Arsenal Transfer News: Arsene Wenger Pulls All the Right Strings on Deadline Day

A couple days ago, things could not have been any more bleak for Arsenal.

The Gunners went into Old Trafford desperately needing a win against Manchester United, and instead got trounced, 8-2. All of the club's weaknesses were on display, and seemingly everyone in the world chose to place the blame for it all on one man.

Gunners manager Arsene Wenger.

It had already been a tough summer for Wenger to that point, and it looked like things were going to get even tougher with the summer transfer window coming to a close. If he was to improve his club, he was going to have to make moves, and he was going to have to make them quick.

He did just that.

With—depending on who you ask—roughly £80 million at his disposal, Wenger went on a spending spree that saw him improve virtually all of his squad's weaknesses.

Arsenal's defense, which was last seen getting torn to shreds by Man U, got upgrades in the form of German center-back Per Mertesacker and Brazilian left-back Andre Santos.

At 6'6," Mertesacker is a beast of a man who will add a much-needed fear factor to Arsenal's back line. Santos, on the other hand, brings plenty of versatility, as Wenger himself said that Santos has "the ability to both defend well and get forward and help with attacks."

And Santos will have plenty of help when it comes to attacks. In addition to upgrading his defense, Wenger also upgraded his midfield by adding Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta and Chelsea midfielder Yossi Benayoun.

Arteta is a wizard with the ball at his feet, and he should help fill the void that was opened up when Cesc Fabregas was transferred to Barcelona. Benayoun is also a creative playmaker, and he has a habit of scoring clutch goals.

A day before all of this went down, Wenger also signed South Korean striker Park Chu-Young, a player who is brilliant in space.

So that squad that was last seen getting humiliated by the Red Devils? It's going to look a little different next time you see it (which, for the record, will be September 10 at Swansea City).

Needless to say, that's a good thing. Had Wenger sat back and done nothing in the final hours of the transfer window, his club would have been faced with a long, winding road to mediocrity. For all we know, he may have even lost his job, too.

Does this mean the Gunners have a trophy in their future after all these moves? That's probably asking a lot. After all, Wenger may have brought in a handful of good players, but we're still talking about a club that lost its two best players in the span of a couple of weeks earlier this summer.

These signings were meant to patch holes, not to complement strengths.

No sir, what Wenger did was take a club that was something of a joke and make it into a club that is at least respectable. Maybe not formidable, but certainly not the kind of club that is going to be beaten by six goals again.

For now, that will have to do. But down the road, who knows? Perhaps Arsenal's trophy-less streak is now closer to its end then its beginning.