The Premier League kicks off tomorrow. Tomorrow. Great for fans. Great for teams who’ve prepared. Not so great for those who haven’t . If Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger could pull his head out from his rear-end long enough, he might notice that while fighting a battle to hold onto uninterested players, he’s in fact missed a perfect opportunity to refresh and rebuild on a talented but struggling squad.

Far too little is happening in a club that came so close, yet so far, so often last season. Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri are great players and they’ve delivered a great service to the Gunners over recent years, but if they’re unhappy, let them go. Nasri already wants out and with a year left on his contract, no renewal thereof will dent the clubs return on him dramatically. Cesc Fabregas as been on the maybe-train back to Barcelona so often over recent seasons, trying to keep him would just do more bad to the stability of the squad than good at this point.

 SELL! It’s a no brainer. No other clubs are knocking on the doors of the Emirates with a 30m + bid for Cesc. No Trophies and an undervalued (in comparison to other players on the same shelf) weekly wage present an expensive gamble come the end of his contract. If loyalty needs to be bought, Arsenal are coming up horribly short.

The Gunners should have settled for a 35m cash in on the Spaniard and set a price for the Frenchman a month ago. There were no secrets about them wanting to leave. Selling them then would have given them a bit of breathing room to make vital improvements to the squad and enough time to work the new arrivals into their particular playing style.

Arsene Wenger seems to be in a powerful enough position to have influenced the board into the ‘now not later’ approach to the situation. For this stubborn behavior and the lack of progressive change within the squad so late in the transfer window, he is our Doos of the week.

Nic Hoekstra

@theKaptiv

pic: thisislondon.co.uk