Arsene Wenger may seek only two players to add to his Arsenal squad for next season's European Champions' League campaign and the defence of the Premiership title.
The names of players already linked to the club, including three Frenchmen in the Monaco winger Thierry Henry, the Metz midfielder Robert Pires and Jerome Bonnisel, a wing-back with Deportivo, are sure to be touted again along with Ajax's Dutch twins Ronald and Frank de Boer.
The Highbury manager admires them all but will not be pressured into joining the spiral of transfer fees and wages demanded for top players. "He has shown he is not just a big spender of our money," said Arsenal's chairman Peter Hill-Wood.
Wenger, who spent £15 million last summer, including £5 million on the winger Marc Overmars and £3.5 million on the midfielder Emmanuel Petit, said yesterday: "I will try to add a maximum of two new players and the ones I respect most are those who have had success with their clubs."
Wenger will certainly seek a replacement for the French defender Remi Garde, who has decided to retire after a series of injuries, and he is aware that David Platt may soon be head-hunted by clubs wanting to make him a manager or coach.
Wenger himself has contract negotiations ahead and a proposed five-year contract worth up to pounds £5 million should be in place before the start of the new campaign and the draw, to be made in Monaco on August 27, for the six groups of four teams to start the next Champions' League. Arsenal are likely to be one of the eight seeded teams.
Ian Wright, meanwhile, will start his first match since mid-January at Liverpool tonight but Wenger will rest the captain Tony Adams, the goalkeeper David Seaman, Overmars and the defenders Martin Keown and Nigel Winterburn. Bergkamp and Petit are injured.
