Arsenal favourite Charlie Nicholas has urged Arsenal to avoid another 'ridiculous' Aaron Ramsey situation with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's future.
The Gunners' captain is set to enter the final 12 months of his contract at the Emirates Stadium, meaning he could leave on a free transfer at the end of the 2020/21 season.
However, Nicholas believes Arsenal should do everything they can to avoid seeing Aubameyang leave on a free, criticising the club's 'baffling' approach to handling contracts.
"The Aaron Ramsey situation was ridiculous. I remember when we were talking about Ramsey with 18 months to go. Ramsey had won over a lot of Arsenal fans at that point, but he was not everybody's favourite. A lot were saying let him go," he told Sky Sports.
"I said the same thing then as what I will now. Even asking for something over the top, it would not be massively over what Arsenal thought would be something feasible.
"Ramsey probably wanted to stay, so why could they not pay him what other teams were paying their players? They could not afford it and could have given into it, but I do not see why Arsenal keep running contracts down.
"Manchester United were cute enough to get players over the line like Nemanja Matic and manipulate the system where they can keep these type of players for another year.
"If they want to leave, there is still value and you are still getting money back. It goes into replacing some of these players.
"However, Arsenal are stuck with the likes of Shkodran Mustafi and Sead Kolasinac. Will they get any value back? No. What they do with contracts is baffling."
