More Movement on Squad Building

 The Havertz deal is done, and the Rice and Timber deals are all but done.  Xhaka is departing for Leverkusen for a £21M fee; Mari has already gone to Monza for about £6M.  Arsenal just re-signed the out-of-contract Reiss Nelson, who seems really happy about it.  Balogun is going to tour with Arsenal for the off-season friendlies, so maybe Arteta is thinking about keeping him, or perhaps putting him in the shop window anticipating a fee in the range of £40-50M.  I've heard nothing about Tierney for a while.  I'd love to keep him, but Arteta just won't start a traditional left back, preferring to use Zinchenko as a spare midfielder.  I expect Holding will go somewhere he can play, and he's a very good option for teams that want to sit back and defend.  He'll win headers all game, but don't ask him to track speedy forwards into the midfield.  There's some noise about the Gunners wanting Southampton's Romeo Lavia, but if Partey stays I don't think they'll go in for him.  Partey was thinking about a move to Saudi Arabia, but that's gone quiet lately.  Tavares will probably be sold, and should bring in a few mil.  We might be able to get a case of beer for Cedric.  Pepe, Marquinhos, and Lokonga should be moved on; they'll never play another minute for us and are quite decent players.

What all this means is that Arsenal has improved qualitatively already, with more possibilities to come.  The major questions are around midfielders Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith-Rowe, to my mind.  The former hasn't in his first year fulfilled the hope Arteta had for him, and has to improve.  ESR has to show he's back to the form that won him the #10 shirt two years ago.  If either of those things happen, our midfield will be awesome.  If not, it'll be excellent but subject to an injury crisis.  I keep forgetting that we bought Jorginho as insurance in central midfield, and he's been really good.  Obviously, at his age he's not going to be around much longer.

We still have a Giroud-shaped hole in the forward line.  Arteta apparently sees no need for a big, strong center forward to bang in headers off crosses, hold up play, combine, and tire out opposing central defenders with relentless physicality.  Maybe he's right.  Havertz scores a lot of headers (he's tall) and I think he'll be crashing the penalty area on a regular basis.

It seems impossible for Saka and Martinelli to get any better, but they're very young and still learning.  If they and our other young stars (Odegaard, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior, etc.) keep improving, we could be unstoppable.  Arteta is not the most astute tactician in the league, but he's pretty good and he has the players he wants.  They all seem to be behind him and happy to play their assigned roles.

I'd be crazy not to be optimistic about next season.  It should be fun.  We'll have to fight on four fronts.  Resting stars in Champions' League is not going to get the job done.  Squad rotation will have to be intelligent, and that's not been Arteta's strong suit.  But this is a team with enormous potential.