It’s all well and good getting rid of a team’s deadwood players, as it allows a club to lose some player wages, gain a few squad places and in the meantime gather a little bit of income, but ultimately if you don’t then go and replace these players then the club goes into a period of further regression.

Arsenal have so far seen many players leave the club this summer and fortunately they have all been ‘deadwood’ players rather than the usual quality players we see leave the club. The players that have left so far this summer are the likes of Arshavin, Denilson, and Squillaci have all been released from their contracts, whilst Djourou has left on loan and Mannone has made the permanent move to Sunderland. And although some will argue that we needed to sell before we can buy, this period of inactivity in the transfer window has actually weakened the team!

On paper the team is now weakened. To many it won’t make a difference because none of the players above were first team players and it’s true that at the moment the actually starting XI isn’t weaker at all, in fact it’s exactly the same, just a year older. But what is weaker is our overall squad. A simple look at the announced team for the club’s pre-season tour of Asia will show you that this team would probably struggle for 3rd or 4th place and I know a lot of people would agree with that after reading the comments on some of the other articles.

The fact is, if this period of stagnation doesn’t end soon at the club, we will experience what happens every summer and Arsenal will lose out on their targets and then we will complain that we were too stingy on the price or too slow in our dealings. According to some people we had Higuain, Cesar and Fellaini in the bag, but now I’m sure you’ll see why you should not trust any of the Internet ‘in the knows’. With Bendtner, Gervinho, Park, Chamakh and Santos all also set to leave this summer, if we don’t act upon all this gathered income through fees and wages with high quality players then we really must start to doubt Wenger, Gazidis and the board’s mentality on transfer dealings.

3 thoughts on “Getting rid of Arsenal deadwood is only good IF they are replaced

  1. Our first team is stronger due to the team being familiar with each other. Any quality additions are obviously a welcome bonus but not to the detriment of our current settled squad. The benefit of a settled squad is grossly underestimated and often ignored because it does create clicks or provoke reactions. I just wish the term ‘deadwood’ would disappear as it is extremely disrespectful and classless.

  2. the team is currently lacking depth. that was our greatest undoing 4 the last several seasons. once a key player sustained an injury, there was no proper replacement. that made it hard to sustain a winning run in the league.

  3. The deadwood doesn’t need to be replaced as their replacements are already at the club
    Mannone replaced by martinez
    Arshavin replaced by ryo
    Denilson replaced by aneke
    Squillaci replaced by boateng
    Coquelin replaced frimpong
    Gervinho replaced by gnabry
    Bendtner replaced by sanogo
    Chamakh replaced by akpom
    Park replaced by eisfeld
    Djourou replaced by miquel
    Santos was replaced in january by monreal

    I fail to see how the squad has been weakened? Most of the departures were not even 2nd choice let alone first choice with probably only djourou getting in at centre back if you picked your first two teams. Seeing as he didn’t start a single premier league game last season he is no great loss. In fact as it stands only 3 from the above list actually get in my first and second x1s
    Szczesney
    Sagna mertesacker koscielny gibbs
    Arteta wilshire
    Walcott cazorla podolski
    Giroud

    Fabianski
    Jenkinson vermaelen miquel monreal
    Diaby ramsey
    Chamberlain rosicky ryo
    Sanogo

    IN even think our 3rd x1 looks pretty exciting
    Martinez
    Bellerin boateng fagan ormonde-ottewill
    Frimpong yennaris
    Eisfeld aneke gnabry
    Akpom

    Whilst our 4th & 5th x1s beat sutton united on Friday. Ok I get we all want signings and we will get them. Wenger may be frustrating at times but he is not stupid last season he brought in 4 players all internationals cazorla podolski giroud and monreal now they didn’t do bad at all.

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