With Mesut Ozil and Shkodran Mustafi both terminating their contracts, it continues a trend at Arsenal of generating very little, if anything from players sales.
A brilliant piece of analysis by friend of the site Swiss Ramble really highlights the issue over the past decade:
Arsenal have finally moved on Mesut Ozil and Shkodran Mustafi via free transfers, which raises the question of how good the club’s recruitment has been. Looking at this over a longer period, we can see that since 2010 they have lost (in cash terms) a cool £236m #AFCpic.twitter.com/17augNMb2W
Arsenal have made an 8-figure profit on just two players – Emiliano Martinez and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain (note: players to have come through Arsenal’s youth system have been excluded).
12 transfers have seen Arsenal make an 8-figure loss.
Stan Kroenke has come in for criticism from many for “not spending enough money”, but in the last decade Arsenal have wasted £100s of millions on poor transfers, and the wages and fees that go with them
What is clear is that Arsenal need to start spending their own money better.
Deadline day saw Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Joe Willock both leave on loan to WBA and Newcastle respectively.
The pairs playing time this season has been severely restricted.
AMN looked on the verge of a break through towards the end of the season; but has started just 5 Premier League games this.
Whilst Joe Willock played 29 Premier League games under in 2019/20, and just 7 this season.
Both players have fallen out of favour and are itching for playing time.
Maitland-Niles nearly left for Wolves in the summer for a deal worth in the region of £20million. But with rumours circulating that Hector Bellerin was unsettled, a decision was made to keep him.
Eventually Bellerin remained, and up’d his game; whilst AMN has also fallen behind Cedric Soares on the right.
The feeling at the club is clearly that AMN is suited to 5 at the back rather than 4; and with Mikel Arteta now playing with a back 4 regularly; the Englishman has found playing time limited.
Arteta also likes a balanced team.
We saw against Crystal Palace that having a right footed left back in a back 4 restricted us and our ability to stretch the game.
When AMN was excelling on the left of a back 5, he had Kieran Tierney inside him. The Scot would often end up outside Maitland-Niles in attacking positions providing that width.
Expect Arsenal to go out and sign a left footed left back in the summer to provide cover for Tierney.
Despite playing a lot of games, Willock has never really forced his way into contention for regular starts.
There have always been question marks over what type of midfielder he is. Is he an 8? Box to box? Or is he a 10 with his late runs into the box?
So do either Mitland-Niles have a future at Arsenal?
My feeling is no.
Maitland-Niles is often lumped in with the likes of Willock, Bukayo Saka and Reiss Nelson as a “talented youngster”. But he is already 23, and turns 24 at the start of next season. He is no longer a youngster.
Moving into next season, he would be 3rd choice right back and 3rd choice left back (once we make a new signing).
He has never really done it in midfield for Arsenal.
Many have speculated that he could perform well there given a chance, so it will be interested to see if WBA play him in the middle or out wide.
Even if he performs well in the middle, you have to feel his future at Arsenal is still limited as we look to improve the top end of the team in central midfield, not add squad players.
The fact Mohamed Elneny has been continually picked ahead of AMN in the middle of the park highlights that Arteta does not fancy him there.
Arsenal could easily command the £20million that Wolves offer last summer for Maitland-Niles next summer. The feeling is that £20million could be spent on recruiting better than him.
Willock’s time at Arsenal is also coming to an end.
In recent weeks, Emile Smith Rowe has broken into the Arsenal first XI and is putting in performances levels ahead of Willock.
Willock has played just 1 minute of the last 4 Premier League games and has found himself either left on the bench or not even in the match day squad 14 times this season.
With the signing of Martin Ødegaard, Willock has dropped one more down the pecking order.
With Arsenal in the market for a senior 10 to go alongside Smith Rowe (it might end up being Ødegaard), Willock will at best be 3rd choice in that position.
If he reinvents himself at Newcastle as someone who can play a little deeper, as a high energy box to box player, Arsenal might re-integrate him into the team next season.
