Quote Originally Posted by Mac76 View Post
Leaving the young players aside, the two players i want out above all are Mustafi and Xhaka - they point back to what i hope would be a previous era of overpaying for bad players and then not being able to get rid of them.

I don't buy into this supposed renaissance of either player, Arteta's done his best but neither are remotely good enough IMO and we should be working to use their recent relative upturn in form ( i.e they've actually been coming close to doing what they're paid to do) and get rid for whatever we can get, but on a free if necessary

We can't truly move on until they're gone, I for one hate seeing them in starting lineups or even on the bench
close the gap on the teams above us.

Renaissance is probably stretching it - basically, they've moved from 'calamity' status to 'not a critical problem', but that's about it. They're steady now, in the right set up, but even so we've been relying on them most weeks since the start of the year, and you can see that they're clearly not going to be enough to close the gap on the teams above us.

At the very least, I think Arteta will want some better options to choose from in those positions, even if he's not desperate to get rid of the two of them, but that in itself could force him into making a decision on them? If the new recruits end up relegating those two the bench, then he's probably going to really struggle to justify their wages.

And you never know - the players themselves might be thinking it's a good time to move on, while their stock is relatively high? It's probably not going to get much better than this for them if they fancy a move, and their Arsenal careers are only going to head one way now. Food for thought.