Arsenal About To Receive a Major Shake-Up

A story a few days ago on the Arsenal iPhone App had Arsene Wenger complaining about the new Premier League regulations that come into force next season—that squads must consist of only 25 players with eight of those "homegrown." To qualify as homegrown, players need to have been registered for at least three seasons at an English or Welsh club between the ages of 16 and 21.

I had thought this was still at discussion stage, but the article says "from the 2010/11 campaign, top-flight clubs must register a squad with a limit of 25 players..." and goes on to explain about the quota rules. Pretty conclusive directly from Arsenal.

So let's look at the current Arsenal squad and see what kind of shake up will need to take place.

Simple maths tells the story—of the 41 players currently in the Arsenal squad, 16 players must be released.


Which 16 Would You Release?

Surely those where a decent return on investment could be achieved, and perhaps some of those who haven't put in enough effort this season. Certainly none of the "homegrown" players!

The rule about homegrown players certainly makes some sense of the large amount of young players going on loan this season to get first team experience elsewhere.

Arsenal currently has 11 English players and one Welsh player on the squad. Sol Campbell is English, but hardly qualifies as under 21. Which leaves 11 players in total from which to satisfy the "at least eight" rule. That they're all young and relatively inexperienced is to be understood from the new rule.

Walcott, Wilshere, Ramsey, Gibbs, and Eastmond can be expected to stay, not in the least due to their exposure to first team football at Arsenal this season. Of the others, I suspect JET and Watt will be automatic.

The others could be more difficult to call. In particular, there will certainly be other youngsters who have been registered for three years at an English club, under 21 years old, but who will not be English or Welsh. The rule doesn't specify nationality, which makes a mockery of the whole reason for it—to promote English players.

Assuming most of the youngsters are "protected" by the need to keep a larger percentage of homegrown players, who else needs to go?

Setting the 11 English/Welsh youngsters aside, that leaves 30 players, of which only 14 can remain.

If Arsenal's squad had only 25 players this season, there would have come a point at which a full complement of players would not have taken to the field, such were the amount of injuries sustained. That may be a slight exaggeration, but not much.

Most would say Fabregas, Vermaelen, Nasri, Van Persie, Song, Clichy, and Bendtner are going to make it through the cut. That leaves seven to choose out of 23.

Three of those really have to be goalkeepers, though whether Almunia or Fabianski are among them I wouldn't like to guess. At the moment there are four keepers on the squad but it's unlikely that can be sustained as it reduces the outfield options too much.

So, retaining three means there are only four outfield players left to choose, out of 20. Whether those three retained goalkeepers are three of the four we currently have, or a mixture of some of them and new goalkeepers remains open to question.

Listing the 20 should help make the choice of the remaining four survivors clearer.

Diaby, Sagna, Senderos, Rosicky, Eduardo, Gallas, Vela, Denilson, Silvestre, Djourou, Arshavin, Eboue, Traore, Campbell, Merida, Barazite, Coquelin, Henderson, Sunu, and one of four keepers.


Assumptions

It's already been assumed that one of the goalkeepers will leave.

It's easy to imagine that Senderos (currently on loan) and Silvestre (at the end of his career) will be released. Rumours of Merida having already signed for Athletico Madrid are very persistent and Gallas has yet to resign, with another move in mind.

I've included Arshavin in the list above because (a) he's got a good resale value, and (b) he doesn't seem to have been very happy at Arsenal, so it could be assumed there's a possibility he could go.

Offers have been made at various times for Sagna (Juventus) and Eboue (Inter), and we could potentially accept those if they're still on the table.

Rumours continue to abound about Eduardo leaving as he is surplus to requirements with Chamakh coming in. Speaking of which, Chamakh takes one of the remaining four places, leaving only three to choose from the above list.

Given the assumptions as above that leaves a list of:
Diaby, Rosicky, Vela, Denilson, Djourou, Traore, Campbell, Barazite, Coquelin, Henderson.

A reasonable choice based on current form, and the need to retain some experienced heads in the team, would be to keep Rosicky, Campbell, and Barazite and release the rest.


Speculative Team

That would give Arsenal a squad that looks like:
1. Keeper No. 1
4. Cesc Fabregas
5. Thomas Vermaelen
7. Tomas Rosicky
8. Samir Nasri
11. Robin Van Persie
14. Theo Walcott
16. Aaron Ramsey
17. Alex Song
19. Jack Wilshere
21. Keeper No. 2
22. Gael Clichy
24. Keeper No. 3
28. Kieran Gibbs
31. Sol Campbell
33. Nacer Barazite
34. Kyle Bartley
36. Tom Cruise
37. Craig Eastmond
38. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas
42. Kerea Gilbert
48. Mark Randall
52. Nicklas Bendtner
54. Sanchez Watt
xx. Marouane Chamakh

Which in turn gives a probable first team that looks like this:

Keeper No. 1
RB - Campbell - Vermaelen - Clichy
Nasri - Fabregas - Song - Rosicky
Bendtner - Van Persie

With a bench of:

Keeper No. 2, Gibbs, Eastmond, Ramsey, Wilshere, Chamakh, JET, probably with the expectation of converting either Gibbs or Eastmond to RB and leaving a defensive bench position open to Tom Cruise or Kyle Bartley.

It's not what Arsenal fans were expecting, especially when salivating over the prospect of big name signings. However every team in the premier league will suffer, and actually, Arsenal will probably suffer less than most due to their usual reliance on youth, despite losing a big chunk of the squad.

What is unknown so far is how players in the reserves are counted against the quotas, or not. And under what circumstances they can be promoted? In other words could Arsenal keep some of those that "leave" the squad, in the reserves, and promote them if injuries force it later in the season?


Conclusion

In the final analysis, many agree with the Premier League's new rules—I'm not one of them, and neither is Arsene Wenger. It's a stupid rule that will make no difference to the England squad (which is apparently the aim), but will degrade the quality of the finest league in the world.