HOW IT ADDS UP THIS SUMMER
Let’s apply these rules to each of our current players:
Club-trained A-listers (8 players):
Wojciech Szczesny, Vito Mannone, Johan Djourou, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott, Craig Eastmond, Nicklas Bendtner.
Association-trained A-listers (2 players):
Carl Jenkinson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Other A-listers (23):
Lukasz Fabianski, Bacary Sagna, Per Mertesacker, Thomas Vermaelen, Laurent Koscielny, Andre Santos, Sebastian Squillaci, Abou Diaby, Thomas Rosicky, Mikel Arteta, Andrei Arshavin, Ju-Young Park, Gervinho, Marouane Chamakh, Martin Angha, Kyle Ebecilio, Jon Toral, Serge Gnabry, Hector Bellerin, Kristoffer Olsson, plus our new signings Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla.
B-listers:
Everyone else, including Jack Wilshere, Emmanuel Frimpong and Francis Coquelin.
The first thing you might notice is that we have ten locally-trained players, most of which are club-trained. This means that we could get rid of two of them without having to reduce the total number of players on the squad list. This is quite good. Not so good, however, is the fact that we have a total of 33 A-listers, which is 8 more than we are allowed, so we are going to have to cut that list down somehow.
Let’s start with some youngsters who are not eligible for List B because they haven’t been at the club long enough. We’re hardly going to make room in the squad for Angha, Ebecilio, Toral, Gnabry, Bellerin and Olsson, so now we’re down to 27. This means that if we are going to sign a player before the transfer deadline, we’ll have to get rid of three players first.
So, which players could leave? Squillaci, Arshavin, Park, Chamakh and Bendtner all seem surplus to requirements at the moment. At the end of last season they were all deemed likely to leave the club this summer, but we haven’t been able to move them on yet. Squillaci, Park and Bendtner have taken little or no part in pre-season and the beginning of the current season and will probably leave.
Arshavin and Chamakh might leave as well, but both have already featured to some level, so it is conceivable that they might stay. We also have Craig Eastmond, who might possibly be sacrificed if we’re having problems moving the other ones on, and while the club have announced that Theo Walcott is not for sale, it wouldn’t really surprise anyone if the contract rebel was sold.
Whatever business we do, since we have currently 27 players competing for 25 spots in the squad, we need to move on two more players than we sign. For example, if we get rid of Squillaci, Park and Bendtner then we can buy one player. If we were then going to bring in more, we would have to axe one of Arshavin, Chamakh, Walcott or Eastmond.
So, while many fans are desperate for news of new signings, I tend to pay a lot of attention to news of departures as well, because they really are a precondition of signing new players.
Originally Posted by Dennis Bendtner
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