George Graham believes that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger acted too late during the summer transfer market.

Wenger completed the signings of Per Mertesacker, Andre Santos, Yossi Benayoun and Mikel Arteta on transfer deadline day amid claims that his squad required strengthening following the sales of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri.

The performances of the Gunners' new additions, particularly in defence, have come under scrutiny in the last two matches and Graham has claimed that reinforcements should been acquired a lot sooner.

"They left it a bit late to bring in players and he has not had time to work with those players, especially amongst the defence," Graham told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"It's been generally known for about four years they had to shore up the defence.

"Some of the attacking play is still the best in the league and even at the weekend against Blackburn some of the possession play was fantastic, but again the old problems defensively cropped up and they lost 4-3."

Arsenal are back in action tomorrow against Shrewsbury Town in the Carling Cup.