What we wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in Arsenal’s dressing room right now.
The Gunners are in turmoil, and while we won’t get a peek behind the scenes until Amazon’s All or Nothing documentary airs next year, we have had a few insights into what’s going on at London Colney from some reliable journalists.
Indeed, Fabrizio Romano shared an update on the Gunners’ dressing room in late August, and while he said there were no issues to report at the time, he claimed that there was a bit of a problem brewing due to the number of players who play in the same positions.
“From what I’m told, in the dressing room, I’m not told there are big problems in the dressing room, but there is more a problem about too many players in the same positions, in particular in attack, and they wanted to bring in a new one like Tammy Abraham, but they couldn’t because they had too many players in this position,” Romano said.
“The real difficult part of this market is about selling players, look at Manchester United they are not selling players, and Arsenal, they’re trying, but it’s not easy. It’s something this week that needs to be clarified, but it could become a problem.”
As Romano said, it would be difficult to shift players, and here we are a few weeks later and the only player to have departed is Hector Bellerin, and even then, that was only on loan.
Romano said that some players, particularly attackers, weren’t happy with the amount of competition there was in their spots, and that’s an issue that hasn’t been fixed.
The journalist’s update makes this seem like something that has bubbled under the surface for a little while, and as the season rumbles on, we could reach a boiling point.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles has already kicked up a bit of a fuss with his now infamous social media post about wanting to leave, and he may not be the last player to cause that type of problem this term.
We all know how desperate Folarin Balogun was to play first-team football last term, but with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah still at the club, how likely is that? And how unsettled could he become if he’s once again left out week after week.
The Gunners have enough issues on the pitch, but in their failure to trim the fat from their squad, they could be inviting even more trouble behind the scenes.
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