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.
