Arsenal: Why is no one talking about the necessary sales?
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal have a lot of clearing house to do this summer, but right now, no one that needs to be sold is even being talked about being sold. Is that bad?
We should definitely be excited about all the players linked to a move to Arsenal. They’re all the right kinds of players too – defenders, wingers, creative midfielders. A few others have snuck in their as well, but for the most part, it all looks very promising.
But on the flip side, the Gunners haven’t even so much as a whisper in the department of selling some of the dead weight that needs to be sold.
As it stands, the only players being linked to exits are Granit Xhaka, Lucas Torreira, Laurent Koscielny, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette. In other words, five of our most important players. Guys that are integral to the state of this club.
Meanwhile, the likes of Shkodran Mustafi, Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are sitting pretty, looking like they’re about to have another year at the club.
Even guys like Nacho Monreal, Alex Iwobi, Mohamed Elneny – peripheral guys who could still garner some bids – aren’t being talked about in the transfer rumor mill. Only our most important players.
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Why is that? I’m legitimately asking. I understand that Ozil is going to be a hard guy to ship off, but Mustafi and Mkhitaryan still have plenty of value, they don’t make ridiculous wages, and if the club wants to improve, these are the kinds of guys that they’ll need to flip for a decent fee in order to move forward with this whole transition into a new era.
The best answer I can think of is that the club is looking to make a couple big sales to fuel incoming transfers, so that they can then cut the dead weight being replaced. But that would then tend to infer that the guys being replaced aren’t going to fetch much of a fee. I don’t see why we don’t start with selling a little here, a little there, make some important signings and, if need be, make one big sale to fuel more purchases.
But then again, I guess we just have to trust the people in charge and hope they know what they’re doing.
I just know that this club really can’t move forward with Ozil, Mkhitaryan and Mustafi still in their midst. They have to move on and move up.