Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Arsenal's decision to allow Folarin Balogun to leave on loan was made ahead of the January transfer window.
football.london understands that Arteta focused his frustrations towards Balogun after a disappointing first-half performance against Sunderland in the Carabao Cup quarter-final match in December.
Arteta singled out Balogun for failing to track back and hauled him off on 56 minutes - a decision that eventually culminated in the decision to send him out on loan to gain more experience.
Balogun was wanted by a number of Championship clubs although many of them were unable to compete with Middlesbrough's ability to cover a significant portion of his salary.
“Again with Flo especially and the amount of minutes that he played here it was not fair,” said Arteta.
“If we want to develop that player and maximise his potential, which is huge, we have to expose that player to the level he needs to be exposed.”
When asked about Arsenal’s lack of options up top, and the failure to bring in a new striker, Arteta replied: "We did what we believed was the right thing to do.
"First of all with the players that had to leave obviously, the squad composition and contract situations were catching up in many of those situations.
"We had to make decisions, and be fair as well with players that haven’t had a lot of minutes this season, and that’s what we did.
"And then we had a very clear plan of what we could do, and then it has to be doable."
The Gunners will be in the market for a new striker this summer, with Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Real Sociedad striker Alexander Isak both considered a target.
