Arsenal set for deadline day fire sale

It is well known that Arsenal have too many non-home grown players.

At the time of writing, we have 19. We can have no more than 17 to be within Premier League rules.

That leaves Arsenal with 2 choices:

• Sell or loan out unwanted players
• Have unregistered players in the first team squad

The issue with the latter is those unregistered players will still be required to turn up to training every day, despite them having no chance of playing.

And if Arsenal say “we do not want you to turn up for training”, the club would potentially be infringing their contract with the player.

It could actually result in Arsenal playing the unregistered players money to agree not to turn up to training. An unsavoury situation for all.

Arsenal have struggled to sell players throughout the summer for various reasons.

Partly due to the club refusing to “sell cheap”, and partly due to buying clubs being unwilling to offer big wages and high transfer fees for average ageing players.

It is a big game of poker.

Arsenal do not want to buy in extra players until they sell current squad members, as new signings will reduce those squad players value further. Whilst buying clubs know at some point Arsenal might be desperate to sell or loan players, so they can get an Arsenal player cheaper than what the club are currently demanding.

All this could lead Arsenal to a deadline day fire sale.

Take Sokratis.

Arsenal want a transfer fee above £5million. Napoli were interested but have they have gone quiet.

On deadline day, a club might be able to pick up Sokratis for free, if Arsenal still have too many non-home grown players.

Arsenal will be happy to just get him off the books, even if it means not taking a fee for him.

Mesut Ozil is another one to keep an eye on.

He is clearly unwanted by Mikel Arteta. But at £350,000 a week, no club is in for him. No club will want to buy him, no club will want to loan him paying a big chunk of his wages. And Ozil is seemingly in no rush to leave.

On deadline day, a club might be able to pick up Mesut Ozil for on loan paying a small portion of his wages, if Arsenal still have too many non-home grown players.

You can see a club from Turkey coming in on deadline day, maybe offering to pay £50,000 a week to Ozil, with Arsenal covering the rest.

Arsenal would then have a decision to make.

Loan Ozil out, paying him £10million in wages, or keep him, unregistered, training with the team but not playing, and paying him £13million.

It stops becoming about the money Arsenal have to pay in wages, or the missed transfer fees, and becomes an issue of having unregistered players training day in day out.

Similar might happen with the likes of Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac.

Both have their suitors, but the later Lazio or Bayer Leverkuson wait, the cheaper they might get their targets.

Arsenal are reportedly demanding £9m for Kolasinac. That fee drops hugely on deadline day if Arsenal have too many non-home grown players.

And Mustafi is in a similar situation as Sokratis.

With 9 months left on his contract, Arsenal might let him leave on a free transfer on deadline day, just to bring those squad numbers down.

Ideally Arsenal would like to get business done this week, before the October 5^th deadline day. But as we close in on that date, Arsenal are going to have to drop their pants if they want to bring squad numbers in line with Premier League rules.

Keenos