Arsenal: Joe Willock, Emile Smith Rowe a great place to start

There are a lot of moving pieces this summer for Arsenal, but having Joe Willock and Emile Smith Rowe is a great start to preemptive answers.

Arsenal are going to be shipping out a lot of players this summer, presumedly, with Unai Emery clearly souring on a lot of his inherited players. The bulk of that exodus seems to be occurring further up that formation, a place that became a bit of a splinter in the thumb of the club.

The inability to create chances was shocking this year, as it came in bursts and it was ugly when it did come. Even uglier because it made next to no sense whatsoever with all the names that we had to prevent this very thing.

That said, Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan both figure to be prime transfer subjects, though Ozil could not look any more stubborn in his desire to stay right where he is.

Elsewhere, Aaron Ramsey is obviously leaving, tragically, and Alex Iwobi probably isn’t safe either. Denis Suarez won’t be followed up on either, as he made zero impression while he was here, assuming he was ever actually here.

At most, we will probably have Iwobi and Ozil. At least (and maybe for the best), we’ll have none of them.

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Meaning a fresh start. A clean slate. And in such an exciting part of the pitch – the guys that will be feeding Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Who wouldn’t want that job?

It can be stressful though, looking at this big emptiness, but that stress significantly decreases when you think about Emile Smith Rowe and Joe Willock, both of whom have seen time at that No. 10 role and both of whom are knocking on the door of the first team picture.

Smith Rowe will be returning from his loan at Leipzig and Willock, who started his first match of the season against Burnley, showed significant growth, with still more needed yet, obviously, but growth nonetheless.

You might not want either of them being your opening day starter, but having them to build off of feels a lot better than having the unpredictability and relatively dead-end of Mkhitaryan and Ozil.

Youth is exciting, and these are two of the more exciting guys in the system. They could be facing a seriously fantastic outlook next year if we can clear out some of the dead wood blocking them out of the picture.