Arsenal face a dilemma going into the 2020/21 season as they are currently over the allotted amount of non-homegrown players.
Manager Mikel Arteta has made no secret of his desire to shuffle up the squad with ins and outs on the cards. The Spaniard said before the 3-0 victory against Fulham: “We are still active in the market, we are looking at different options.
“I would say we are active in the market for players in and out, at the moment the squad balance is not the ideal we want to achieve so there is still some work to do.
“Some positions are overbooked, I said some others, in terms of specific qualities that we need, they are still not there.
“We have to bear in mind the complication with this transfer market and the complexity and the timing, because you can see that clubs are behaving in many different ways and it is a little bit uncertain how this will work in the next few weeks.”
Lyon have rejected a £35m + player offer for Houssem Aouar from Arsenal [@RMCsport]. pic.twitter.com/Y5EJAtk6S9
— TheAFCnewsroom (@TheAFCnewsroom) September 6, 2020
The Gunners are heavily linked with midfield pair Houssem Aouar (€60M) and Thomas Partey (€50M) who would both fall into the non-homegrown category. This would mean the North London side would need to sell or drop up to three or four players from the Premier League squad in which they are allowed 25 squad players, 17 of which can be non-homegrown. Currently the reds have:
- Bernd Leno
- Sokratis Papastathopoulos
- Kieran Tierney
- Shkodran Mustafi
- Gabriel Magalhães
- Cédric Soares
- Pablo Marí
- David Luiz
- Sead Kolašinac
- Dani Ceballos
- Mesut Özil
- Lucas Torreira
- Mohamed Elneny
- Granit Xhaka
- Alexandre Lacazette
- Willian
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
- Nicolas Pépé
The list means that Arsenal will have to either sell or drop at least three of the above names with the list set to grow with Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson set to replace the home grown Emiliano Martínez who is off to Aston Villa. This as well as any other incoming transfers this summer.
