By Randy Osae

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2008/08/30/wenger276.jpg

The boss often completes sales before making recruits but Wenger has been doing different business this summer.

Arsenal’s tactician lured Vermaelen as early as last Friday and should he go according to his promise of “2-3″ additions, then there could be more new faces on the way.

But that also had spurred suggestions that the Belgian’s arrival will mean another Gunner’s departure.

Even though Phillipe Senderos should remain at AC Milan, that, according to Arsene Wenger may be the only goodbye he will have to say to one of his aces.

Arsene is certain to retain stability in his 26-man squad.

“We lost Hleb and Flamini last summer and we have had to rebuild,” said Wenger. “But we have done that now and the future looks bright. We don’t want to have to rebuild again, so I want to keep all the players together for next season. I don’t want to lose anyone.

“I want to add to the squad and have identified one or two targets. But identifying players and buying them are two different things.”

Wenger is willing to improve his options also. Indeed, the French manager is not looking to end the spending spree here and insists more acquisitions are imminent.

Arsene does believe his side is not short of quality and should he fail to add, last season’s exploits of an unbeaten league streak and cup semi-finals should be reason to not discount them.

“Ideally I would like to bring everybody in before we start back in pre-season training in July. I don’t want to leave it until the end of August,” he added.

“We are at a stage where we need to convince people that this team does a lot of things right. It does not need to be transformed. When you go on a long unbeaten run in the Premier League and reach two semi-finals, common sense should tell you that.

“We have to take encouragement from what we have done in the season just gone.

Arsenal’s boss again reiterated his cautious spending is to aid the club financially.

“I am fed-up with people who think I have £100m in the bank yet don’t want to spend it. How can people think that? “The pride of the club is in having moved to a new stadium while maintaining the club at the top level.

“The policy of the club is that they have backed me in what I do and the way I do it. We now have to be strong enough to stick to that. We cannot pump £100m into it, so we must keep faith in what we are doing.”

Be the first to receive breaking news about Arsenal!