But like with Maitland-Niles, Arsenal need to be buying better midfielders than we currently have. Is Willock better than Granit Xhaka or Mo Elneny? No.
Is he better than Lucas Torreira or Matteo Guendouzi? No.
If he puts in solid performances in the Premier League, Arsenal would expect to raise £15million selling him.
There has been a lot of hype around Hale End in recent years and it is good to see players from the academy getting opportunities for the first time in decades.
Both Willock and AMN have had plenty of opportunities and have shown themselves to be not quite at the level required.
We sell, raise funds, move on to the next crop.
Final word: It will be easy for fans to say “we should keep them for squad depth and their versatility”, but both are clearly hungry to play regular football. If we can not offer a player regular football we should not stand in their way of leving.
Facebook announced over the weekend that they will be assisting football in an attempt to “stamp out racism in the game”.
This makes it appear that racism on social media is footballs problem. It is not.
Racism on social media – whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube – is social media’s problem.
The abuse online is not only aimed at footballers – it is aimed at cricket players, boxers, musicians, actors and “ordinary folk”.
For too long, social media companies have not done enough to tackle online abuse.
They realise that a lot of their Daily Active Users (DAU) only log on to abuse others.
If they took a tough stance against abusers, their DAUs would drop, which in turn would see advertising revenue and therefore profits drop.
These companies Rey on advertising revenue to survive. Without that revenue they would not have the income to operate. They literally need abusers logging on each day with multiple accounts to boost their DAU statistics.
Facebook, Twitter et al literally turn a blind eye to online abuse in favour of profits.
The recent abuse of Marcus Rashford, Reece James, Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial is disgusting, but not new.
Online racist abuse hidden under a cape of anonymity has existed for as long as the internet.
It predates currently social media and goes back to internet forums, IRC chat rooms and MySpace.
All social media has done is bought us closer together and made it easier for someone to sit online and directly abuse someone they do not know.
For a long time, the stance taken by social media companies stance has been “if you are a victim of online abuse, report it to your local authorities”.
This is literally them washing their hands with the situation. Saying it has nothing to do with them.
Yet they provide the platform that the abusers use. And they could work a lot harder to stamp out the abusers.
By Facebook saying they will “work with football” shows once more they are trying to shift the blame.
They are saying the issue is for football and they will help. The issue is actually the social media companies.
Solutions are easy.
Take Twitter, for example.
Instead of leaving “verification ticks” for celebrities, journalists, etc; they could have them for everyone.
You upload a valid ID and that then allows your account to be verified.
Stage two is then allow you to mute unverified accounts and restrict them from sending you a DM.
Overnight that will clean up your timeline – as most of the abusers are “burner accounts” set up by teenagers across the globe to only send abuse.
It is unlikely people would tweet abuse knowing that Twitter knows exactly who they are.
“But I don’t want social media to have a copy of my ID” will be a response by many.
You don’t have to give it. It would be optional. It would then be a users choice whether they want to mute unverified accounts or not.
You chose not to verify, then your abuse falls on deaf ears. You are basically shouting at a post on your wall.
So simple. So effective.
Much of the racism that footballers face online does not come from the UK – which makes it even harder for local authorities to act.
We have seen an actress in India racially abuse Alex Iwobi, and much of the racist abuse comes from African’s. Literally black people racially abusing other black people.
“We need better education” is good in theory. But when much of abuse is coming from children that think “it’s a joke” or people outside of your jurisdiction, authorities can do little.
The kids will eventually grow out of it and probably be ashamed of a tweet that they sent at 14. Your 25 year old who is still messaging abuse is beyond education.
Arsenal can not do anything about someone in India abusing Alex Iwobi. Great Manchester Police can do nothing about someone in Nigeria racially abusing Marcus Rashford.
Even when the abuse happens within the UK, clubs and authorities can do little when it is a 14 year old doing the abuse.
Whilst Twitter, Facebook, etc allows people to set up anonymous accounts, abuse will continue.
Instead of “working with football to stamp out racism in the game”, social media needs to look at itself and stamp out racism on its own platforms.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 