Mikel Arteta has admitted that Arsenal need to learn from their past mistakes with handing long-term contracts to the wrong players.
The Gunners recently agreed to terminate Mesut Ozil’s £350,000-a-week deal six months early in order for him to join Fenerbahce this month.
Greek defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos is in a similar boat, with his £90,000-a-week contract also set to be binned to allow him to leave the club.
Neither player was in Arteta’s plans this season or appeared to be going forward, but have continued to cost the club a lot of money.
And Arteta has urged Arsenal chiefs to learn their lesson when it comes to handling contract negotiations so they are not in the same situations again.
“You don’t want to get into this position again, that’s for sure,” the Spaniard said. “Not for the player, not for the club.
“But it’s happening more and more at every club and this situation you can see in other clubs things happening like that.
“I think you have to have that communication open, obviously to prevent it as much as possible and if they happen, just make a decision and don’t try to delay a situation that is not working for much longer.
“Sometimes it’s difficult because the contracts are really close and you have to respect them while you sign them and some days it’s difficult to see how things are going to evolve in six months’ time.
“So sometimes it’s impossible to see what’s going to happen in three years’ time. We tried to resolve those situations early in the summer, to try and avoid what we had but sometimes it’s not possible as well.
“This transfer window and the previous one were really complicated ones and I’d have to assume we have a responsibility with those players and we have to respond to our obligations.
“That’s what we did until the moment we found a solution for both parties.”
