Before Arsenal buy anyone they’ve got to get rid of their non-HG players

 

 

• Suddenly, the number of players coming to Arsenal has shot up. What’s going on?
• Why is one of the biggest stories in football no longer mentioned?

By Tony Attwood

Prologue: it is quite possible I have made either a nationality or a counting or an age error in this piece.  If so, please do write in, but if at all possible, please just give me the factors, rather than call me a ******* ***** which I probably deserve but let’s take as read.

It is fairly obvious that Arsenal have too many first-team players to fit them all into the 25-man squad for the new season.  So, although most people interested in the matter are spending their time arguing about who we should buy, being the perverse person I am, I started looking at how we can fit the squad we do have into the 25-man rule and the home-grown player rule.

Critically, we not only have too many players in the squad, we also have too many non-homegrown players.  In fact, we have a squad of 30 players! 

What we can do at first is remove the under-21s from the count, since they can stay and play without being counted in the 25-man squad.  That I think takes out Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, and Max Dowman.   (Since I am now old, everyone looks young to me.  If I have missed someone, let me know – it will solve the problem).

So we now have a 22-man squad of non-home-grown players and six home-grown players: a total of 28.   And although we are endlessly thinking about players coming in what we really should be doing is thinking about how we get three of those players out of the squad – almost certainly three non-home-grown players. 

I would suggest one of the goalkeepers, and… well then the argument begins.   Not least because some people will argue that Gabrielle Martinelli is not a homegrown player – as one person recently said to me “he’s ***ing foreign, it’s bleedin’ obvious.  Look at his name!”   But of course not that obvious because the homegrown quality relates as much to where the player played as where he was born, and Martinelli spent his time at Manchester United, who stupidly let him go.  I think he is homegrown.

But it is still fairly obvious that Arsenal have too many first-team players to fit them all into the 25-man squad for the new season. In fact we have 30 players in the squad! 

What we can do at first is remove the under-21s since they can stay and play without being counted in the 25-man squad.  That I think takes out Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, Max Dowman. 

So we now have a 22-man squad of non-home-grown players and six home-grown players: a total of 28.   And although we are endlessly thinking about players coming in, what we really should be doing is thinking about how we get three of those players out of the squad – in fact, three non-home-grown players. 

I would suggest one of the goalkeepers, and that leaves us with, as you can see below, 22 non-homegrown players and we are only allowed 17.  The simple fact is that five have to go.   One option for the first part of the season if nothing else, is that centre forward Gabriel could be dropped from the squad to allow him to recover and get fit.  He’d still be paid, but simply not be in the squad.  So now we need four to go.  Here’s the list of players over 21 years old not qualifying as homegrown.

	Player	Age	Position	Home Grown?
1	David Raya	29	Goalkeeper	No
2	Kepa Arrizabalaga	30	Goalkeeper	No
3	Karl Hein	23	Goalkeeper	No
4	William Saliba	24	Centre-Back	No
5	Cristhian Mosquera	21	Centre-Back	No
7	Gabriel Magalhães	27	Centre-Back	No
8	Jurriën Timber	24	Right-Back	No
9	Jakub Kiwior	25	Centre-Back	No
10	Oleksandr Zinchenko	28	Left-Back	No
11	Riccardo Calafiori	23	Left-Back	No
12	Martin Ødegaard	26	Attacking Midfield	No
13	Christian Nørgaard	31	Defensive Midfield	No
14	Fábio Vieira	25	Attacking Midfield	No
15	Mikel Merino	29	Central Midfield	No
16	Albert Sambi Lokonga	25	Central Midfield	No
17	Martín Zubimendi	26	Defensive Midfield	No
18	Gabriel Jesus	28	Centre-Forward	No
19	Gabriel Martinelli	24	Left Winger	No
20	Viktor Gyökeres	27	Centre-Forward	No
21	Leandro Trossard	30	Left Winger	No
22	Kai Havertz	26	Centre-Forward	No

The most obvious next option could be be drop one of the keepers since normally clubs only have two first team choices.   So that leaves three to be dropped out.

My next move is to reclassify Gabriel Martinelli, since, as noted, he was trained in his youth in England and can be called homegrown on that basis.  Which means we have to get rid of two more.  Crystal Palace are interested in taking Jakub Kiwior so that leaves us with one more player to dispatch.  Take your pick.

Of course, it is possible that I have made a mistake somewhere and one of those on the list actually can in some way qualify as homegrown (and just having a UK passport isn’t enough), but if not, we need to lose one more, and I have run out of ideas.   You tell me.