Mikel Arteta didn't enjoy the greatest transfer winter in Arsenal history this January.
The Spaniard was only able to strengthen his ranks with Lino Sousa from West Brom and Auston Trust from Colorado Rapids - two players that don't exactly set the pulses racing, with the American already being loaned straight back out.
Arteta did however remove some of the deadwood at Arsenal, although there are fears he may have overdid it.
A total of 14 players left Arsenal either permanently or on loan this month, meaning the Gunners squad is somewhat lacking in depth now - a problem, should injuries set in during the latter half of the campaign.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment from an Arsenal perspective, besides not being able to sign any one of Dusan Vlahovic, Alexander Isak or Arthur Melo, is parting company with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Sure, the Gabon international striker hasn't been pulling his weight in recent weeks and seems to be constantly in Arteta's bad books for one reason or another at the moment.
In fact, things have got so bad that Arteta stripped him of the captaincy, and he's been in and out of his first-team for a while now.
But at the end of the day, until his free transfer to Barcelona on Monday, he was Arsenal's best forward.
And Arteta's failure to sign a replacement before parting company with the former Dortmund star may come back to bite him.
As things stand, Arteta has two strikers in Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah - both of which are out of contract in June.
Not only is Aubameyang's departure a blow in terms of what he can do on the pitch but it is also a blow financially.
The Gunners spent a whopping £56million on the forward back in 2018 before handing him a new bumper £350,000-a-week contract in 2020 - a decision Arteta championed.
Shay Given, speaking on Sky Sports, labelled the decision to offload Aubameyang "madness".
He said: "We talked about the fee. It was £56million that they paid for him, Aubameyang, and they let him go on a free. In any business, in any other world, it's madness."
Arsenal will point to the fact that in releasing Aubameyang from his contract early they have saved some money by not repeating a Mesut Ozil situation.
But in releasing him on a free, the overall investment hasn't been a good one for Arsenal.
