{"id":579737,"date":"2021-01-20T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T13:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=579737"},"modified":"2026-03-15T13:51:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T17:51:17","slug":"arsenal-and-sokratis-agree-to-terminate-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/20\/arsenal-and-sokratis-agree-to-terminate-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal and Sokratis Agree to Terminate Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><a href=\"\/football\/category\/Arsenal\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal<\/a> and central defender <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/b682dcf6\/Sokratis-Papastathopoulos\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sokratis Papastathopoulos<\/a> have agreed to part ways by mutual consent- terminating his contract. The news leaves the Greek defender with the chance to join another club as a free agent this month or in other transfer windows to come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sokratis joins <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/16\/mesut-ozil-contract-termination-arsenal\/\" target=\"_self\">Mesut Ozil<\/a> as the latest departure from the club despite signing for \u00a317.6 million from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/01\/05\/jurgen-klopp-will-reportedly-face-no-fa-action-after-criticising-referee\/\" target=\"_self\">Borussia Dortmund<\/a> in the summer of 2018. Just over two years on from his arrival, the defender leaves having failed to live up to expectations, however.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sokratis Agrees Contract Termination With Arsenal<\/span><\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\ud83d\uddde Working closely with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SokratisPapa5?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@SokratisPapa5<\/a> and his team, we have decided to cancel his contract by mutual consent<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Arsenal (@Arsenal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Arsenal\/status\/1351877920579596289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 20, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Freeing up Room on the Wage Bill<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Following the departure of Mesut Ozil, who was the highest-paid player at the club, and now Sokratis, Arsenal and Mikel Arteta should finally have some funds to utilise in improving the current side.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Recent performances have been promising, and this is only the beginning of what will need to be an extensive rebuild. The exit of Ozil, followed by Sokratis, are promising signs that the club is heading in the right direction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Should they spend the money gained by clearing the wage bill wisely, then Arsenal stand a chance of making Europe once more. Should they continue the trend of disappointing recruitment at the Emirates, however, then a return to the top six is unlikely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Promising Signs Under Mikel Arteta<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Perhaps the secret to Arsenal&#8217;s success is through their academy, and not the transfer market- as proven in recent times. Whilst big money signings fail before moving on, academy products are excelling under Arteta.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/17695062\/Emile-Smith-Rowe\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Emile Smith Rowe<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/bc7dc64d\/Bukayo-Saka\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bukayo Saka<\/a> have proved pivotal in Arsenal&#8217;s recent resurgence- both of whom were involved in goals against <a href=\"\/football\/category\/Newcastle-United\" target=\"_self\">Newcastle United<\/a> on Monday evening as the Gunners secured victory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">So, from an Arsenal point of view, perhaps the focus must be on clearing deadwood such as Sokratis off the wage bill before handing opportunities to the academy to excel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"scmMM28kRvxRjas-UBYsyg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1230020991\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'scmMM28kRvxRjas-UBYsyg',sig:'7HBVoFTMu7prDGD2IIjTsA_jDJ9MpPZiGySKLS3bOUQ=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1230020991',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal and central defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos have agreed to part ways by mutual consent- terminating his contract. The news leaves the Greek defender with the chance to join another club as a free agent this month or in other transfer windows to come.\u00a0 Sokratis joins Mesut Ozil as the latest departure from the club despite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3402,"featured_media":579738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,30,28],"tags":[32739,32738,3190,2018,4211,473,40,7761,7760,136],"class_list":["post-579737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-arsenal","category-news","category-transfers","tag-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-arsenal-transfer-news","tag-arteta","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-mesut-ozil","tag-premier-league","tag-smith-rowe","tag-sokratis","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664201,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579737\/revisions\/664201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}