Oliver Young-Myles, MetroUK
Not even the undisputed king of the Europa League, Unai Emery, could inspire Arsenal to a Champions League-clinching success against Chelsea during a bizarre final played out in Baku’s eerily soulless Olympic Stadium on May 29.
After Arsenal faded, following a bright opening 25 minutes, it was one-way traffic with an Eden Hazard-inspired Chelsea, running out comprehensive 4-1 victors to condemn the Gunners to another season of toil in Europe’s second-rung competition.
It was a dismal end to what has been a desperately disappointing final few weeks of Emery’s maiden campaign in charge.
A collapse of epic proportions in the race for the top-four followed by last Wednesday’s miserable capitulation to Chelsea has raised serious questions about Arsenal’s squad.
All season long there has been a suspicion that Arsenal’s squad is top-heavy due to its over-reliance on the strike pairing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, whose goals have papered over the cracks prevalent throughout the rest of the side.
There are far too few players in this Arsenal set-up of sufficient quality to help arrest their recent slide next season. None of Arsenal’s players would get into Manchester City or Liverpool’s teams, for instance, and perhaps only one or two would make it into Chelsea or Tottenham’s.
A colossal summer awaits the club and with a failure to secure Champions League football leaving Emery with a meagre transfer budget, a few high-profile, underperforming stars will have to be ushered out the door to make way for much-needed fresh blood.
Below are the five players the Gunners could off load ahead of the new season.
MESUT OZIL
On the face of it, Arsenal and Chelsea’s playmaker’s have plenty in common. Separated only two years apart, Ozil and Hazard have been two of their generation’s finest creative talents, they have been the stars around whom their national teams have been built and they are the most high-profile and consequently, best-paid players for their clubs.
During Wednesday night’s final, though, the only comparison between the two was the No.10 on the front of their shorts and the back of the shirts. In terms of their influence, they were polar opposites; Hazard was the star of the show, while Ozil was utterly anonymous.
Top players are meant to thrive on the biggest stage of all, but it was telling that with 13 minutes to go, Emery hooked Ozil with Arsenal 4-1 down, in favour of a 19-year-old local lad with only 146 minutes of Premier League football to his name. More tellingly, Joe Willock was far more threatening during his cameo than Ozil had been for the previous 77 minutes. Surely not even the most vociferous of supporters of Ozil could excuse the German’s performance or the excruciating amount of time it took him to trudge from the turf when his number was up. This should be his final game for Arsenal. Time and again, Özil has proven that he is not a playmaker capable of building a team around, despite his mammoth £350,000 weekly wages. With budgets stretched, Özil should top the list of players Emery discards this summer. The problem is, who exactly is going to take him?
LAURENT KOSCIELNY
Arsenal are already bidding adieu to one of their stalwarts of the ‘Emirates era’ in the form of Aaron Ramsey who is joining Juventus and the time may well have come for another long-serving fan favourite to pack his bags and say his goodbyes. Following a shaky start to his Arsenal career – a sending off on debut followed by that howler against Birmingham City in the League Cup final – Koscielny has established himself as one of Arsenal’s most dependable defenders during the Premier League era.
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A level or two below the likes of Tony Adams and Sol Campbell, but arguably the best of the rest, the Frenchman has been an excellent servant, a good leader and a consistently high-performer, yet at 33-years-old and following his recent injury history, Koscielny is not the player he once was. Koscielny’s contract is set to expire next summer, which if he sees it out will take him to a decade of service for Arsenal. While Koscielny deserves great respect for his accomplishments, now is not the time for sentimentality and the club must make ruthless decisions to freshen up the squad.
NACHO MONREAL
Arsenal are believed to have activated an optional one-year extension to Nacho Monreal’s contract, which like Koscielny means his existing deal is set to expire next summer. Perhaps the reasoning behind Monreal’s extension was due to his dependability and versatility with the Spaniard able to slot in at left-back or as a left-sided centre back in a three-man defence. However, he too has shown signs of wear and tear in recent months.
Particularly in the Premier League, the full-back positions are now very much a young man’s game, with those deployed in those positions expected to provide attacking impetus as well defensive solidity on their flanks. It is one of the most physically demanding positions in modern football. Whether Monreal still possesses the capabilities to perform in such a dual role is questionable. With Sead Kolasinac also flattering to deceive, it is little wonder that Arsenal have been linked with Ajax’s all-action Argentine Nicolas Tagliafico in recent months. Monreal has been linked with a return to Spain and this summer would represent Arsenal’s final opportunity to sell him for a fee.
GRANIT XHAKA
By the time Hazard’s second and Chelsea’s fourth goal flew in past Petr Cech it was easy to forget that Arsenal were the far better of the two teams early on. All that was lacking for their good work was a goal and had Granit Xhaka’s right-footed thunderbolt crept underside the bar rather than skim it on its way over, things might have been different. Had it gone in, it would have been rather typical of Xhaka’s Arsenal career. Throughout his three seasons in north London, Xhaka has shown he is more than capable of lashing a long-range screamer into the top corner, yet those rare moments have failed to really mask the deficiencies elsewhere in his game.
Like Ozil, Xhaka has a wand of a left foot, is a beautiful passer of the ball (when given plenty of time and space) and is on the whole, a nice footballer to watch. However, also like his colleague, Xhaka lacks pace and has a tendency to go missing when it matters, which isn’t ideal given his position at the base of midfield. There is a general consensus that Xhaka has shown signs of improvement during his third season in English football and it is perhaps no coincidence that the presence of the tigerish Lucas Torreira alongside him in midfield, helped to get the best out of him either side of the new year. However, like too many others in an Arsenal shirt, Xhaka underwhelms and leaves supporters wanting more far too regularly. At 26, Xhaka would have no shortage of takers, particularly from the Bundesliga where he previously flourished and he could extract a reasonable fee if sold.
SHKODRAN MUSTAFI
No surprises here. Despite having accumulated a wealth of experience in Italy and Spain, been part of a World Cup-winning Germany squad and possessing good physical attributes for a modern-day central defender, Shkodran Mustafi has been an unmitigated disaster since his move to the Emirates. Although he is generally very good in the air and is an accomplished distributor of the ball, Mustafi’s decision-making and regular lapses in concentration are those that one might expect from a rookie just starting out rather than a 27-year-old who cost £35m.
That fateful game against Crystal Palace in which Mustafi was either partially or fully at fault for all three of the Eagles’ goals during what proved to be a calamitous 3-2 home defeat for Arsenal, was the final straw for many of the club’s supporters. Speaking ahead of a Europa League final in which he ultimately would not play a part in, Mustadi showed a stunning lack of self-awareness when he said: ‘They know our weaknesses; we know their weaknesses and it is about who is going to make the fewest mistakes.’ As the most error-prone performer in a team packed full of them, Mustafi’s time at the Emirates is surely up.