Arsenal: Will the clear out be complete in just one summer?

Arsenal are pushing forth with their summer clear out, but is it really realistic to think that the entire job will be done in one summer?

This year has been in the name of transition. Whether we accepted it or not, Arsenal weren’t ready to compete this year, just like other clubs, when going through similar changes, aren’t ready to compete right away either. Look at Liverpool as a prime example.

Unai Emery had a tough transition to go through, taking over after 22 straight years of the club doing it in a very exact and specific way. For starters, the personnel was all wrong, and Emery had very limited funds to make the necessary changes.

He got four guys. All of which were a huge hit, strangely enough. Not a single rotten apple in the bunch. A lot to look forward to.

But in the process of acclimating those four guys, we have now exposed about half a dozen guys, if not more, that don’t fir the schematic that Emery has in play. They aren’t a part of the future, they aren’t going to be useful moving into a new era.

Many have hypothesized that we need a long period of time, three transfer windows, to fix everything and get it all up and running.

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That’s a dangerous precedent to set because it infers that maybe next year is going to be more an an acclimation year as well, same as this one. The only difference being that we have higher expectations and a few more players that mesh with Emery’s style.

Last summer we got four guys, this summer the rumor is four more guys. I would guess that we’d get a fullback, a centerback, a midfielder and a winger. Just a hunch. Even so, that isn’t nearly enough to think that we’re going to be competing at the highest level yet. Not if we don’t get premium responses from guys like Rob Holding, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe.

This summer is a big one, but it’s not the final building block. It’s not the cue into an era of prosperity. There is still going to be a lot of rebuilding needed before we’re doing what Liverpool have done. I hate saying that already. I hate saying that Liverpool did something right where we failed but hey, it’s true, right?

We still need time. This summer won’t be the final piece unless we really go gung-ho, which is never that likely.