Arsenal plotting £150million transfer spree to close gap on Tottenham but will need to offload nine first team players to fund it – and Bukayo Saka needs to leave for good of his career

Arsenal are plotting a £150million spending spree this summer as they look to close the gap on the top four.

The Gunners narrowly missed out on a spot in the Champions League places after Mikel Arteta's side were pipped to the post by rivals Tottenham who claimed the final spot in Europe's top competition.

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For the red half of north London, this summer will be about addressing their shortcomings.

Gabriel Jesus and Youri Tielemans have already been heavily linked with a move to the club, while reports from have claimed Arsenal are hoping to conduct a major transformation of their first team and could supplement their spending by offloading up to nine first team players.

Matteo Guendouzi and Konstantinos Mavropanos have already raised around £12.5million after being sold to Marseille and Stuttgart.

Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah could also be on the list of players to move on with their contracts at the Emirates Stadium due to expire on July 1.

With no contract extension yet agreed, both strikers could be on the move and may have played their last game for the club.

Elsewhere  Hector Bellerin, Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Pablo Mari are all likely to move on having been deemed surplus to requirements by Arteta.

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Troy Deeney has been a critic of Arsenal in the past, but says he's a fan of what manager Mikel Arteta is doing at the club.

He did say, however, the Gunners will need a handful of attacking reinforcements if they're to challenge Spurs next term.

He told talkSPORT: "I think that Arsenal have got a big job this summer, particularly in the front line.

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“They’ll need to spend big on three or four players; if they just sign Gabriel Jesus [from Man City], I don’t think that will be enough over the course of the season, but I’m happy to be proved wrong.”

He added: “I don’t like Arsenal’s midfield, I’ll be honest.

“I don’t like [Granit] Xhaka and [Mohamed] Elneny, I just don’t see why you’d need two holding midfielders when you’re a team like Arsenal and you’re probably going to have the ball more than the other team because you’re a possession-based team.

“Two holding midfielders just says to me that you’re not trusting your back.

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“I like Mikel Arteta and the vision of what he’s doing, I just don’t think that’ll happen unless he spends big and gets characters to buy in.

“The building process for Arsenal will be getting hard-working players who buy in to the philosophy. That’s going to be the hardest part.”

Meanwhile, talkSPORT host Adrian Durham believes Bukayo Saka should consider leaving the club.

He said: "Bukayo Saka, for me, has to leave Arsenal for the good of his career.

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“He’s 20 years old, this season he’s played 48 games in all competitions, he’s played in all 38 Premier League games, starting 36 of them, and he’s 20 years old.

“This is strikingly similar to Jack Wilshere’s stats in the season that ruined his career, he didn’t play a single game the next year because of injury. They played him too much when he was that age.

“From the middle of last season when he burst onto the scene, they now can’t leave him out, they can’t rotate him, he’s always in the team.

“He’s still young, they’re not looking after him properly. He needs a bit of rest and to be brought out of the team every and then.

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“When you think about this summer they’re not going to be able to sign any players in that position because they need two strikers, cover for both full-backs, I think they need another centre back and another central midfielder, so they’re not going to be looking to sign anyone in Bukayo Saka’s position and that means they’ll be thinking that he’ll be in for 38 games again.

“He may well be okay, but heaven forbid if something happens to him.”