Arsenal: 3 key squad areas to address in transfer window

One saving grace from the early FA Cup exit is that the transfer window remains open for business. Arsenal fell short in every department on the pitch, just as they’re running low off it.

Sanctioning the loan departure of Ainsley Maitland-Niles was a kind gesture for a player disheartened by minutes. A simple loan also opens the door for an increased bidding war in the summer. Most importantly, it leaves Arsenal thin in the middle of the park.

Thrusting Sambi Lokonga and Charlie Patino into the starting lineup against Nottingham Forest brought upon the expected result. They’re two extremely talented midfielders, just as they’re two talents who’ve barely had a kick in senior football over the past month.

The answer to seemingly every issue in football is transfers. Player out of form? Buy a new one. Player struggling for form? Sell him.

Arsenal: 3 key areas to address in transfer window as Mikel Arteta eyes signings and sales in January to continue squad rebuild

It is no secret that Arsenal are depleted at this present moment in time. They do need aid in the transfer market. This ongoing rebuild is just that: ongoing.

Defeat at The City Ground laid that bare: Eddie Nketiah offers few of the connective qualities that Alexandre Lacazette does and Cedric does a worse job than a cardboard cut out of Takehiro Tomiyasu would do.

But beyond just players for certain positions, there are also attributes Arteta needs to source in the window to aid the current plight. The AFCON quartet won’t be gone forever, but any additions won’t just be for winter; with contracts expiring in the summer it’s merely fast tracking future signings.

There are three key areas Arsenal need to address.

1. Presence

Whether in midfield, attack, or both, Arsenal need presence.

Using one defeat in the FA Cup shouldn’t be the measuring stick for what the club has to acquire, yet when your deficiencies are laid bare against Championship opposition, that tends to transfer into matches against higher quality opposition.

On the night the midfield was soft and submissive, while the focal point in attack was an Nketiah without any of the physical qualities required to piece together the creative and fleet-footed forwards in support.

With no Partey or Xhaka in the centre of the park Arsenal lacked presence, just as the central axis wasn’t there to help play build through the middle.

Why the club are keeping tabs on strikers like Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Dusan Vlahovic is clear: these are two players who occupy their areas of the pitch in dominating fashion. Much like Partey and Xhaka do in midfield.

As targets get flung about from every corner of Europe, whether they play as a No. 9 or a No. 6, it is essential that they can impose themselves physically in matches to balance out the technical partnerships forming in wide areas.

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2. Tactical Fluidity

This mainly covers the need to bring in players who are still able to absorb new tactical regimes. Looking at those Arsenal have in reserve, there is no scope for the likes of Cedric, Holding or Elneny to adapt to new styles.

They are what they are, for better or for worse, with the door available for them to become ‘Arteta players’ either shut or barely ajar.

Clear to see is that depth is essential in this team. But it has to be the right depth or the right starter.

Signing Cedric as a backup was at the time deemed a wise move for the club, for whatever reason that may have been. Never more than a stop-gap, a key element of rebuilding the squad is acquiring players who can all sing from the same hymn sheet. The older members of this group can’t hit those notes.

While it is important that Arsenal don’t solely back up the current group with another batch of inexperienced and younger players, the 24/25 years old age group need to either have the capacity to adapt to new systems or already be well versed in them.

It’s never easy doing so, especially when time is of the essence in a transfer window that drifts by in the blink of an eye with clubs unwilling to part with their prized assets. Arsenal did a magnificent job of this over the summer, and must now compress all that into a shorter time frame.

Wherever depth is sourced it can’t be just for the sake of it. The numbers need bolstering with players who can all either learn to sing, or who have been practicing in a similar choir elsewhere. Manageable tactical profiles are so key at this stage.

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3. What is Deadwood & What Isn’t Deadwood

The most recent example of poor player analysis is Cedric. Arsenal have a club willing to sign the 30-year-old on a loan with a permanent option included, a deal the Gunners are reluctant to sanction for fear of weakening their position.

Cedric is deadwood. Him leaving would not weaken the squad, especially now there is no FA Cup football for the remainder of the campaign.

A failure to acknowledge when to sell players has been the Achilles heel of may years of transfer activity. Arsenal appear to have cracked only one half of the job of player transactions.

Therefore it is reassuring to see the club being open to offers for Pablo Mari and Calum Chambers. Yet, in the case of the latter, there are no offers while Atletico Madrid are in need of replacing Kieran Trippier and are willing to act. While both are not at the level required for Arsenal, the club shouldn’t be sitting on their hands waiting for one and not accepting the other.

The drop off from the 14 or so regular features in the Premier League to those below is still vast.

But there isn’t much differentiating those in the second tier of the squad. It’s mostly average muddled with more average. The lesser of two evils, if you like. Move on what you can so long as it isn’t cutting of your nose to spite your face. Can Arsenal survive without one of Chambers or Cedric? They can, and the truth is it doesn’t really matter which one, so move on who there is offers for.