Gunners bid farewell to Xhaka and co. with Wolves win

In what was a season filled with surprise and hope, Arsenal managed to end on a positive note despite stumbling and crawling to the finish line.

The Gunners ran out of steam – first it was dropping a 2-0 lead at Anfield, then a 2-0 lead against West Ham, then a horrible 3-3 draw at Southampton which led to being battered by City. Before you knew it, a 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest cemented Manchester City as champions of the league.

With all hope lost and many hearts broken, Mikel Arteta took to the Emirates for one last time in the 2022/23 season to take on a Wolves side that were floating between relegation and European contention.

Nevertheless, a comprehensive 5-0 win was a nice way to end the season and an even nicer way to farewell some of the club’s most loyal servants in recent times.

First is the obvious one – Granit Xhaka. Signed in 2016 as a box-to-box midfielder, the Swiss helped the team through their roughest period as a CDM. Well, ‘helped’ might initially be too generous of a phrase. Xhaka’s lack of discipline saw him infuriate fans with constant red cards and many mistakes. Eventually named captain, backlash from the fans saw him fall out with the club, exploding after being subbed off and seemingly signing his own release.

Enter Mikel Arteta.

With one foot out of the door and on the way to Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma, Granit Xhaka was convinced to stay under the new boss. Fast forward to the 2022/23 season, the midfielder returned as more of a box-to-box CM and thrived, being one of the team’s main leaders and winning back the Arsenal faithful.

Now, as soon as we get back into the Champions League, he looks to be on his way to Bayer Leverkusen, bidding farewell with a first half brace. This one hurts.

Speaking of exits that will be painful to the eye, let’s look at Kieran Tierney. Indisputably one of the standout players of the early Mikel Arteta era, the Scotsman terrorised opposition teams with his speed, physicality and ability to bomb up and down the wing all day long. The signing of Zinchenko seems to have signaled the beginning of the end for Tierney, with plenty of outside interest and a serious decrease in playing time looking like he is on his way out of the Emirates.

These are just two possible outgoing deals that could happen in the off-season, with Edu and Arteta confirming that they are looking for eight in total.

One thing is for sure – this is going to be one interesting transfer window.