Arsenal: Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka and Mesut Ozil should go bowling

Arsenal are starting to find out who their long-term players are and who they aren’t. And who they aren’t… well, can go bowling or something.

There was always going to be some snags in turning over Arsenal from Arsene Wenger to Unai Emery. Any club who has ever changed managers had to go through the same thing. Managers leave behind their players, and then new manager has to decide how many of those players he then wants to make his own.

The first of Wenger’s crop to clearly get ousted was Mesut Ozil. Now, to be fair, Emery gave him a lot of chances early on, and why wouldn’t he? This is Mesut Ozil we’re talking about.

But in time, Emery began to disassociate from the prolific German playmaker and take then action that Arsene Wenger never did of benching him. That lead to removing him from then bench entirely.

Ozil has only returned to the fore lately as Emery has grown more desperate, but no one expects him to factor into the long-term plans.

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Granit Xhaka was next. Once the captain and centerpiece, now the fans look to have won their battle in forcing Xhaka to leave the club. Emery need only figure out how long he wants to try to work Xhaka back into the fray for, but all signs point to it not being on the top of his priority list, especially if the Swiss international captain has had enough.

Scattered in that mix is Unai Emery’s own, Lucas Torreira. Torreira has not settled well into life in North London, and part of that probably comes from Emery’s insistence on playing the Uruguayan too far forward. Now, he’s rumored to be on the out again.

Three players of unquestionable ability, three players at different stages of their career, three players who you’d have thought would be easy to build a club around, and all three are being thrown aside as Emery hastily tries to solve the equation that will fix his club. Turns out it isn’t so easy.

That said, all three have serious cause to be upset, and that’s something we’re not all used to at Arsenal—players with actual cause to want to leave. Torreira is being played out of position, Ozil isn’t respected by the manager and Xhaka is hated by the fans.

Call them the three musketeers or the three amigos, but don’t be surprised if they’re all wearing different shirts soon. And are much better off because of it.