Arsenal today confirmed on their official website that Konstantinos Mavropanos has a signed a new contract and he will spend next season out on loan in Germany with Stuttgart.
That is one less centre-half Arsenal have to deal with ahead of this summer window. The Gunners still have Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Shkodran Mustafi, Pablo Mari, David Luiz and Sokratis Papastathopoulos on their books with William Saliba joining the club soon.
That is seven first-team centre-halves, which is simply too many. Kieran Tierney and Sead Kolasinac have also played in that role recently, bumping the number up to nine and surely forcing the club to cash in on a few of them this summer.
Luiz and Mari recently signed new deals, Holding has been brilliant when he has played, Mustafi has arguably been Arsenal’s best defender under Arteta and Chambers was a mainstay under the Gunners boss before he got injured.
That leaves Sokratis who hasn’t played a single minute in the league since the restart. The Independent claimed recently that the Greek international could join Mavropanos at Stuttgart but it doesn’t look like it anymore.
The Telegraph claim today that the former Borussia Dortmund man is happy in London and is not interested in leaving Arsenal this summer despite the lack of game time.
It is claimed that no club has been in contact with Sokratis and it is very unlikely that he leaves the club this summer.
That is understandable considering that the Arsenal man is 32 and is on relatively high wages.
Big financial blow for Arsenal
No club in the financial climate would be willing to cover the Greek’s wages and having not played in the league since the start of March, his stock on the market is likely to be much lesser than what Arsenal would want for him.
That really is bad news for Arsenal. The Gunners are already struggling to get rid of Mesut Ozil’s enormous wages and with Sokratis and potentially even Kolasinac not planning to leave the club this summer, Arsenal’s finances are set to take a further hit.
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