First of all, by stars I mean the guys we consider as flops or deadwood. But these guys are really good players. They have thrived in other clubs and yet failed to have the same impact at Arsenal. Why is it that they failed? It’s not because they lack talent. No one would be stupid enough to lash out 72 million on Nicolas Pepe if he was that bad. He is good. In my opinion he is awesome!

But you can’t expect a camel to do well in a tropical forest. It is just the conditions were not good for him. The players he played with did not suit his style. So please don’t brand any top player a bad player, you can call them a flop at Arsenal, but they are not bad players. Even our golden boy Alexis Sanchez flopped at Man Utd. I don’t need to say much more.

So that being said, the players we should not be selling are Nicolas Pepe, Lucas Torriera, Hector Bellerin and Reiss Nelson. I don’t see anything wrong with the players on a personal level and talent-wise they are really highly rated. And clubs are coming up with offers like 10 million for Torriera, or 8 million for Bellerin makes me sick. Bellerin was once wanted by Barcelona and was considered one of the top three full backs in the premier league in the past. He even was featured in the Premier League team of the year. How come he is worth 8 million now is beyond me.

Why I insist on keeping them is because of the many signings we made in this window and with Zinchenko deal seemingly done ,we have a lot more ways to assemble the team. With Vieira, Ødegaard, Smith Rowe as creative midfielders and Xhaka and Zinchenko in the center, there are a lot of combinations that we can come up with. And maybe we can slot them in any of the potential combinations that suit their style and bring the best out of them.

I honestly believe this season Reiss Nelson and Nicolas Pepe will get a chance to show their full potential. We know what Torriera and Bellerin are made of. So let us not sell them for peanuts and see them thrive somewhere else.

Remember how excited we were when we bought Pepe, how awesome we thought Bellerin and Torriera were. When they are surrounded by players that suit their style they can be really exceptional players. So let us give them one last chance and see where things go. 8 million for Bellerin and 15 million for Pepe, just unbelievable.

Vinod