Arsenal hero Paul Merson has lambasted Arsene Wenger and the board.
While Wenger has splashed the cash on stars including Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in recent years, Merson believes big names like Antoine Griezmann and Karim Benzema will not come to Arsenal while Wenger is controlling the purse strings.
"What is success at Arsenal at this stage?" Merson, who won five major trophies during his time with the Gunners, told the Sunday World.
"It seems to me that finishing fourth in the Premier League is considered to be success and that has been the story for far too long now. Success in the eyes of Wenger and the Arsenal board is putting another £30m in the bank by qualifying for the Champions League every year.
"They don't think they are going to win the competition, they just want to be in it to make sure the cash rolls in. I don't know what they are trying to do. They have all this money in the bank and we go through every transfer window being told by the manager that there is no one to buy.
"They could have bought Antoine Griezmann last summer. After all, everyone has a price.
"Okay, Atletico Madrid might say publicly that he is not for sale but Arsenal have more than £100m in reserves in the bank, so go and put an offer in that will make them sell him. If they started signing top players, proper world-class stars, people would take Arsenal seriously again but that respect is not there at the moment.
"They play nice pretty football and are great to watch, but they are not a threat to the top teams in England, so it's easy to for every football fan to turn around and say; 'Arsenal play some great stuff, they are lovely to watch'.
"It's not good enough. There are 60,000 people paying big money to watch that team play at Emirates Stadium every other week and most of them are paying around £70 to be there.
"Taking everything into account, they should be bringing in better quality players than they are but it's just not happening."