Premier League giants Arsenal report £11m pre-tax profit despite Sanchez and Welbeck signings

Premier League giants Arsenal posted a big jump in profits in their half year results, despite a massive outlay on marquee players during the Summer Transfer Window.

The consistent Champions League qualifiers made an £11.1m pre-tax profit in the six months leading to 30 November, despite spending around £35m on Barcelona forward Alexis Sanchez and a reported £16m on Manchester United castaway Danny Welbeck.

Arsenal incurred a loss of £1.1m for the same period a year before.

In total, the north London club spent £93.7m on player acquisitions in the period before the current campaign – a record for the Gunners.

Arsenal made £26m from selling players last summer however, including Belgian defender Thomas Vermaelen's £15m switch to the Nou Camp.

Sir Chips Keswick, chairman of the current FA Cup champions, said: "Our commitment to investment in the squad was evidenced by a record level of expenditure on players joining during the summer with the acquisitions of Calum Chambers, Mathieu Debuchy, David Ospina, Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck.

"The recent acquisition of defender Gabriel from Villarreal [in January] will take our total transfer expenditure for the year to well in excess of £100m."

The Invincibles, as they were once dubbed after going the entire 2003/04 Premier League campaign unbeaten, also increased their turnover to £148.5m, up by more than £13m on the back of a £30m-a-year Puma deal, signed in 2013.

Keswick added: "The group has reported an overall profit for the half year. This has been made possible by our continued commercial momentum.

"The Puma partnership has made a very strong start and we have also made further additions to our roster of official and regional partnerships.

"In addition, we have established a retail presence in Indonesia in partnership with MAP Active, an on-line store in China in association with Venue Retail International and continued to invest in our retail operations at home."