Arsenal: Calum Chambers contract progress, but not the right progress

Arsenal agreed to a new two-year contract with Calum Chambers on Wednesday. Amid their contract crisis, it is undoubtedly progress. But it is not yet the right progress.

Arsenal are in the midst of a contract crisis. And it is not just Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, though they are a large part of it. Arsene Wenger, for a reason that he has defined as motivational, prefers to keep his players on shorter contracts. However, because of that, there is little long-term security, with players free to leave at the end of their contracts, which, if short, is not too far in the distance.

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And this uncertainty and doubt has a compounding effect. Players do not sign new contracts because they see the club unstable, which makes the club more unstable, which deters more players from signing new contracts. It is a perpetual motion of crisis, and Arsenal have been suffering through it for many years.

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In contrast to the narrative, there was one piece of positive news on Wednesday. Calum Chambers agreed to a new two-year extension, which will, all being well and good, keep him at the club until 2021. And although that is most certainly a step in the right direction, it is far from what is necessary to steady the rocking ship.

At the end of this season, these are the players whose contracts will expire: Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Per Mertesacker (he will retire and become the Academy Director), Jack Wilshere, and Matt Macey. Of those six players, five of which futures have yet to be determined, only one has a year extension option on their deal (Cazorla). Five of the six are established first-team players, with three, when fit, considered key members of the starting XI.

However, that is just this season; the next year might be even worse. These are the players whose contracts will expire in the summer of 2019: Aaron Ramsey, Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck, Nacho Monreal, Petr Cech, David Ospina, Mathieu Debuchy, and Chuba Akpom.

If Arsenal thought they had problems in retaining the core of their squad this past summer, then next summer, they could feasibly lose half of their senior players in one, sweeping move. Now, that is clearly not going to happen. History tells us that much. But there is much work to be done.

Of the nine players, three could be considered starting players — Ramsey, Cech, and Monreal –, while a further five would be classed as prominent squad members that will be used throughout the season — Giroud, Walcott, Welbeck, and Ospina. That is a significant amount.

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The signing of Chambers to a new deal is undoubtedly positive. I don’t believe that there will be many who disagree with that statement. But, unfortunately, he is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, of the players whose contracts did expire before 2019, he was perhaps the fifth-least important (Macey, Mertesacker, Debuchy, and Akpom). His contract is progress, but there is still much more that needs to be done.