BREAKING :Mikel Arteta ready to axe SEVEN Arsenal players to fund summer spending spree.

Arsenal will axe seven first-team stars to fund four summer signings after ‘dry January’

Arsenal are ready to move seven first-team players on in the summer to improve four areas of their squad, according to reports.

The Gunners recently suffered injuries to both Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka that will keep the pair out for a long time with the former to miss the rest of the season.

That led to Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta admitting they were working on potential January signings in an attempt to bolster their attacking ranks.

After deciding Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak and RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko were out of reach in January, Arsenal made a bid for Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins.

In the end the Villans’ £60m asking price proved too much and the Gunners decided not to bring in any signings before the winter deadline.

Speaking after the deadline had passed, Arteta said: “We had a clear intention which is always there is a window open to explore the opportunities to improve our squad with players that can impact it.

“We haven’t achieved it so we are disappointed in that sense but as well we are very aware that we only want to bring ­certain kinds of players and we have to be very disciplined with that and I think we will.”

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Asked if he saw it as a gamble, Arteta replied: “It’s not a gamble, it’s reality. I think we have to face the reality as well that we have. So we’re going to have to evolve there as well and have more and have more players from the academy and the ones that are here to be fitter longer.

“That’s a job that is permanent and it keeps evolving and we need to be on our toes. We’re going to have to be very flexible in the front line and now the ones that we have and are fit, make sure that they stay fit and they keep contributing.”

And now the Daily Mirror claims that Arsenal will have a big summer ahead of them after a ‘dry January’ which saw them fail to improve their squad.

The Gunners ‘will now be armed with huge cash at the end of the season to strengthen their ranks’ and Arteta is ‘ready to push the button on the arrival of a new marquee striker with Alexander Isak and Benjamin Sesko at the top of his wish-list’.

Their interest in Athletic Bilbao winger Nico Williams ‘remains strong’ while Arsenal are ‘willing’ to meet the release clause of Real Sociedad midfielder Martin Zubimendi ‘but they would also have to strike an agreement on personal terms with the Euro 2024 winner and there is expected to be stiff competition from both home and abroad’.