Who are Arsenal selling this summer & what do we need to do?

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Preparing for the regular review of who is tipped to be leaving and who is tipped to be coming into Arsenal this summer I came across a previously un-noted (at least by us) website “Top Flight”, which has the headline, “What the Gunners need to do to get back to the Wenger days”

Now I found that interesting because most bloggers and journalists refused to admit there ever was such a thing as the Wenger days in a positive sense, and many including those with their little “Wenger out” banners and occasional aeroplanes seemed to feel there was nothing good about the past.

As we were told by the online gooner and other plotters, over and over “Fourth is not a trophy”, and perhaps they are now pleased that we are no longer challenging for fourth.

But Top Flight seem to suggest that the Wengerian Era which came before the Emeratian Interlude and the Arteta Arrival, maybe wasn’t quite so bad after all, and now we need to recover something of that time.

To do this, they tell us that “Arsenal need a new defence” stipulating that “players like Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Mustafi and David Luiz all need to be sold in the up and coming transfer window.”

That would of course leave us with pretty much no defence at all, and given the way these “supporters” have denigrated those players, little income either, since their value must have dropped significantly as a result of the relentless attacks on them.

But for such writers, money seems to be something that is always available no matter what, and so the bold announcement is made that, “Arteta needs to bring in quality defenders that can grow with the club and his ideology, as well as improve the team. Even if he brings in just two top defenders, this would help stabilise the team and bring some peace of mind to the forwards and remove some unwanted pressure.”

There is however a problem here.  New players who can come in and instantly make an impact in defence rather than grow into the team over a period of their first season, are very hard to find.   Vieira most certainly did it from the moment he came onto the pitch for his first match.  Tony Adams picked it up very quickly, as did David O’Leary, but those were players who understood the club from the start.

But most defenders take their time.  Koscielny for example became a key part of the team, but he looked anything but that at the start.

At such a moment the manager needs to hold his nerve – which can be difficult at Arsenal where the anti-fans express their opinions very quickly and repeatedly and can unnerve the best of players.

Anyway, TopFlight seems to suggest that one only has to bring in the “right” players and then all is fine, forgetting perhaps that Mustafi was indeed considered as a top defender across Europe when he was signed, until the AAA destroyed his confidence because, well, just because they think it is a fun thing to do.

Apparently we also need a creative midfielder and the publication suggests Coutinho is available in the market and Arsenal should make a move for a player of his quality.

“He will bring flair and provide goals from the midfield, which the Gunners lack at the moment,” they say.

Unfortunately not all agree as FourFourTwo state that “A transfer to the Premier League won’t reverse Philippe Coutinho’s fall from grace,” adding, “The Barcelona playmaker has been linked with Tottenham and Chelsea – but after a wrong career step it’s hard to shake his new image as a complementary midfielder.”

And this really is part of the problem.  For every opinionated scribbler who tells us who we need to buy there is someone else saying “don’t”

And then there is Sky Sports endlessly telling us what a cock up we made of it all by not signing players even if the players themselves chose not to come to Arsenal.  As with their current piece, “Riyad Mahrez, Wilfried Zaha, Marco Reus: Arsenal’s top 50 signings that got away.”  No, not got away, were never coming.

Meanwhile here are just some of the players who are not coming but going – at least according to the media…

	Player	Why	Source	Where to
1	Aubameyang	Desperate to leave	Express	PSG
2	Guendouzi	Annoying the manager	Star, FoLo	?
3	Lacazette	Exchange for Lemar	Metro, HITC	Atletico Madrid, Inter
4	Maitland Niles	Only himself to blame	Pain in the Arsenal	AC Milan
5	Mustafi	Fans hate him	TDfichajes	AC Milan
6	Ozil	Media campaign	Every outlet	Turkey
7	Sokratis		Newsbytesap	Roma
8	Tierney	Arsenal willing to accept less  than they paid to raise cash	90 Min, HITC, Sport Review.  Talk Sport say no, HITC covers that.	Leicester want him for “cut price” deal
9	Xhaka	Had enough of fans	Pretty much everywhere	Hertha Berlin