Ian Henry
Having signed Leno, Lichtsteiner, Sokratis (as I shall call him as his surname is too difficult for me), Guendouzi and Torreira, addressing some but not all of the problems in the Arsenal squad, the clear-out is now under way. I started writing this on Monday morning so by the time it is published some of this could have overtaken by events; such are the perils of “journalism” at this time of the year.
With Chuba Akpom having left for Greece last week, Arsenal still had a bloated first team squad, with 29 players listed on the club site; and that excludes the many promising youngsters which Unai Emery seems to believe could play an important role this season.
In thinking about what is happening today and might happen by the end of the week, it is worth bearing Premier League and UEFA squad rules in mind. They are similar in that under both sets of rules you can have a maximum of 25 players aged over 21, of which a maximum of 17 can be non-home-grown (effectively overseas players). 8 places are reserved for home-grown players; and if a club has more than 8 home grown players over 21 years of age, then the number of non-home-grown players would have to be reduced accordingly. When it comes to the 8 home-grown players for UEFA rules, four must been club-trained. If you don’t have four club trained home-grown players, then you lose those places – our club-trained players over 21 are Martinez, Bellerin, Iwobi and Ramsey. Our other association-trained home-grown players are (currently) Jenkinson, Holding, Chambers and Welbeck.
Of the 29 players listed on the Arsenal website, 2 – Ainsley Maitland-Niles and new boy Matteo Guendouzi – count as under-21 players. Guendouzi’ s position when it comes to UEFA matches is different (he will effectively have to be counted as a non-home-grown over-21 player, more on that below). Of the remaining 27, 8 are home grown (see above). 19 therefore are non-home-grown; 2 will have to go anyway, to get down to 17 and at this moment it would seem that Perez is on his way to West Ham, albeit at a major loss. Another great bit of transfer activity by the ancien regime. One more will still need to go, eg Campbell or Ospina.
Returning to home-grown side of things, we would be 2 players down on what we could have if the departures of Chambers to Fulham on loan and Welbeck to somewhere as yet unknown happen. Maybe Emery feels that he can cope with losing both Perez and Welbeck by giving Eddie N a lot of game time; that strikes me as a risk and not one I would take. Also, on the home-grown side of things, Ramsey has yet to sign a new deal, and the club may decide to cash in on him if they feel he won’t sign a new deal – but if he goes who replaces him.? Another non-home-grown place would need to be freed up if Ramsey went and his replacement was not an English/Welsh player – that place would presumably be the one occupied by Joel Campbell, although Emery might decide Campbell could be required as an experienced striking back-up if Welbeck and Perez went.
We then move on to the goalkeeping and defensive issues; it is widely assumed that Oooh-Ospina-aaah is on his way, to Turkey. But that has been rumoured for at least a year now, so who knows? He would have to go, to free up a space in the non-home-grown allocation if the defensive signings supposedly sought by Emery are to be believed. Vida, the Ukrainian-supporting Croatian beast from Besiktas is said to be the man Unai wants, and that the hapless Mustafi could be sold (no doubt at a loss) to make way for him. And then there is the left back issue: Kolasinac is out for 10 weeks (call it half a season at Arsenal), and Monreal has a knock I understand. The press suggest that a bid has been made for Ricardo Rodriguez of Milan and Switzerland; a perfectly acceptable player in my eyes, but one which would need another departure (ie whichever of Campbell or Ospina hasn’t been sold to get to 17 non-home-grown players) from the non-home-grown squad allocation to create that a place for Rodriguez.
In summary, getting rid of Ospina, Perez, Campbell and Mustafi would enable Vida and Rodriguez (for example) to come in and leave us with 17 non-home-grown players. But if Chambers and Welbeck go, our 8-place home-grown allocation will be filled by just 6, including Jenkinson (yes, he is still here as of early Monday pm) and Ramsey (who has a year left on his contract). Ramsey could not be replaced by an overseas player unless the current non-home-grown player roster were reduced further (maybe by excluding Kolasinac or Koscielny owing to injury) – so if Ramsey were to go, say to Chelsea (perish the thought) it would need to be in a swap deal, say for Fabregas’ return (he would count as club-trained player for European games by the way) or Barkley or Drinkwater, simply to maintain the right number of bodies in the squad – which we will need because of injury you can be sure.
However, the challenge of replacing Ramsey if he does not sign that new contract may be too much in the remainder of the transfer window; I think he will be kept (which means by the time you are reading this, he will have been sold!) and leave on a free next summer or in a Sanchez-Mkhitaryan style swap in January.
And finally, a quick point regarding our hairy wonder, Matteo Guendouzi; he counts as under 21 for Premier League rules but for UEFA matches (my understanding is that) because he has not been with us for 2 or 3 years his under 21 status does not count. For him to play in Europe therefore, a non-home-grown place in the 17 allowed will have to be created (again perhaps by leaving out the injured Kolasinac or Koscielny). Such are the complexities which the club must wrestle with in the coming days, a situation made worse by the shortened transfer window this month. Whoever thought it was a good idea?
