Something that I appreciate in Arteta is how quickly he has rid the squad of weak links, even if he added a few at the beginning of his time at the club (Willian etc). AMN, Luiz, Leno, Sokratis, Torrieria, Ozil, Laca, Mustafi, Willock, Pepe etc all sidelined. I used to lose my mind under Wenger watching Diaby come into left midfield or having Eboue on the right-wing, or Silvestre at left-back, in the same team as van Persie was CF or Koscielny was CB.
GK: Ramsdale, Turner
RB: White, TImber, Tomiyasu
CB: Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior (White)
LB: Zinchenko, Tierney
DM: Partey, Rice, Jorginho
CM: Odegaard, Havertz, Smith-Rowe, Vieira (Rice)
Wide: Saka, Martinelli, Trossard, Nelson (Havertz)
CF: Jesus, Nketiah
When you look through it, the greatest weak links in the squad are the likes of Holding, Cedric and Elneny (Vieira is a bit of a weak link too). I think that Tomiyasu could potentially be let go too - Timber, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior, Zinch and Tierney should be enough defenders to cover a season.
Beyond that, the midfield and wide areas look solid and should always be able to field a solid team in the FA cup/CL/PL. I do have a few question marks over the CF options - Jesus is good but he isn't elite and Nketiah isn't a great finisher. Come to think of it, one of my general concerns is that our three most offensive central players next year may be Jesus, Odegaard and Havertz; none of whom are particularly natural or strong finishers. When your competitors are City or the best teams in Europe, that could be a real shortfall of the squad.
When we got down to the crunch last year (and the year before), it was weak links who killed the team, particularly Holding. A squad along the lines of the above could ensure that that never happens again - I'd trust 22 of them to put in a solid shift at the very least when called on.
I think that it's noteworthy that the weakest first 11 players last year were White and Xhaka (with Ramsdale and Jesus the next tier) - and both have either got competition or a replacement for the coming season. That's something that I haven't seen any Arsenal manager do since I started watching the team in 2006.
