From a financial perspective many would argue that the January transfer window was a successful one for Arsenal.
Edu was able to get some of the wages of Pablo Mari, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Folarin Balogun off the bill until the end of the season, while the permanent departures of Calum Chambers, Sead Kolasinac and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in particular, removed a considerable financial millstone from around their necks.
This free up funds for the summer where the Gunners plan to bring in at least one striker to replace the outward bound Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah, some back up for Takehiro Tomiyasu and a new central midfielder.
However, things may not actually be as rosy as they appear.
In recent transfer windows, the termination of player contracts has become relatively commonplace at the Emirates Stadium. Henrikh Mhkitaryan, Mesut Ozil, Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi, Willian, Sead Kolasinac and now Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all essentially being paid to leave before their deals had expired.
At the best of times the consistency of these financial blows that Arsenal have had to deal with would be difficult to take, but in the current footballing climate they are being felt even more keenly.
Last year the Gunners recorded a loss of £47.8million for 2019/20 financial year, while a recent UEFA report revealed that their revenues dropped by 12% in the 2020 footballing year.
Meanwhile, the club had the 10th highest wage bill in Europe during that period, and Reach Sport Data can reveal that they have the fifth most expensively assembled squad in the Premier League.
As they seek to build themselves back up to challenging for the very top prizes in world football, Mikel Arteta has admitted this is a financial model that cannot be allowed to continue.
"We don't want to allow our players to terminate the contract in the last year when they are not playing," the Spaniard said last month. "100%. And what we are trying to build, and the squad we are trying to assemble, is going to be looking completely different hopefully.
"The contract situation we had with some of the players were putting the club in a really difficult position, because the longer we leave them with months to finish their deals and with players that were not playing a lot of minutes, obviously the situation is not ideal."
In fairness to the Gunners it does seem like they're learning from their previous mistakes.
While the summer transfer policy of recruiting players aged 23-and-under was in part driven by a desire to create a team that can grow together, the lower salaries that younger players demand was certainly a contributing factor in determining that course of action.
Contract extensions for the likes of Emile Smith Rowe and Kieran Tierney also suggest that they are looking to protect the value of some of their star assets.
However, a policy that is borne out of years of mismanagement cannot be moved on from just like that.
Across the past four transfer windows, despite seeing 13 players leave the club permanently, the only two that Edu has been able to extract a transfer fee for have been Emi Martinez and Joe Willock. Of course the extenuating circumstances of the global pandemic have played a part in that, but the financial rod that Arsenal have created for their own backs has also been key.
As the Gunners sit down at the negotiating table this summer seeking to obtain a price for players that they no longer want, their hand is going to be considerably weakened by the fact that they've demonstrated a willingness to let potentially valuable assets leave for free.
Take Hector Bellerin as an example.
The Spaniard finally called time on his 10-year stay in north London by securing a loan move to Real Betis. The loan has no obligation to buy, but with Takehiro Tomiyasu having made the right back spot his own, it seems clear that Bellerin has no plans on returning. The player has one year left on his deal, so naturally Arsenal will look to sell.
As they seek to do so though, they will be hampered in any talks by the inclination they've shown to allowing members of their squad to depart by mutual consent before the ends of their contracts. This means getting anything near what the 26-year-old is worth next summer is going to be nigh-on impossible.
It could be argued that this is a legacy issue. After all, many of the terminated contracts mentioned above were handed out by regimes prior to the one currently in place.
The Aubameyang case is different though.
The 32-year-old's sizeable contract was negotiated while both Arteta and Edu were at the club, and yet the decision has still been taken to terminate it ahead of schedule.
As they seek to move forward and re-establish themselves as competent sellers in the transfer market, this is a move that only drags them backwards by perpetuating the narrative that Arsenal are willing to let players leave for nothing before their deals are up.
In making this decision, Arteta appears to have acted with the long-term culture of the club in mind by sending a message to his players that standards must be upheld by every member of his squad regardless of their status.
However, when it comes to the Gunners' future abilities in the transfer market the Spaniard's approach does not seem quite so considered.
As Arsenal prepare for yet another crucial summer where they have to get things right to further Arteta's project, only time will tell how severe the reverberations of the Aubameyang decision turn out to be.
