Nov 23, 2012 11:08 PM EST
Arsenal Transfer News: Arsene Wenger Will Have a Big Transfer Chest in January and Next Summer After Club Announce Lucrative Deal with Emirates

Arsene Wenger will have a considerable fortune to spend in the next two transfer windows after Arsenal announced a £150 million ($240 million) extension to their deal with Emirates.

The new contract means, Emirates will remain the club's shirt sponsor until the 2018-19 season, while also retaining the naming rights for the 60,000-seater stadium until 2028.

Arsenal's chief executive had promised stability and new renewed income for the Gunners, and the beginning of that steady flow has started with the Emirates deal. Several of Arsenal's long-term contracts, which were made to fund the new stadium, including the shirt deal with Nike, expires in 2014, with the North London club set to make more money.

Gazidis promised a considerable portion of the money would be made available to Wenger for transfers, both in January and next summer.

"What we can do is to develop a really strong financial platform for the club which give us the ability to compete for top players, both that we want to bring in and whom we want to keep," he said. "We will be able to be more financially competitive, which will enable us to push forwards on the field.

"We can pay bigger salaries and I think we can invest more in transfer fees.

"How we make those decisions will be based on a manager whose judgement over the years has been shown to be absolutely outstanding.

"There is nobody else I would want to be thinking about those types of decisions on behalf of this football club.

"We do have cash coming in from this Emirates deal, because we wanted to start to invest in the team a little more now, so we will have that capability by the summer.

"But we also kept some powder dry, so we have got the ability to invest if the manager finds the right opportunities in January."

Gazidis has come for much criticism lately, with the Arsenal fans lambasting the former MLS deputy commissioner's £2.1 million ($3.4 million) salary, while also showing their displeasure on the way the club was being run, having gone over seven years without a trophy.

However, Gazidis insisted he was not too concerned by the criticism, saying he and the rest of the board believed in the manner in which the club was being run, and the long-term success that can be achieved with it. "I don't take those criticisms personally," the American added. "We know what path we are on and I am convinced we will be able to deliver on that.

"There are a lot of people who work passionately for this club who care about this club just as much as the fans do. We are not satisfied where we are, Arsene is not satisfied, and nor are the players.

"We trying to push forwards, but the strategy is we try to stand on our own two feet. I don't pretend it is not without challenges. We are competing against clubs who seem to have unlimited budgets.

"It would not be a succesful strategy to try to outspend them, so we have adopted a different path.

"Success on the pitch drive commercial revenues, and commercial revenues enhance our ability to compete on the pitch.

"We are developing the right strategic plan for our club which gives us the foundation to compete -- whether we can deliver on that will depend on how well we execute it."

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