Rewind your memory to January of 2021 and with Arsenal in a resurgent state following a horrific first half of the campaign. A huge Boxing Day victory over Chelsea had pushed optimism back into fans’ minds and the transfer window presented an opportunity to address the squad.
The window was seen as a positive one with Martin Odegaard and Mat Ryan arriving to bolster the squad but, in particular, was the departures. Arsenal were able to offload a huge number of players.
Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Matt Macey left on free transfers whilst William Saliba, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Joe Willock and, importantly, Sead Kolasinac left on loan. Not many batted an eyelid at the Bosnian’s departure but soon it became clear not replacing him would prove critically damaging for Arsenal’s season.
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As has repeated again this season, Kieran Tierney got injured. Mikel Arteta opted to use Granit Xhaka at left-back. It went as successfully as you would imagine. In fact, you need not engage your long-term memory as last Saturday’s showing epitomised the experience with painful nostalgia in the defeat to Brighton.
Arsenal failed to replace a player that left them short. Subsequently, the Europa League semi-final first leg began with Villarreal’s Samuel Chukwueze turning the Swiss midfielder-turned-unorthodox left-back inside out leading to the opening goal.
Fast forward a year and Enock Mwepu exploited the space left by the again shoehorned left-back Xhaka to set up Leandro Trossard for the opener. Xhaka played despite Nuno Tavares’ availability, a strange choice that left many Arsenal supporters questioning the decision-making of Mikel Arteta.
However, perhaps the better parallel with Kolasinac’s 2021 departure and the failure to replace the backup left-back is with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s move to Barcelona. Despite the Gabonese forward leaving whilst out of form, the potential goals were never replaced.
Despite attempts to sign Dusan Vlahovic amongst other reported targets, Arsenal instead settled to continue the season with what they had. Alexandre Lacazette has not scored a goal from open play in the Premier League for more than 20 hours, and Eddie Nketiah hasn’t scored in the league all season.
Strikers moved during the window. Wout Weghorst, Arthur Cabral, Cedric Bakambu, Krzysztof Piatek, Tiago Tomas and Sardar Azmoun were all transferred. This isn’t to say that any of these would’ve taken the Gunners to the next level, but it demonstrates that options, even if just for the short term, could have been acquired to aid in the top-four fight.
Meanwhile, Tottenham signed Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur. Two players that have gone straight into the starting line-up and under Antonio Conte have seen an upturn in form.
In the race for the top four, one team added two starters, the other let go of one and didn’t replace them. In 2021, these errors cost Arsenal a Champions League place. It could be that history is again repeating itself and Arteta would rightly be deserving of criticism should the club disappoint again.
