Arsenal: The lack of sales, not lack of signings, most concerning

Arsenal have made just one signing in this summer transfer window. However, what really concerns me is the lack of sales, not the lack of signings.

Entering the summer transfer window, I was expecting some major moves from Unai Emery and the Arsenal hierarchy. Throughout last season, it seemed as though the Gunners head coach was hamstrung by limiting personnel, whether that be through the options available to him at certain positions or just a damned lack of quality.

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And so, now in his second transfer window and with a year under his belt to assess most of the players he inherited from Arsene Wenger, I believed that Emery might make some sweeping personnel moves to overhaul the squad. I even wrote about it extensively, almost with a tinge of assumption.

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However, as the summer progressed and the deadline loomed, it has been made clear: those squad-breaking transfers were not going to come, either in terms of major acquisitions, which were always unlikely given the measly transfer budget, or a slew of necessary sales.

Given the lack of transfer activity, there has been plenty of moaning regarding the lack of signings, even if William Saliba and Dani Ceballos are seemingly done deals and will be completed in the very near future. That still leaves with Arsenal having signed an 18-year-old Brazilian, an 18-year-old centre-back who they cannot use for a year, and a talented midfielder who will return to his parent club after one year on loan. Not exactly the most progressive transfer windows.

But for all of the doom and gloom surrounding these seemingly unbeneficial signings, it is the lack of sales, not signings, that concerns me more.

It became clear last season that large swathes of the squad were comprised of sub-standard players who needed to be moved on. The centre-back position was a major worry, Shkodran Mustafi chief among the guilty party, Sead Kolasinac and Nacho Monreal had serious limitations on their games, while there were issues with Granit Xhaka — who still had his best season in north London — Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Mohamed Elneny, Carl Jenkinson, Mesut Ozil, and many more.

With Emery relying on player sales to fund the signings that he likely wanted to make, I had expected many, if not all, of these players to be moved on this summer, the intention being that selling four or five players for lesser prices would make up a more substantial fee for a player like Wilfried Zaha, say. But Arsenal have been very quiet on the sales front, not just the signings, and it could spell trouble for the season ahead.

Relying on inept options like Mustafi, Monreal, Kolasinac and Mkhitaryan is troubling enough as it is. When you are paying these players good money, it is downright irresponsible. In comparison to the Manchester clubs, Liverpool and many of their Premier League rivals, Arsenal are working on a shoestring budget. That means they must be extremely efficient in how they spend. This is where Raul Sanllehi’s potentially infamous ‘outsmart the market’ stemmed from.

Keeping these players in the squad is not efficient. They wouldn’t be good enough no matter what they are being paid, so when you throw in their wages as well, it is gross mismanagement. So yes, the lack of signings are a little worrying. But at this point, I am far more concerned with the lack of sales. Arsenal have a lot of work to do over the next two weeks.