Arsenal need to rebuild this summer and Unai Emery needs financial backing from the board to do that job. Whether that actually happens or not is a different question but after identifying 5 players which need to leave the club this summer, that should leave us with some money to go out and buy some new players and help improve the squad.

So below are the 5 players Arsenal need to sign to help us progress from the work done from this season:

Alexis Sanchez

For the 3 and a half seasons he was at the club, he was by far (and I mean by far) our best player, and if any Arsenal fan disputes that then they are simply deluded and blinded by his move to Manchester United because he was absolutely sensational.

His level of consistency was unreal and his level of performance was excellent in every single game. He is one of the few players we’ve had at the club who you could truly consider to be world class. He was the closest you could get to a player of Messi or Ronaldo’s level, he was that good.

He was instrumental in the two FA Cup wins he had with us and always gave 110% when he put on the Arsenal jersey. He knows the club inside out, and might respond well to Unai Emery’s emphasis on 100% effort from every single player, which was an issue under Arsene Wenger where certain players in the squad were going through the motions in matches.

If he can back to Arsenal, I have no doubt he would be a success once again and would push us up another level.

Olivier Giroud

His contact is up with Chelsea this summer so he would be available on a free (although there is an option for another year). He was a fans favourite and it was a strange situation when he moved to the blue part of London.

There have been games where we’ve struggled and Giroud has been an effective Plan B (and at times, a very effective Plan A) and he is a top top striker. He’s under appreciated at Chelsea and I’m sure he’d love to move back to The Emirates.

For me, bringing that sexy bastard back to Arsenal is a no brainer.

Harry Maguire

The England defender has gone on leaps and bounds and would relish a chance at a Top 6 club. At Leicester City his chances of challenging for trophies is limited and I’m sure he would succeed going up a level to a bigger club like Arsenal.

Central defence is somewhere we’ve struggled with this season and Maguire has Premier League experience. Rob Holding is the future of Arsenal’s defence and the only other top defenders we have at the club are Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis Papastathopoulos, players who are 33 and 30 respectively. Shkodran Mustafi and Stephan Lichtsteiner are awful defenders who aren’t even good enough to be backup players (as we have seen this season) and Nacho Monreal is better suited to left-back. So Maguire would be a good fit and Holding would benefit from his International experience and it could only help him in his crusade to break into the England squad. Maguire is only 26 years old so would be an excellent addition moving forward and can only improve.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka

The 21 year old has impressed at Crystal Palace this season and what catches the eye is his excellent attacking runs as well as his defensive intelligence at such a young age.

He would fit in well at Arsenal and with Hector Bellerin struggle for most go the season with injury it would provide good competition in that position (with hopefully the departure of Lichtsteiner this summer).

He is quick, direct and versatile, and could play alongside Bellerin on the right wing if required. At only 21, he would be an excellent addition to the squad looking to the future.

Neil Etheridge

With Cardiff looking like they’re going to get relegated this season, Neil Etheridge will probably not want to play in the Championship after experiencing a season in the Premier League. This summer, Arsenal will be bare in terms of goalkeepers as David Ospina looks like he’s out the door and understandably won’t want to be Bernd Leno’s understudy, and Petr Cech will be retiring come May. So a backup for Leno is a must.

Emiliano Martinez has impressed for Reading this season but with two goalkeepers leaving then it would be naive to just have Leno and Martinez as our goalkeeping options for the season.

Etheridge has impressed in a Cardiff side struggling at the wrong end of the table and would be an excellent addition to Arsenal, and he’s only 29.

There’s no doubt that Unai Emery is undertaking a massive rebuilding job at the moment and there’s no doubt that he is doing a great job, and on realistic expectations is having a successful season. However, there’s also no doubt that to have the best chance to succeed he needs to mould the team, squad and club in his image and that means removing some of the deadwood from the long lasting Arsene Wenger era.

So below are the players in the current squad that need to leave the club this summer:

Shkodran Mustafi

There’s only one place we can start isn’t there?

He’s one of those players you look at and just wonder how he actually became a professional footballer. He’s the player who you think just somehow managed to slip through the gaps during the scouting process and just kept moving up without anyone noticing – that’s the only real explanation for how he could be at Arsenal right now.

Alongside the legendary Pascal Cygan and Igor Stepanovs, he will always be regarded as one of the worst Arsenal defenders of recent times – which is a real achievement considering Arsenal are a side who aren’t renowned for having the best defensive recruitment.

It’s really too much effort to go through all the mistakes, cock ups, blunders and slips he’s made over the last few years and quite honestly you know all about them already. What every single Arsenal fan can agree on (and it’s probably one of the only things Arsenal fans can unite on) is that Mustafi needs to leave. Give him away, pay him off, just do whatever it takes to get him out of the club as he’s costing us vital points.

Stephan Lichtsteiner

There’s only one other defender at the club who is almost as bad as Mustafi and unfortunately, it’s Stephan Lichtsteiner. He was obviously brought in to being some experience to the dressing room and to be fair, only supposed to be a backup player. Sadly, he may be vastly experienced but the Premier League is too much of a jump for him after spending the best part of a decade in the slower, less demanding Serie A.

Arsenal should release him in the summer and try and bring in some younger reinforcements.

David Ospina

With Bernd Leno doing a fantastic job in his first season at the club, Petr Cech has become deputy and Ospina has spent the last season on loan at Napoli. He’s decent enough keeper for us to cash in and get some much needed money for Unai Emery to strengthen the squad this summer.

Denis Suarez

Does anyone else know why he’s at the club? No, seriously?

Mesut Özil

No-one divides the Arsenal fan base as much as Mesut Özil and personally, I am a fan. Unfortunately, it’s obvious Unai Emery isn’t and there have been several issues between them this season, and at the end of the day the man we all have to get behind if we want Arsenal to succeed and progress is the manager.

