With the 2021/22 domestic season in England now completed, a large portion of the Arsenal loan army have now returned and some have done their chances of earning a chance under Mikel Arteta next time around no harm.
What started out as a 17-man group when the transfer window shut last summer increased to 23 with all the movement during the January transfer window as the likes of Folarin Balogun, Pablo Mari and Ainsley Maitland-Niles departed to play regularly during the second half of the season.
Of course, not everyone will be returning. Konstantinos Mavropanos has joined Stuttgart on a permanent basis and Matteo Guendouzi's move to Marseille just needs to be officially announced by Arsenal, but the Ligue 1 club's president Pablo Longoria has already let the cat out of the bag.
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As with any transfer, there's always a degree of risk involved. So for the Gunners to let over 20 players depart on loan, some were going to thrive, others were going to either put themselves in the shop window for a permanent move or simply struggle to adapt to their new surroundings.
Therefore, football.london takes a look at the good and the bad from Arsenal's loan army during the 2021/22 season as there were several players who endured contrasting spells.
The good
William Saliba
An easy selection. It's hard to find a more successful loan spell for an Arsenal player outside of William Saliba. Jack Wilshere's at Bolton Wanderers springs to mind but that was half a season and Alex Song used his time at Charlton Athletic as a platform to break into the first-team picture.
But neither spells come close to Saliba's. Scooping the Ligue 1 Young Player of the Season award as well as being named in Ligue 1’s Team of the Season alongside the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Marquinhos and Aurelien Tchouameni outlines everything you need to know about his year at Marseille.
Oh, and he's now a full France international and will surely fancy his chances of being included in the World Cup squad come November and it's likely he will be representing Arsenal in Qatar with Arteta communicating that the defender is part of his plans for next season.
"He has to come back," Arteta told RMC Sport. "He has the experience and has been in the necessary environment in order to be competitive with us. If he had stayed with us this year, where we had one Premier League game every week, with Ben White and Gabriel, he wouldn’t have had half the playing time he had with Marseille, that’s for sure.
"For his growth and what he can do next season, that wouldn’t have been good. William wasn’t with us because he wouldn’t have had the playing time to gain experience. That’s it, there’s nothing else."
In terms of the Arsenal loan army, Saliba is clearly the biggest winner and now the hope is his Gunners career can finally take off three years after signing for £27million from Saint-Etienne.
Reiss Nelson
The season was a slow burner for Reiss Nelson and one that can effectively be split into three parts. It may have been forgotten that he actually featured for Arsenal in the Premier League season opener away at Brentford and was amongst the substitutes against Chelsea.
He then sealed a move to Feyenoord on transfer deadline day last summer but his first month and a half was disrupted by injury and it took until December for him to really find his footing. From there he began to grow in confidence and his form improved as he enjoyed a strong second half of the season, especially in the UEFA Conference League.
Overall, Nelson netted four goals and weighed in with seven assists across all competitions. Though he didn't get the result he would have wanted in the Conference League final, his overall loan spell is said to have impressed Arsenal and he could yet have a role to play under Arteta next season, especially with Nicolas Pepe keen to depart in the summer transfer window and Europa League football on the table.
Brooke Norton-Cuffy
The fact Brooke Norton-Cuffy was quickly dubbed 'Brooke Norton-Cafu' very early into his loan spell with Lincoln City should speak volumes. As should Imps' manager Michael Appleton's exciting prediction regarding the teenager.
"I don’t want Arsenal ringing me up saying ‘what have you said that for?' But I’ve been saying it behind the scenes, I think he will play for Arsenal’s first team on a regular basis," he said. "It might not be for a couple of years but it’s definitely going to happen. He’ll hopefully continue his progression over the next few games. There are one or two things that I think I can help him with, but by the time he goes back to Arsenal, he’ll be much better."
Should Hector Bellerin leave permanently in the summer and with Cedric Soares not exactly getting any younger, the Gunners are going to need to find the perfect back-up to Takehiro Tomiyasu within the next couple of years.
At present, Arsenal can look to promote from within rather than spend millions of pounds in the transfer market as Norton-Cuffy is developing at a steady pace and if he can make the step up then Gunners fans will have a new homegrown favourite to chant about on matchdays.
Honourable mentions: Jordi Osei-Tutu helped Rotherham clinch promotion to the Championship, Guendouzi impressed for Marseille, Mavropanos played a key role as Stuttgart avoided relegation from the Bundesliga whilst Lucas Torreira looked right at home back in Italy with Fiorentina.
The bad
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
This could be something of a contentious one. Yes, after Ainsley Maitland-Niles joined Roma in January he ended up winning the UEFA Europa Conference League, but the whole point of moving to Roma was to get regular first-team football under his belt in his favoured central midfield role and he didn't exactly get either.
Operating predominately as a full-back under Jose Mourinho, the utility man had a spell of eight Serie A games as an unused substitute and completed 90 minutes just twice from seven starts. Furthermore, he was hauled off at half-time on three separate occasions which may just highlight how bad the loan spell was.
Given the injury crisis at his parent club from April onwards, there's an argument that Maitland-Niles would have been better off staying put but hindsight is a wonderful tool. Judging by his recent Instagram post it appears he hasn't done enough to impress Jose Mourinho for a permanent deal.
Therefore, he is set to return to Arsenal this summer with his future still in limbo as with one year remaining on his contract, a big decision is looming.
Tyreece John-Jules
The 2021/22 season was one to forget for Tyreece John-Jules as his development stalled. He spent the first half of the campaign on loan with Blackpool in the Championship but failed to score a single goal in 12 appearances across all competitions before returning to Arsenal in January.
He then went on to endure a miserable loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday as he was restricted to a solitary appearance before his campaign was ended prematurely because of injury and the Owls confirmed last week that the striker will be returning to his parent club.
