Arsenal: Loan army can dictate transfer plans

Arsenal have sent a series of young players out on loan in recent days. The players’ performances can dictate the future transfer plans of the club.

One of the primary reasons Arsenal hired Unai Emery in 2018 was the attention to detail he paid to current players already at the club. Even though he had only just left Paris Saint-Germain, Emery still conducted the job interview with a large dossier featuring reports on all of the first-team players and many of the young players who were beginning to break into the senior picture.

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Arsenal wanted to be competitive with Manchester City, Liverpool and others, but recognised that they would never have the same financial power. So they needed to find another avenue to build the team. Youth, they believed, was the way. And now they just needed a coach to get the most of the many gifted young players coming through.

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As we all know now, Emery was not the man. He may have arrived having done his homework, but when the exams came, his revision was no good. He simply lacked the coaching acumen to improve the players he inherited. But the talent was still obviously present.

Emery’s successor, Mikel Arteta, has already set about having a detailed and significant input on the young players at the club. Reiss Nelson has started three of his five games in charge, Ainsley Maitland-Niles is now a crucial piece of the puzzle at right-back, and he has impressed greatly in a position that he was not always the most accustomed to or comfortable with, while Gabriel Martinelli seems set to play a key role as he returns from injury.

And then there are the young players that have been sent out on loan — or are likely to be sent out on loan between now and the end of the year. Last week, Emile Smith Rowe and Dinos Mavropanos were both loaned out to Huddersfield Town and Nuremberg for the remainder of the year respectively, while Eddie Nketiah could well be on his way to another club after being called back from his time in Leeds United.

While Arsenal will not be spending much this January, Arteta will be keen to invest heavily in the squad next summer. Between now and then, he must determine which positions are the ones that require the most significant attention. Which are the positions that have internal solutions and which are the ones that require external acquisitions?

This question will in part be answered by the readiness of the young players. For instance, if Smith Rowe performs excellently at Huddersfield, do Arsenal really need to invest in another attacking midfielder or can they keep Mesut Ozil for one more season and slowly introduce Smith Rowe as his long-term replacement?

The same can be said for Nketiah and the striker positions. Even if Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang departs at the end of the year, could Nketiah — alongside Martinelli — back up Alexandre Lacazette and provide versatile depth across the frontline?

Given the vast number of needs to fill and the financial limitations with which to fill them, Arsenal must streamline their spending as best as possible. And the performances of their loan army will help that process.