Added to this, Özil is our highest paid player on £350k a week and if he was moved on it would give Emery a lot more options in terms of specific players he wants to bring in to the club. With Lacazette, Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan, Iwobi and possibly someone else who Emery brings in, we should be well catered for in an attacking sense.

And finally…

But who do you think Arsenal need to sell / move on this summer? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

Arsenal are under a new era with Unai Emery at the helm and despite Arsene’s fond farewell it’s clear that the current squad just doesn’t cut the mustard. We have been in a slow decline since being guaranteed Champions League football to finishing 5th in the 2016/2017 season, and then finishing 6th in the last campaign.

One of Arsene’s greatest strengths is his unwavering belief in his players, but in a time of over-inflated wages, over-inflated egos and over-inflated social media, this approach is just not in keeping with the modern times.

When you had winners like Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira, Gilberto Silva, Jens Lehmann, Martin Keown, Lee Dixon and Sol Campbell just to name a few, then this method works. But today, most footballers only care about how many followers they have on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook (delete as appropriate) over winning trophies. I say most footballers because there are still those (pick anyone from the Real Madrid team) who will do whatever it takes to win. Cough cough…. Ramos.

So here are the 5 players Arsenal must sell this summer if they want to make any progress:

Petr Cech

He once was a phenomenal goalkeeper. Once.

I saw a compilation of his best saves from the 2004/2005 season when he won the Premier League with Chelsea and honestly, some of the saves he made in that campaign were out of this world. You think David De Get is good now, Cech was better than him in his prime.

From 2005-2012 no-one could touch him and in those years at Chelsea we won 3 Premier League titles, 4 FA Cups, 2 League Cups and a Champions League. He still won titles after 2012 but for me that year was the start of his decline.

He’s 36 now and last season he made a number of big errors which cost us important goals. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a popular man in the dressing room, and by all accounts a very intelligent man from what I’ve heard, but he’s well past his best. We’ve been accused of being too sentimental but now’s the time to let him go. There are various options available to us, including ex-Arsenal goalkeeper Lukas Fabianski who looks like a more mature, convincing goalkeeper these days.

Perhaps he isn’t the answer but I’m sure our new Dream Team of Ivan, Sven and Raul have the expertise to find a good goalkeeper on the market.

Mesut Özil

This is a man who flatters to deceive, only plays well against the lesser teams and doesn’t put in a shift. That’s okay when you’re Real Madrid and you’re playing inferior teams week in week out (the exception being when you have to face Barcelona) but he’s at Arsenal. Strolling around the pitch isn’t good enough for a Premier League side looking to challenge for the league and can you imagine other players in his position walking in games like he does? Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne, David Silva, Christian Eriksen and Riyad Mahrez are all creative players but they also all run their socks off for the team – and they don’t have a strop or moan to their teammates.

And the thing is we already have a much better replacement for him at the club – Henrikh Mkhitaryan. He tracks back, dribbles and has that final pass.

Mesut Özil has tripled his wages after holding the club over a barrel and yet he still doesn’t work hard. It’s one thing having talent but strolling isn’t an option in the Premier League. It’s fine when you’re playing international football where the game is a low slower (and that’s why he’s so revered by Joachim Low) but he’s not for us. Tell me how many Top Six teams he would get into? Exactly.

See what we can get for him and offload him as soon as possible.

Alex Iwobi

This is player who has been on the fringes but time and time again doesn’t perform to a high enough standard. He has some nice touches but hasn’t improved and doesn’t look like doing so – I was going to compare him to Theo Walcott but that would be unfair on Theo. Theo scored a lot of goals and for 2/3 seasons contributed a lot to Arsenal from the wing and up front. Alex Iwobi however hasn’t put in a series of consistently good games for Arsenal.

I’m not sure what he is, is he a winger, is he a forward? He doesn’t score goals and doesn’t make any assists so I’m not sure what he actually does?

Perhaps it was Arsene Wenger not being able to find his best position but from what I’ve seen it’s time to cut him loose while we can still get a half decent transfer fee for him (especially if he does well with Nigeria at the World Cup).

Shkodran Mustafi

But far and away the worse defender at the club. He constantly makes mistakes, has no idea where to position himself on the pitch, doesn’t know how to defend against offsides and worst of all blames everyone else for his errors.

He was close to leaving for Inter Milan a couple of summers ago but that fell through and we’ve been stuck with him ever since. He is just a terrible defender who shouldn’t be at the club. It’s like a football fan won a competition to be a professional footballer for the day but then people forgot and he’s just ended up staying around pretending to be a professional footballer.

Arsenal look much more solid with Koscielny, Holding, Chambers, Monreal and even the inexperienced Mavropanos at the back which says a lot.

And if we sell him this summer we could still get a few million quid.

Alexandre Lacazette

Make no mistake, this guy has been a flop this season.

The first half of the season was good but then after that he was awful. He still scored some goals but if you actually watched him he let us down when we needed him most.

He missed about 5 sitters against Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the Europa League semi-final at The Emirates and is a limited player. Why do you think Didier Deschamps left him out of the France squad? Don’t forget this is a French squad who are light upfront with the absence of Karim Benzema.

He is a one-dimensional player who can only finish. Aubameyang is the far superior forward who is far more intelligent with his movement but is also good at linking play and involving others, whereas Lacazette can’t do any of that.

He is a selfish player which doesn’t fit with the Arsenal away and I get the sense he’s over-confident even though he doesn’t score important goals. He had a decent first season but if he stays, trust me, he will be a flop.

Still young enough to command a decent transfer fee, so we should sell to the highest bidder.