There is an interesting report in the Star today that has a list of the Arsenal players that Mikel Arteta wants to get off the books at Arsenal to help to fund his new arrivals. It would seem clear that there are going to be quite a few changes this summer, as Arteta Has called for backing in the transfer market.
Arsenal’s technical director Edu has confirmed that the arrival of Willian is just the start of the Arteta revolution when he was quoted on Arsenal.com as saying yesterday: “We tried to create a better balance in the squad but we know that takes time to balance the squad the way me and Mikel want to. To balance properly, we need to sell players, to buy players and that takes time, not just day and night.
“It will take time, but with Willian, we’ve started a big process. We’ve identified the needs in the squad and he’s the one to start to rebalance the squad as we want to.”
But who will be the ones to be moving out? According to the Star’s report, the eight players on Arteta’s transfer list are: Lacazette, Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Shkodran Mustafi, Mohamed Elneny, Calum Chambers and Matteo Guendouzi.
The obvious ones are Ozil and Guendouzi, as they have both been frozen out by Arteta and didn’t even get invited to the FA Cup Final.
Mhki and Elneny are already out on loan and are unlikely to ever return. We certainly have too many defenders at the moment so Chambers and Mustafi could bring in some much-needed cash, while Maitland-Niles has made it clear he wants more playing time elsewhere.
That just leaves Lacazette, who is being talked about being used in a possible swap deal for Thomas Partey, but is there anyone else that you think could be moved on to fund Arteta’s new arrivals?