Arsenal Transfer Window: Who Should Stay, Who Should Go
January Blues: The Window Nobody Enjoys
The January transfer window is football’s least satisfying institution. It arrives in the dead of winter, disrupts squad harmony, inflates prices to absurd levels, and produces, more often than not, a frantic final-day scramble that yields loan signings of questionable value and permanent transfers that are immediately regretted. Arsenal supporters, who have endured decades of transfer window frustration, approach January with the weary resignation of people who have been hurt before and expect to be hurt again.
So here we are, in January 2019, and the question is the same as it always is: what does Arsenal need, and what can Arsenal afford? The answers, as ever, are at considerable odds with each other.
Who’s Pulling Their Weight
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
The Gabonese striker has been Arsenal’s best player this season by a comfortable margin. His goal record — already in double figures by January — is outstanding, and his movement off the ball gives Arsenal a cutting edge that they have lacked since the departure of Robin van Persie. Aubameyang stays, obviously. He is non-negotiable.
Alexandre Lacazette
Flourishing in his second season, Lacazette has formed a productive partnership with Aubameyang that gives Emery genuine flexibility in attack. His pressing, his link-up play, and his improving goal record make him a vital component of this squad. Keep.
Lucas Torreira
The Uruguayan has been a revelation. After years of searching for a midfield enforcer — a player who can protect the defence while distributing the ball with intelligence — Arsenal may finally have found their man. Torreira’s energy, positioning, and willingness to put his body on the line have transformed Arsenal’s midfield. An unqualified success.
Bernd Leno
Having displaced Petr Čech as first-choice goalkeeper, Leno has grown into the role with each passing week. He is not yet the commanding presence that Arsenal require — his handling can be uncertain, his communication with the defence occasionally frantic — but his shot-stopping is excellent and his distribution a significant improvement on his predecessor’s. He is the future.
Who Needs Replacing
The Centre-Back Situation
Where to begin? Shkodran Mustafi continues to produce defensive errors of such frequency and creativity that one suspects he is doing it deliberately, as some form of avant-garde performance art. Sokratis is a battler, but his limitations are exposed against pacey opponents. Laurent Koscielny, returning from an Achilles injury, is a shadow of the excellent defender he once was. Rob Holding’s long-term injury has deprived Emery of his most promising option.
Arsenal need a centre-back. They needed one in the summer. They will need one again in the summer if they fail to act now. The defensive record this season — particularly away from home — has been poor, and no amount of tactical adjustment can compensate for individual errors of the kind Mustafi produces with depressing regularity.
The Wide Areas
Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been disappointing. The Armenian’s talent is beyond question — his technique, his vision, his ability to score spectacular goals — but his consistency has been woeful. Too many anonymous performances, too many matches in which he drifts in and out of the action like a ghost with a poor sense of direction. Arsenal need more from their wide players, whether that means improving Mkhitaryan’s output or finding a replacement.
The Denis Suárez Question
The rumour mill’s current favourite is Denis Suárez, the Barcelona midfielder who has struggled for playing time at the Camp Nou. Suárez is technically gifted, versatile, and available on loan — the kind of low-risk, moderate-reward signing that January windows tend to produce. Whether he can make a meaningful impact in the Premier League is another matter entirely. La Liga and the English top flight are different beasts, and the transition is not always smooth.
If Suárez arrives, he should be viewed as a useful addition rather than a transformative signing. The transformative signings — the centre-back, the box-to-box midfielder, the wide forward — will have to wait until the summer, when the market is broader and the options more plentiful.
The Budget: Arsenal’s Eternal Constraint
Emery has been told, in terms that leave little room for misinterpretation, that the January budget extends to loan signings only. The Özil contract, the stadium debt, and the broader financial landscape of the club mean that significant transfer expenditure will have to wait. This is frustrating but not surprising — Arsenal have operated under financial constraints for the best part of a decade, and the Emery era was never going to begin with a spending spree.
The hope is that a strong second half of the season — Champions League qualification through a top-four finish or, failing that, the Europa League — will unlock a more ambitious summer transfer budget. Whether that hope is justified remains to be seen. Arsenal supporters have been promised jam tomorrow for so long that they can be forgiven for suspecting the jam doesn’t exist. For a broader look at the squad’s strengths and weaknesses, see our season analysis, and for context on where the club needs to develop its own talent, our piece on Arsenal’s academy graduates.
The Verdict
This January window will not define Arsenal’s season. The squad, for all its imperfections, is good enough to compete for a top-four place and a deep run in the Europa League. The signings that will define the Emery project — the centre-back, the midfielder, the wide player — are summer business. For now, Arsenal need to hold their nerve, back their manager, and trust the process. Which is, I concede, the kind of thing people say when there is nothing else to be done.