinarily ambitious club.

“We get beaten up along the way but I think we are an extraordinarily ambitious club. This has been about putting us up with the best in the world and now the question is turning that platform now into on-field success.”

And with fans eager for new signings, and perhaps a marquee player like Dennis Bergkamp was in 1995, Gazidis said the club could do that when asked if Wayne Rooney was a possibility.

“We can look at some options that weren’t really in our financial capability. There has been a financial constraint and we had a strategy within those financial parameters which hasn’t delivered what we all want, I accept that, but that has been carefully thought through.

“Of course we could do that. We could do more than that. We have a certain amount which we’ve held in reserve. We also have new revenue streams coming on board and all of these things mean we can do some things which would excite you.

“What excites Arsene isn’t necessarily what excites you. We can think about all kinds of things. The important thing for us as a club, and it may frustrate everybody but we don’t think about what’s going to excite our fans for the next couple of weeks, we think about what’s going to excite them when we start playing in August and hopefully when we’re in March and April and competing.

“That’s what we’re focusing on. For Arsene, it’s a question of getting the right players, the ones he believes in, not necessarily the players the fans want. He’s very disciplined about his beliefs and how he wants to structure a team. And he’s done a fantastic job at that over a long period. He has new tools available to him financially and I think he’ll make good use of them.”

While Gazidis’s words may ring hollow to many, it’s interesting to read them in context – and a full transcript can be found on the Mirror football site.

Basically, Gazidis has made it clear that the club have money to spend, and a lot of it, and failure to do so will be down to the manager.

The ball is in your court, Arsene.