Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil looks set to leave the North London club this summer, despite his wish to see out the last year of his contract, with the German’s £350,000 a week wage being at the forefront of the Gunners decision, according to ESPN.
The attacking midfielder struggled to get in former head coach Unai Emery’s side, but had started all 10 games before the league was suspended due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
However, it doesn’t look like he will be at the club for too much longer, with further reports from the Daily Mail suggesting that Ozil is set to leave as the club looks set to have a depleted budget this summer.
Mesut Ozil to Be Offloaded By Arsenal
League Form
The German hasn’t played as many games as he would have liked so far this season. He’s not been in a matchday squad in the league on nine occasions and has sat on the bench for the whole game twice. He’s also only scored one goal in the league and out of the 18 games he has played this season he’s only been on the winning side in five games.
Arsenal’s Depleted Transfer Budget
Like a lot of teams in the league, the Coronavirus outbreak has severely damaged any income the club has received. With the Gunners trying to manage their books sensibly in the last few years, the COVID-19 outbreak has ruined their balance expectations for this summer. To help this, in April players and coaches took a 12.5% wage cut to help balance the books during the time of uncertainty.
Arsenal missing out on Champions League money regularly for the last few seasons also means that they can’t attract the bigger players as they don’t have the budget available.
Transfer and Loan Targets
The north London club currently have players on loan that if they had the opportunity they would want to make permanent.
Firstly, there is Pablo Mari, who joined in the January transfer window on loan with an option to buy. Although only playing 204 minutes since joining the club, he has impressed in those games, and the club hasn’t conceded a goal whilst he has been on the pitch. However, the centre-back will miss the rest of the rescheduled season after suffering ankle ligament damage against Manchester City on Wednesday night.
Next is a familiar name in Cedric Soares, who joined the club on transfer deadline day at the end of January. The player is yet to play a game due to multiple injuries, however, with his Southampton contract up in the summer, Arsenal might take a gamble and bring him in as backup next season.
Finally, we have Dani Ceballos who is on loan from Real Madrid. Despite not being in Mikel Arteta’s plans at the beginning of his reign as manager, he has earned his way into the team since then. This transfer may be a bit harder to get done, however. There is no agreement in place to buy and due to his parent club being Real Madrid, Arsenal could be looking at upwards of £50 million to sign the midfielder on a permanent contract.
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