Arsenal Vs Liverpool: So just how many would you keep?

Arsenal were trounced by Liverpool on Saturday, with their lacking personnel completely and utterly exposed. It begs the question, as Unai Emery continues to build towards the future, just how many of these players would you want to keep?

The most damning aspect for Arsenal of Saturday’s 5-1 humiliation at the hands of Liverpool was the sheer disparity in the relative quality of the individual players. At every single position on the pitch, Liverpool, quite simply, just had the better players.

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Although Unai Emery did not necessarily get his tactics right, with Alexandre Lacazette sitting on the bench being the crudest of his errors, this defeat was primarily down to the individual ability of the players that each team could field. Put very plainly, Liverpool have far better players than Arsenal, both in their starting XI and among their depth.

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The two teams were on completely different talent levels. Mohamed Salah to Alex Iwobi. Virgil van Dijk to Shkodran Mustafi. Georginio Wijnaldum, who was the best player on the pitch by some distance, to Granit Xhaka. All across the pitch, Liverpool were just better. And so, as Emery begins to rebuild his squad, undertaking his process and preparing for a long-term title challenge, just as Jurgen Klopp has engineered at Liverpool, it is clear that many of these players must be sold and improved upon.

Every individual will have their own view on which players deserve to be kept, which players deserve to be paid, which players deserve to be shipped out. And Emery himself, I am sure, will be formulating his opinions on many of the players that he inherited and making personnel decisions based on his evaluations.

So, I ask myself, which players in the current squad would I be actively trying to sell or ship out and then improve upon. The breadth of the answer is rather worrying, illustrative of the major deficiencies of the Arsenal squad.

These are the players that I would sell — or allow to leave on a free — as quick as possible and re-invest in the position they play: Petr Cech, Nacho Monreal, Laurent Koscielny, Shkodran Mustafi, Carl Jenkinson, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Mohamed Elneny, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Mesut Ozil (for the right price), Aaron Ramsey, given that his exit is essentially confirmed.

On top of that, Danny Welbeck will likely leave at the end of the year, Granit Xhaka, Sead Kolasinac, Sokratis, Alex Iwobi, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Matteo Guendouzi are either not ready or are not good enough to be starters, and the team requires investment even without having to replace all of these players.

Whatever you may think about these individual players, one thing is clear. Great change needs to come to this squad. Let’s hope, then, that Emery makes the right changes.