Arsenal: 4 forgotten players under Arteta this season

Opting to trim the squad further in the winter, Arsenal bid farewell to six players in various capacities, all the while welcoming in none. It was a recruitment call that surprised many.

The idea was with no other competitions to compete in having been knocked out of both the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, that the reduced squad size would knit the group even closer together. It appears to be working.

Now boasting a small enough troupe that every senior player will be involved in matchdays squads if fit, there appears to be a stronger bond with fewer disgruntled individuals.

Well in the hunt for the top four and Champions League football, if the squad can stay majorly injury free then they stand a great chance of achieving their aims. Their risky ploy will have paid off magnificently.

Arsenal: 4 forgotten players under Mikel Arteta this Premier League season as the Gunners keep chasing top four and Champions League football

The club will be set up beautifully for the summer window, too. With the allure of elite European competition and the finance that comes with it, Arsenal can attract a higher calibre of player, those who can fit in neatly in the gaps left by January’s transfer moves, all with a heavily reduced wage bill.

Whoever the new striker(s) is, for example, won’t need much reassurance that he’s going to be starting every week.

But even with the heavily reduced squad size there are still those who can’t get a sniff. What will happen to them? Have we forgotten about them?

They’re still there, lurking around, and while some may be heading away, others remain part of the long-term plan.

Nuno Tavares

There was a period around October and November where supporters were conflicted. On the one hand their future captain was struggling and being left on the bench, yet equally it was so much fun watching Nuno Tavares jet off on barnstorming runs from left-back.

When you think left-back you think one-on-one duels, overlapping runs and crosses. That’s generally the gist of the position. But Nuno is like a chaos agent, underlapping more than he overlaps, dribbling with both feet and bursting up and down the left flank with disrespectful energy levels.

Oh, and he loves a shot. Oftentimes too many.

Kieran Tierney would eventually return to the team in the beginning of December where over time he regained his form, but not before Nuno left a lasting impression. Barely featuring at all since with the Scot in fine fettle, the Portuguese defender has been starved of action on account of there being no cup football.

He’s someone who desperately needs Arsenal to get back into Europe so he can have the certainty of FA Cup and Carabao Cup matches to impress. Knowing he’s already usurped Tierney before, further impressive performances when given the chance mean there is no reason to suggest he can’t do it again.

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Bernd Leno

Four seasons at the club and over 120 appearances, when the current campaign comes to an end it will be farewell for the German who is due to leave north London. A return to the North Rhine seems likely.

It’s a shame that Arsenal had to bow out of the FA Cup so early on. Even in the Carabao Cup he was only trusted up until the semi-final stage – which is so incredibly un-Wenger that it almost feels rude – before Ramsdale came back in, and he only had three chances to begin the season to stake his claim.

Of course, the decision to instate Ramsdale as number one was one nobody disagrees with, it’s just unfortunate for Leno that his Premier League it would come after a 5-0 drubbing against Manchester City.

With just a year left to run on his deal when the summer comes around it’s not like Arsenal can command too high of a fee. Paying £19.2m for him back in 2018, they’ll be hopeful of getting around £5m now.

And, having already signed his replacement, Matt Turner, it will probably be that Leno has already chosen his next destination. The injury to Ramsdale does give him another chance, though. Keeping a clean sheet against Villa showed tremendous character, and depending on the severity of the issue he could be given another opportunity away at Crystal Palace.

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Albert Sambi Lokonga

Just one start in the previous 15 Premier League matches – that one being the result of red card mayhem in midfield – is a considerable drop off from featuring in some capacity in 12 of the opening 13 games.

The situation worked out very well for Sambi Lokonga. Thomas Partey getting an injury in pre-season was only briefly catered for by Granit Xhaka, who missed two matches through suspension and then suffered his knee injury in the North London Derby.

It will never have been Arteta’s intention to use Sambi as heavily as he did, but the cards fell for the young Belgian to make an impression ahead of schedule.

For the most part, he did. There were expected teething issues with the general pace of the division, as Sambi did struggle to work on his spacing and tracking midfield runners, but he improved over time and began showing his finer qualities on the ball with some lovey ranged distribution.

When Partey and Xhaka are fit, however, they play. That’s the rule and nobody is arguing against it.

That comes to Sambi’s detriment, who in the 4-3-3 system is finding game time at a premium. He, like so many others, will be longing for next season when Arsenal will hopefully have four competitions to compete in, granting him the opportunities he had at the start of this season.

Will he have a part to play between now and the end of the season? You wouldn’t bet against it.

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Mohamed Elneny

Mohamed Elneny made a whopping 41 appearances last season. 41! For someone who the entire fanbase knows is allergic to forward passing and desperately limited in his ability, that is a staggering amount of times to groan when the lineups are revealed.

Contrast to this season and he’s made just ten in all competitions. That’s a bit more like it.

His one Premier League start this season? Why it was at Old Trafford, of course. One of the more bemusing decisions Arteta has made in recent times, he had the belief that because Mo played so well in this stadium 12 months ago that he could do it again.

In fairness, he was one of the better players on the pitch if memory serves well.

But now he’s very much a forgotten man, playing just 21 minutes of league football since early December, although he did get to an AFCON final with his country where he was probably Egypt’s best outfield player of the tournament.

His contract is up in the summer which means his time at the club will be up, with the chances of Arsenal tying him down to another contract sitting at zero. A move to Turkey seems inevitable and it will draw the curtain on a Gunners career that spanned over 140 matches.