While many Arsenal fans are pleasantly surprised by the five unexpected additions that the club made before the summer transfer window closed, some are disappointed by the fact that, with the possible exception of Per Mertesacker, the new additions are not exactly the kind of big-name players that they had been hoping for and that the club had been linked with in the media.

More than a few are questioning whether the additions of Park Chu-Young, Andre Dos Santos, Per Mertesacker, Mikel Arteta and Yossi Benayoun will be sufficient to Arsenal to compete for a place in the top four of the EPL, let alone get back in the title race, given the stiff competition it will the club will face in the league. In particular, there are questions about whether adding Mikel Arteta and Yossi Benayoun will be sufficient to make up for the loss of the talents of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, arguably Arsenal’s two most talented and best players, over the summer.

Certainly, Arteta and Benayoun do not have the same skills and talent that Fabregas and Nasri possess but in evaluating whether the club has adequately compensated for the loss of Fabregas and Nasri, it is important to look at the overall picture and what all five of the new additions bring to the club. Experience is a given. But, there are four additional factors that also should be taken into consideration.

1. While everyone expects the addition of Mertesacker to make Arsenal better defensively against set-pieces, his addition, along with those of Arteta and Park, will also make the club stronger offensively on set-pieces as well.

While Fabregas was an excellent penalty taker and gave decent service on corners, neither he nor Nasri were especially dangerous on free kicks and Nasri’s corner kicks were awful. Arteta is much more dangerous on free kicks and will definitely provide better service on corners than Van Persie, who can now go back to where he belongs in front of the net. Mertesacker will provide Crouch-like match-up nightmares for opposing clubs on corners. This should help to make up for a lot of the scoring lost by exchanging the creativity of Cesc and Nasri for that of Arteta and Benayoun.

2. How many times have you leaped out of your seat screaming at an Arsenal player to shoot when he has an opening around the top of the 18-yard box only to slump back down after seeing him dispossessed or try unsuccessfully to make a pass to a well-defended teammate? How many times did you see Clichy cut inside with the ball and pass it back out rather than take a wide-open shot?

If past performances are any indication, Arsenal has just added at least four new players who won’t be afraid to take a shot if they get an opportunity to do so. One way to keep opposing clubs from putting ten men in the box to clog all of the passing lanes is to force them to come out and defend further away from the goal by taking the occasional shot from further out. It poses an additional threat because some of those shots will go in or test the keeper and that will help to open up some of the passing lanes for the kind of passes that Arsenal likes to make in the box.

What Arteta and Benayoun may lack in terms of the kind of creativity that Fabregas and Nasri have, they, along with Santos and Park, may well be able to make up for by having more of a “nose for the goal” in a way that will open things up for Arsenal to score in a different manner.

3. The addition of Mertesacker alone should improve Arsenal’s defense (although I would argue that the problem is more one of organization than personnel), but there is a good chance that the improvement brought by the new additions won’t stop there.

While Cesc had a reputation for not being that good defensively, Nasri was even worse, frequently either not getting back on defense quickly after a turnover or being out-muscled by bigger foes. Arteta and Benayoun may not be significantly bigger than Cesc or Nasri, but from what I’ve seen of them in the past, both are willing and persistent in their own defensive end.

Part of the problem with Arsenal’s back four the last couple of seasons has come from the lack of support that they have received from the midfielders, which left the back four exposed far too often. Arteta and Benayoun can really help Mertesacker in solving some of Arsenal’s defensive shortcomings by using their experience and taking their responsibilities on the defensive end seriously. That would serve as a good example for Arsenal’s other midfielders who, with the exception of Wilshere, are inconsistent, at best, in their own end.

4. There’s no doubt that Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri are supremely talented footballers. When he’s healthy and wants to play, Cesc is one of the very best creative midfielders in the game. Any club in the world would want him.

But the fact of the matter is that Fabregas missed a lot of playing time the last two years due to injury and didn’t want to play for Arsenal any more, which was reflected in his abysmal performance last season. If Arsenal had just lost the tremendous player who produced more assists than any other player in Europe over the last five seasons, it would be impossible to replace him. But, while it might be the player that Barca just acquired, it is not the player that Arsenal just lost.

The player that Arsenal just lost was a captain who quit on his team and acted like he didn’t want to be on the pitch half the time when he was able to play last season. That player is replaceable and both of the midfielders that Arsenal just added have the ability to do that, although perhaps in a different way.

As for Arteta and Benayoun being injury-prone, well, Cesc missed just about half of each of the last two seasons due to injury and it doesn’t matter how good a player is if he’s injured and can’t play.

On the other side of the coin, Samir Nasri may have a great future ahead of him, he certainly has the skills and talent. But, except for his very hot first half of last season, just how many games did he win for Arsenal with all of that talent? Yes, you can pick out a moment of brilliance here and a moment of brilliance there, but you can do that with Abou Diaby, too.

Nasri didn’t like playing on the wing where Wenger deployed him, preferring to play in the center of midfield. But, when Fabregas was injured and Nasri did play in the center of midfield, with the offense running through him, how well did he do at cracking open the defense when the opposition “parked the bus” in front of their goal? Except for that first half of last season and the occasional moment of brilliance, how often was Nasri, for all of his skill, the difference maker in a match? And, how much of that was offset by his defensive deficiencies?

Nasri had problems with teammates on the French national team because, in many ways, he is a bit of a prima donna and, for all of his skill and talent, he may turn out to be a headache waiting to happen. Nasri may go on to have a brilliant career, but what he gave to Arsenal is replaceable: Arsenal has a stable of young players just waiting for a chance that they can prove to be just as capable, even if they lack some of Nasri’s skill and talent.

Can they, along with Arteta, Benayoun, Miyaichi and Oxlade-Chamberlain, exactly replace what Nasri might have brought to Arsenal had he stayed? Only time will tell. But, Nasri didn’t want to stay at Arsenal–he was more interested in getting paid as much as possible as soon as possible (no matter how he tries to justify it!)–and that’s not necessarily the kind of player Arsenal wants or needs in order to be successful and win silverware.

Unlike Fabregas and Nasri, the players that Arsenal has just added all WANT to play for the club. Arteta is taking less money in wages to be a Gunner. It may take these new additions time to settle in and gel with their new teammates, but these are players who are going to give the club their all.

They’re not going to be sulking about their contracts or wanting to go home, they’re coming to the Arsenal to play. Effort and attitude can go a long way to making up for a deficit in skill or talent. And, while Arsenal will miss the skills and talent that Fabregas and Nasri have, the positive attitude and effort that the new additions bring to the club, along with their skills, should be more than enough to replace what Fabregas and Nasri gave to the club last season.

Will that be enough to lift the young Arsenal squad out of the deep hole that the departures of Fabregas and Nasri and the spanking that it got at Old Trafford put the club in? Will that be enough to secure a spot in the top four against much improve competition for those spots – and perhaps win some silverware along the way? Only time will tell.

But the new additions have the ability to make Arsenal at least as good, overall, on the pitch as the club was last season, if not better. That’s what the management of the club needed to do during this transfer period (could they have done it better? should they have? that’s another issue). Now it is up to the manager and the players to do their part.