Step on the Gaz!

ARSENAL fans have been promised a “big summer” of spending by chief exec Ivan Gazidis.

The Gunners dealmaker says boss Arsene Wenger will be given bucketloads of cash to turn Arsenal into title contenders.

Wenger has been linked to Manchester United star Wayne Rooney and Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain.

And Gazidis insists Wenger will be allowed to recruit enough talent to challenge for silverware at home AND in Europe.

He said: “It is a big summer. We have been working very, very hard to gain the kind of financial capability we need as a football club to be at the very top end of the game.

“The ambition that Stan Kroenke, Arsene Wenger, the players, our staff and I know all of the fans have is to be competing to win the Premier League and Champions League.

“If we are at that level, the trophies will come.”

The Gunners are expected to sign an eye-watering £30million-a-year kit deal with Puma and are in the process of renegotiating a string of other contracts.

FINDING A WAY ... Wenger will have cash to buy stars like Rooney

And Gazidis added: “Those long term commercial deals have come up for renewal.

"You know about the Emirates [stadium and sponsorship] deal, I can’t talk about the kit deal yet,
but we’re confident of a good result there too.

“It is all about giving us the capability to go to the manager and to say ‘here is the money for you to compete’. That is why we are in this stadium and that is what we want to do.”

Wenger, 63, has been reluctant to open his wallet in recent years and has not won a trophy since the 2005 FA Cup.

But Gazidis believe Wenger DOES now want to spend big — and insists the veteran boss is the perfect man to do so.

He said: “It is no secret that we think he has done a fantastic job and we think we can give him the tools he needs.

NET 'GUAINS ... Gonzalo Higuain is another Wenger target

“When we are thinking about trusting someone with the type of money we will have, we can think of nobody better than Arsene.

“He is not scared to spend money, but he has to believe he is getting a top-class player.

“The parameters in which he has to operate is to spend what the club can afford and my job is to make that as big as possible and Arsene’s job is to think about which talent he wants to spend that on in the best way possible.

“If we only find one player that we like, we won’t spend twice as much on him just so we can say we spent all of the money.

“That doesn’t make any sense to me — the key will be to buy the players Arsene Wenger believes in.”