It's Summer Time at Arsenal: Lets Sell Our Best Players!

Every summer, almost without fail, the drama at Arsenal begins. 

It has almost become part of the routine now. The trees come into leaf, the days become long, the season ends, and Arsenal's current best player (usually the Captain) seems set to leave the club.

Arsenal fans have endured this annual ritual for so long now that it would almost be noteworthy if it didn't happen.

There was the continuing saga of Patrick Vieira, who was almost permanently on the verge of a move to Real Madrid, before leaving for Italy; Thierry Henry to Barcelona; Mathieu Flamini to AC Milan; and of course, the summer of summers last year when the club sold both Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri —after having been assured by Wenger that if both players were sold Arsenal could not be taken as a club of "ambition".

Omitted from the list are the likes of: Alexander Hleb, Gael Clichy, Ashely Cole, Emmanuel Adebayor and Lassana Diarra. I mention Diarra, not because he was a summer leaver, but because he had been sold in the January window before Arsenal allowed Flamini to walk away for nothing six months later.

It has become customary, with a few exceptions, to rubbish the achievements of the summer leavers and to venture that the club is better off without the mercenaries. Thus Cole, Nasri and Adebayor are as despised by Arsenal fans now as they once were idolized while kissing the Arsenal badge.

But the calibre of talent that has been allowed to leave Arsenal is such that one could almost pick an ex-Arsenal 11 that could give their current 11 more than a run for their money, pun intended.

This surely begs the question, how on earth is this allowed to happen?  How is it that, year in, year out, top players are allowed to reach the final year of their contracts and why does this seem to happen almost exclusively to Arsenal (I accept that other teams have had high-profile dramas over players potentially leaving—Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo of Manchester United to name a few)?

It seems to me that part of the reason, at least, is that Arsenal are totally reactive to events.  Why are the club not being proactive and, for example, re-negotiating contracts long before the player and his agent can start thinking about pulling a Flamini—stalling contract negotiations and leaving for free?

An example: two years ago Arsenal could have approached Robin Van Persie and offered him a more lucrative contract than he was on, subject to it running to around 2014.  At that point—two years ago— the chances are that the player would have been extremely receptive.  Would a player really turn down more money in order to avoid extending his current contract so he could walk away sooner, for nothing at the end of it?

Actually, some players might if they were exceptionally keen to leave as soon as possible and weighed the short term versus the long term gain. However, as Eduardo demonstrated, a footballer's career is precarious at best and turning down a lucrative but extended contract would be a rather risky step for a player to take.

So why does Arsenal sit on their hands and wait, like lambs to the slaughter, for key players to get to the end of their contracts before trying to renew them ?

Why aren't contracts being reviewed and renegotiated, so as to prevent the annual summer depletion, long before they even become an issue? I don't mean in the season before, but years before.

I, of course, have no knowledge of what goes on and can merely speculate.  However, there is a strong suspicion that the club has taken penny pinching to the point where it is costing it far more than it is trying to save.

Everybody with half a brain cell knows that Arsenal cannot compete financially with the clubs bankrolled by Russo-Arab Oligarchs. Thus, a rather more sophisticated strategy needs to be deployed, whereby such clubs cannot get near Arsenal's top players because they are on, and kept on, long term contracts.  If this means giving Jack Wilshire a massive pay raise three years before his contract reaches the fateful final summer, in return for a four-year extension, then so be it.

Will that happen? What do you think?

For as long as Arsenal, sensibly and laudably prudent and well run as it is, allows its top players contracts to get anywhere near the dreaded last summer, then one can only predict that the annual agony will continue for the club and its long suffering supporters...