been thinking about how this summer will unfold, and i think there are a few interesting variables to consider:
arteta was able to sell players on his vision last summer with a fresh FA cup win. its how we signed partey, despite not having CL. well, now we don't even have europe. so, the message to any player of quality has to be "this is our season where we focus purely on the league, we will get a top 4 finish, and we will be back in the CL. thats a pretty ambitious message, and if im a top quality player, im not sure that im buying into that with arteta as the manager.
that said, we really do not need to prioritize our depth for this season. the premier league is our only real competition for the first 4 months of the season. we're going to play our kids in the tin pot cup. and the FA cup doesnt start till january. our starting XI needs to play 1 match a week. injuries will happen, but its not like we need to build a squad that is 30 players deep for this season
which means, now is most certainly the time to trim the fat from the first team and raise as much money as we can. most of the first XI is fairly set. forget leno for a moment because we dont know if he really wants to leave. tierney/gabriel/holding/chambers/partey/saka/ESR/pepe/auba should be locked in, unless we upgrade holding and chambers. that is 9 of 10 outfield players filled with credible options, without worrying about odegaard's loan or anything else. we should be looking to upgrade xhaka, obviously, and i think thats the spot most likely to see a big player come in.
in terms of actual depth, we need to sort out the GK position. if leno wants to go, then he can fuck off and go, but we need to resolve it before the season. we cant have a goalkeeper pouting. we also don't really need to rotate keepers at all this season. either leno is the man, or he goes for £15-20m at least and we buy a new keeper and hes the man. id look to extend ryan's loan/buy him cheap if we can. he was fine as a #2 and he can start in a pinch
we have a lot of players who can and should be sold this summer:
^ lacazette: hes slow and past it. someone would probably give us £20m for him though
^ xhaka: not a lot to say, i dont want to see him here anymore, but hes young enough to generate a good fee
^ AMN: clearly isnt trusted here, young and english, should command £15m without blinking
^ willian: i'd pay a decent chunk just to terminate his contract. he should be out the door before july 1
^ bellerin: a team in spain surely will give us £10m+ for him. bye
^ willock: either he's good enough to get games for us, or he can go. like AMN, hes young and english and had a great loan out, so he should generate £20m+ if we deem him not good enough
^ nelson: im sure hes happy he stayed here this season. he can go. just add in a sell-on clause in case he pulls a gnabry
^ nketiah: still young enough that someone would probably be interested
^ guendouzi: already being sold it seems, which is great
^ torreira: send him back to italy or spain, £15m and just cut our losses
^ kolasinac: take £1m from any bundesliga team that would pay. or work out a deal to terminate his contract so he can go elsewhere on a free
- we really only need to buy a new CM, and then figure out GK and cover for our fullbacks. cedric blows, but hes already here and can at least stand at RB and not completely embarrass himself. he should never ever play on the left side again though. so a new LB is needed. we have options up front, even if we dont bring back odegaard. martinelli can get time at 9 and also at LW. balogun is going to play next season. azeez seems like he'll get games at CM, and we still have elneny. we could use one more body in CM in addition to our marquee signing in that position. we have mari to fight with gabriel for the LCB position, both are fine. we likely have saliba fighting with holding for the RCB position. cool.
we should be able to generate £100m+ in sales this summer without sweating at all. to get a high quality b2b CM to replace xhaka we are likely going to have to overpay and really convince the player of our chances to rapidly improve. but we'll have the money. then we're looking at sorting GK and backup LB.
typing all that out, id actually feel pretty good about what we can do next season. then i remembered arteta is still the manager and im wildly depressed again
