Here are your Arsenal headlines for Tuesday, April 21.
Arteta on transfers
Mikel Arteta has admitted that he does not know how much money he will have to play with this summer as he sets about looking to improve his Gunners squad.
Reports recently have linked the club with a big-money move for Atletico midfielder Thomas Partey, who is expected to cost in the region of £43.5million.
"I’m planning two or three different scenarios that we can face." Arteta told Sky earlier this month. "Depending on one of those three, we will be able to do more, less or nothing.
"We have to react daily. We don’t know what the financial situation is going to be, we don’t know the rules, the timing, the window.
"There are so many things we cannot control at the moment."
Mesut Ozil pay cut decision raises many uncomfortable questions
Even in such unprecedented times at these Mesut Ozil cannot escape the question of his salary, the giant £350,000-a-week figure that looms over everything he does.
Ozil’s contract which was agreed in January 2018, put him as the club’s highest earner and has clearly had an impact on the club’s financial situation.
As Josh Kroenke once claimed, the club have “a Champions League wage bill on a Europa League budget”.
His decision to reject a pay-cut as the club seeks to cut costs and save money has seen Ozil draw criticism in public.
Football.london's James Benge has written a piece on the difficult questions Ozil’s decision to reject a 12.5% pay cut raises.
You can read it here.
Gary Neville slams Arsenal players for ‘outing’ Mesut Ozil
It would appear Ozil has found an unlikely advocate in Gary Neville. The former Manchester United defender has described the split amongst Arsenal’s playing staff as “indefensible” after it was revealed that three players had refused to take a 12.5 per cent wage cut.
Highest-earner, Mesut Ozil is said to be one of the three stars to have turned down the drop in salary after ten days of intense negotiations.
“I think the principle of not being together is indefensible,” Neville told Sky Sports’ The Football Show. “I think that’s the biggest problem when you have a group of players that are all adopting one position, you’re a team on and off the pitch. I wouldn’t like to be one of the three people that haven’t agreed with the group. I think it will isolate and alienate them in everything moving forward.”
"They are entitled to make their own decisions, you can’t rip up a players’ contract or force them to take a cut or deferral, but I think when a group of players are voting on something, you go with it. From my point of view, it demonstrates further the complexity of what is happening at the moment in the Premier League,” he continued.
"Football is eating itself from the inside and out. There are disagreements, not just from Premier League clubs to clubs but clubs to players, there is nothing that is in agreement at this moment in time.
"There is the odd club that has their house in order but, generally, most clubs, players are not at war but disagreeing with what is happening.
"Clubs need support, players don’t trust their clubs, and this is another example of it.
"The club or the players have outed him, it’s as simple as that. They’ve thrown him overboard."
