Arsenal: New contract guru will be thrown in the deep end

Arsenal have hired Team Sky contract guru Huss Fahmy to deal with their mire of winding-down deals. Fahmy is being thrown in at the deep end, having his work cut out from the get go.

Arsenal may well have made their most important signing of the summer and it’s not even a player. No. It is Team Sky – the cycling extraordinaire’s ran by Dave Brailsford – contract guru Huss Fahmy. And he has been brought in for one reason and one reason only: to sort out the Gunners’ crippling contract crisis.

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While much of the fan focus has centred on who will possibly be coming to the Emirates, with the overwhelming force of rumour and conjecture suggesting that Arsene Wenger is willing to invest heavily in a number of different players, the most important actions of the summer for the club will centre on retention, not recruitment.

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That is where Fahmy enters the fray. The sporting legal and contract expert will work alongside Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis and Wenger to work through the mire of winding-down contracts of many of the significant contributors to the fate of the first-team squad. The two most important names to try and tie down are Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. Both have endured unsuccessful talks up to this stage, having grown frustrated with life at the Emirates, and are in a position of power with just one more year remaining on their current deals.

However, the contract issue in North London is far wider reaching than just two players. In fact, alongside Ozil and Sanchez, of players in the first-team squad, there are another eight players whose contracts expire in the summer of 2018: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Per Mertesacker, Kieran Gibbs, Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla, Carl Jenkinson, Wojciech Szczesny and Aaron Ramsey

And that is not the end of Arsenal’s troubles. They have nine players whose contracts expire in 2019: Theo Walcott, Olivier Giroud, Petr Cech, David Ospina, Danny Welbeck, Nacho Monreal, Mathieu Debuchy, Gabriel Paulista and Chuba Akpom. In fact, they only have three players signed to a long-term contract (four years or more).

Two of those are Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi, who were only added last summer and agreed to five-year deals when they signed, which is the norm for a relatively young, expensive first-team player. The other is Francis Coquelin, who is not especially the calibre of player that title challenging clubs would want for the long haul.

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Ultimately, when it comes to contracts, Arsenal are in an absolute mess. Thankfully, they seem to be making changes to address their issues, but Fahmy is being thrown in the deep end here. Let’s hope he can stay afloat.