4) Losing an unhappy player in Alexis Sanchez
Let’s face it, Sanchez had started to become more of a hindrance than a help at Arsenal towards the end.
The Chile international wasn’t signing his new contract and his form had taken a real dip this season – in fact, he didn’t exactly look too useful in United’s game against Tottenham the other night either, though we’ll let him off for that…for now.
David Ornstein spoke to Arseblog about Sanchez’s final few months at Arsenal and it sounds like they were all fed up with him – with no one bothering to say goodbye to him when he left and with the growing feeling that he didn’t click with the rest of the squad, preferring instead to spend more time with his dogs Atom and Humber.
Now there are players fighting every minute for the logo and the fans ???? #WeAreTheArsenal
Wembley time ????? pic.twitter.com/reiS70hMRd— Mohamed ELNeny (@ElNennyM) January 25, 2018
Ornstein also added that Sanchez got into a training ground row with Laurent Koscielny last season, so could the mood at the Emirates Stadium now be much improved with the sulky South American gone?
5) Decent money brought in from backups
Despite barely using them this season, Arsenal brought in a cool £38million from the sales of Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott, according to reports from BBC Sport here and here.
Of course, football is not about making money, but that kind of cash is not to be sniffed at – it’s the vast majority of the Aubameyang fee, for starters.
Both players looked past their best for the Gunners and had little more to offer, and it’s debatable if they’ll even necessarily improve their rivals, despite that being a worry for some fans.
Giroud likely won’t be a regular starter for Chelsea due to the presence of Alvaro Morata, and until he started scoring scorpion kicks and performing the occasional heroics from the bench, not that many Arsenal fans even rated him that highly.
Ignore the haters, Arsenal, this January transfer window gets an A* grade from us!