Never give away stars halfway through the season!
As our defensive misery continues, the transfer window should have brought hope and positivity yet we have lost two out of two games, one the day after the transfer window and one a week or so later, yet we see that Tierney is injured and although Cedric is a good player at times, losing Luiz to a red card, Mari to injury, and Kolasinac and Saliba on loan, was it really clever for Arteta to also let Mustafi go permanently with just 6 months left on his contract?
I know Mustafi is a player that divides opinion and has made mistakes, but who hasn’t? He is human and he isn’t as much of a liability as Luiz is, if fans remember Luiz was awful before his shocker at Brighton and Manchester City and it was only once he was offered a contract extension and some words of advice that he changed his stance and became somewhat of a solid defender.
Yet people say Arteta had a good transfer window because he got rid of players and their wages, yet he failed to bring in any replacements for the three defenders he lost, that to me is poor management and business, because as we saw in the game after the deadline day, we immediately were put in trouble when we lost Leno and Luiz to red cards. Both for their stupidity although Luiz’s sending off was debatable.
So what I will say is you should never jump the gun and feel that you know what you are doing and that it is best for the club, because as karma comes back around you will be put into hard times and although Arteta thought he knew what he was doing I believe it would have been better to wait until the summer to let at least two of those defenders go, where it would have then given Arsenal a chance to scout and get some decent replacements in.
But yet again we struggle defensively and are left short, let’s just hope it doesn’t come at too much of a cost hey Gooners?
Shenel Osman