There is no denying Arsenal is a mess these days. How else do you describe a side that was drubbed out of the Champions League 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich, has a manager who won’t commit his future to the club and a fanbase that is ready to rip said manager limb from limb?
Well, it appears the mess that is Arsenal is just continuing to get worse. According to an exclusive report from The Telegraph in the U.K., Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is joining the club of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in wanting out of Arsenal.
Sanchez’s row with manager Arsene Wenger is well known, and it has resulted in the goalscoring star wanting out of the club this offseason. Now it appears rumors of Ozil also wanting out have some more legs:
Telegraph Sport understands that Ozil has not responded to Arsenal’s latest contract offer, over £200,000 a week, with friends in Germany claiming he wants to quit the Emirates.
The fate of Sanchez seems sealed after a training pitch row led to him being sent to the bench for the big match against Liverpool this past week. It apparently was a bad row, and according to The Telegraph it all but guaranteed Sanchez’s departure:
Any realistic hope of keeping Sanchez appeared to evaporate when the Chile international walked off the training pitch and was involved in a heated argument with Laurent Koscielny and Aaron Ramsey before being dropped to the substitutes’ bench for the Liverpool defeat.
However, the situation with Oxlade-Chamberlain appears to be the strangest of the three. He’s got the most time left on his current contract and was one of the lone bright spots in Arsenal’s epic drubbing by Bayern Munich.
According to The Telegraph none of that matters, as Oxlade-Chamberlain has seen a large decrease in overall playing time this season.
Another Arsenal player with only 12 months remaining on his contract at the end of this season is Oxlade-Chamberlain, who earned praise for his performance on Tuesday night. Having become disillusioned with his contract situation and playing status, Oxlade-Chamberlain looks certain to quit the club in an attempt to reignite his career.
It shouldn’t be surprising to see Oxlade-Chamberlain want out of this mess. It hasn’t been an easy ride for the English international, often times being subbed off early and played in just about every position thinkable in the midfield and beyond.
At some point, he will need to get settled and get regular minutes to regain his spot on the national team. Wenger’s managerial style suggests that that isn’t likely to happen.
It also suggests that Arsenal are at a major cross-roads in the club’s history.
A lot of these moves seem to be contingent on the status of Wenger, with a players vs. coach scenario being set up. Oh to be a fly on the wall for the panic-striken conversations between owner Stan Kroenke and chief executive Ivan Gazidis. It isn’t as if they have a handful of major decisions to be made or anything.
Whether these rumors become reality in the offseason is another story, but there certainly seems to be a lot of drama and a lot of uncertainty about the future of Arsenal’s makeup.
