With a number of players running their contracts down, Arsenal could lose out on significant sums of money.

The club’s handling of players contracts has been far from adequate in recent years. By the end of this season, four first-team players worth £142m could walk away for nothing.

The cases of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil are well documented by this point. Their worth to the club is far greater than just money, but it’s worth pointing out that the club could be letting over £100m worth of talent leave without any form of compensation.

It’s the sort of sum that could be reinvested in a stellar replacement. Beyond them, we have Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla. The pair has struggled with injury and are, by this point, no longer key parts of the first-team squad.

Nonetheless, that’s another £20m worth of talent potentially out of the door. It could get much worse next season too. Looming in the distance are no less than six first-team players with a year remaining on their contracts.

Aaron Ramsey, Nacho Monreal, Danny Welbeck, Petr Cech, David Ospina and Theo Walcott all have deals that expire in 2019, and if they aren’t sorted quickly the club could lose out on £123m worth of talent.

The fear will be that the club, having already lost four very good players for nothing, would end up in a situation where it has to sell even more players for reduced prices.

As tempting as a squad upheaval sounds, it would leave a lot of work to be done in a short space of time. Such a large transition would have consequences for Arsenal’s form in the short-term.