Arsenal Transfers: 5 Players Arsene Wenger Must Sell in January

Arsène Wenger is building a team of winners at Arsenal. Hopefully for their supporters, this means no more trophyless seasons.

Players who cannot play at a competent level for the Gunners must be sold during the January transfer window.  

Here are five players that don’t deserve to call themselves a Gunner.

Andrey Arshavin and Tomas Rosický are not included because they are good players when they're afforded a chance to start.

To expand upon the case of Arshavin: no team is willing to sign him at an inflated transfer fee with his contract running out. So the Gunners may as well keep the Russian. 

Park Chu-Young, Nicklas Bendtner and Denílson will play out their loan deals, thus they can't be sold until next summer. 

Johan Djourou, Centre-Back, Age: 25

Best Moment as a Gunner: Scoring his one and only professional goal for Arsenal (so far) against Newcastle United. 44 minutes later with the Gunners leading 4-0, he hurt his knee and was replaced by Sébastien Squillaci. Newcastle replied with four unanswered goals.

Worst Moment as a Gunner: 28 August 2011.

Djourou was at fault when Danny Welbeck netted Manchester United’s first goal. The Swiss defender conceded the free kick that enabled Wayne Rooney to score his second free- kick goal.  Djourou was blindsided by Nani, who chipped Wojciech Szczęsny. Djourou missed a tackle on Park Ji-Sung which led to the South Korean scoring.

WhoScored bases its player ratings entirely on statistics and Djourou received an abnormally low 3.9.

Defenders can inflate their WS player rating with tackles, interceptions and blocks. So sometimes, WS player ratings for defenders don’t reveal the full story, like a defender’s tendency to be caught out of position—Lúcio’s last season for Inter Milan is the perfect example.

Djourou receiving a 3.9 indicates that he fails in the real world and in the statistical world—someone please give him a hug.   

Will Be Remembered As…:  The Gunner who replaced Philippe Senderos as the worst Swiss footballer to play for Arsenal.   

Marouane Chamakh, Centre Forward, Age: 28

Best Moment as a Gunner: Scoring twice against Wolverhampton Wanderers—which is currently his only brace for Arsenal.

Worst Moment as a Gunner: Useless for 68 minutes against Leeds United. Replaced by New York Red Bulls loanee Thierry Henry, who took 10 minutes to score.

Will Be Remembered As…: A gifted forward that had the tools to flourish in the Premier League but gave up on his career at Arsenal before Arsène Wenger gave up on him. 

Łukasz Fabiański, Goalkeeper, Age: 27

Best Moment as a Gunner: Pulled off a world-class double-save where he denied Daniël de Ridder and Amr Zaki.

Worst Moment as a Gunner: Was the reason why Arsenal lost 2-1 to Porto. He pushed Silvestre Varela’s inadvertent shot over the line and then inexplicably handled Sol Campbell’s backpass. As Fabiański was trudging back to goal, Ruben Micael slyly passed it to Falcao, who slotted the ball past an unprepared Fabiański.

Will Be Remembered As…: Giving the first impression of a brash and confident young keeper, only to reveal his true colours as a mentally fragile and error-prone player. 

Sébastien Squillaci, Centre-Back, Age: 32

Best Moment as a Gunner: Participated in a 6-0 win over Braga where Arsenal was so good that he didn’t look out of place.  

Worst Moment as a Gunner: Came on as a sub with a 4-0 lead against Newcastle United. When the game finished, it was 4-4. He and Abou Diaby were directly to blame for the Gunners’ embarrassing collapse.  

Will Be Remembered As…: Having a cunning agent in Alain Migliaccio, who persuaded the club to pay Squillaci £60,000 per-week. 

André Santos, Left-Back, Age: 29

Best Moment as a Gunner: Took advantage of José Bosingwa’s ball-watching as he raced past Daniel Sturridge and scored a vital goal in Arsenal’s epic 5-3 win over Chelsea.

Worst Moment as a Gunner: Charged with dangerous driving after being allegedly caught speeding at 130 mph.  

Will Be Remembered As…: An unprofessional “defender” whose positional discipline was in absentia.

It was so obvious that Santos would fail—what did Arsène Wenger see in the chunky Brazilian? 

Aging Players Who Could Be Worth a Punt in the January Transfer Window

Statistics courtesy of WhoScored.com

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