Arsène Wenger would be right to sell Özil and Sanchez in January. Here’s why

This duo of overpaid chancers don't merit a place in a side that should be aiming to make a concerted charge at winning The Best League in the World...

It emerged on Thursday morning that Arsène Wenger would consider selling Mesut Özil and Alexis Sanchez in the January transfer window. And why not?

After all, they’ve hardly contributed a jot to anything the club has achieved over the past few seasons.

Sure, some will argue that the Chilean’s 50-odd goals at one every other game, allied with the German’s almost pathological obsession with creating chance after chance for his team-mates, are in fact vital components in the clattering scrapheap that is ‘the Arsenal machine’.

Some may even point out that Wenger has about as much chance of replacing them with footballers of equal ability in January as Boris Johnson does of becoming president of the European Commission.

But they’re wrong. This is a duo of overpaid, overhyped chancers whose so-called talents don’t merit a place in a side that should be aiming to make a concerted charge towards winning The Best League in the World.

Please find below several convincing and irrefutable reasons why it’s time for Wenger to Sell! Sell! Sell!

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Arsenal could really use the extra cash

Famously, the Gunners don’t have a cooking vessel in which to urinate. They’ve been hard up for quite a while now, unable even to spring for a decent winter jacket for their manager. So beanless have they become, in fact, they’ve had to coerce Ray Parlour into lending a hand by ferrying the coaching staff to away games in the back of his Kia Sportage.

And, recently, with Stan Kroenke siphoning all the money out of the club in order to fund his bespoke moustache-waxing app, things have just gotten worse.

So it’s fair to say Arsenal really need the £40m that PSG might be convinced to stump up in January for these two aging has-beens.

Things on which they could re-invest this windfall include:

  • a diamante scrum-cap for Petr Cech
  • a nice Caribbean holiday for poor old Mathieu Debuchy, who could really use a break
  • tackling lessons for Granit Xhaka
  • a deadline day bid for Stuart Taylor.

They’re not that good anyway


Jack Wilshere & Chuba Akpom are ready to step up and become the best players in the world

Eventually, Wenger will have to give the squad’s true talent its head. In Wilshere and Akpom, Arsenal possess a pair of brave English lions who are more than capable of surpassing the likes of Kylian Mbappé and Paolo Dybala as the planet’s most promising youngsters.

Haters have prematurely dismissed Jack as little more than an overblown, technically bereft flash-in-the-pan Bowyer-esque centre mid. But nothing could be further from the truth. This smokey little gem is a British Iniesta in the making; a visionary whose passing, tackling and consistency can propel him to the summit of the game.

Akpom, meanwhile, has been pigeon-holed unfairly as ‘a striker who doesn’t score.’

But three goals in 67 senior matches belies what is a sparkling and potentially prolific talent. Chuba, really, is about so much more than just goals.

Both men just need a decent spell in Arsenal’s first team. They’re ready. It’s about time Mesut and Alexis got out of their way.

Footballistically, they are not Arsenal

According to the general social media consensus, Wenger’s men just need to get back to basics. A ‘re-exploration of traditional Arsenal values’ is an absolute must if the Gunners are to regain their rightful place (4th) in the Premier League.

That means fewer thrilling 4-4 draws and more astoundingly dull 1-0 wins.

Fewer sweeping counter-attack moves instigated by miniature Iberians and more thundering headed clearances by 6’8 cockney centre-halves. Less plain chicken and more Tuesday night pints.

If that glorious plan to recapture the club’s golden age is to be successful, Mesut and Alexis simply have to go. They’re just not part of this new old vision.

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