Former Arsenal player, Perry Groves believes that Mikel Arteta should get rid of up to nine first-team players.
Arsenal has just crashed out of the Europa League when it was all going fine and they were on a run of three straight wins.
They had beaten Olympiacos in their Europa League first leg, and most fans were expecting them to enjoy another routine win over the Greeks in the return leg in London.
However, Olympiacos came prepared and appeared to want it more as they stunned Arsenal by wiping out the Gunner’s first leg away goal inside the 90 minutes to force extra time.
Both teams would go on to score again in extra time and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would miss a sitter right at the death and Arsenal was eliminated.
After watching their performances this season, Groves believes that a lot of the current Arsenal squad has to be sold.
He said as quoted in the Daily Star: “He needs to get rid of players,
“I thought it would be five or six, but I think you’re looking up to about nine players. [But] It is going to be impossible to get rid of them all in one go.
“This isn’t about talent, it’s not that they are not good players – David Luiz, (Shkrodan) Mustafi, Sokratis, (Dani) Ceballos is going to go anyway as he is on loan, Ozil, (Granit) Xhaka, (Calum) Chambers, (Mohamed) Elneny and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
“Mkhitaryan and Elneny are out on loan at this point anyway.
“He needs them now. He has to use them now because he needs bodies. Short-term they have a future, long-term, no.
“It’s very similar to when George Graham went there in 1986 and he had a lot of players. Very talented players, but they did not have the desire that he required.
“He got rid of them and went and got players from the lower league like Alan Smith, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn.”
I am not sure about all the players that Groves has named but he is not too far off with his list of players that Arsenal could do with offloading, I mean, would most of them really be missed?
