When Arsenal tied Arsene Wenger down to another two-year extension at the end of last season, fans thought the decision pretty weird considering the state of the club, but little did we know this was only the beginning.
Selling Woj for no reason at all
I’m going to start with a painful one for Arsenal fans. The selling of Wojciech Szczesny.
This one may not count as ‘this season’ as it happened last summer but hey, we can all agree that it’s one of the weirdest decisions that Arsenal have made.
After two seasons on loan at Roma, where the 27-year-old improved massively, Gooners were under the impression that the Poland international would return to north London to challenge Petr Cech for the #1 spot.
At this stage, most of us were well aware that Cech wouldn’t take much challenging and we were excited to see a player who genuinely loves Arsenal return. The shot-stopper joined the academy at the age of 15.
What’s more, Woj is actually a brilliant goalkeeper now, so having an actual pair of safe hands between the sticks would be a massive help.
However, over the summer, it soon became apparent that Arsene Wenger, or Arsenal, had no intention of keeping Woj and they instead sold him for around £10m to Juventus, where he would sit on the bench behind Gianluigi Buffon.
Woj leaving had nothing to do with him wanting to become #1 and being too impatient to wait behind Cech, since he was knowingly going to have to wait behind Buffon for at least a year in Serie A.
No one really knows for sure why Arsenal sold Woj, although many of us suspect it has something to do with the smoking in the showers incident. The goalkeeper was caught having a smoke in the St. Mary’s showers after shipping two goals against Southampton in January 2015.
“We have so many top-class goalkeepers that we gave him a chance to remain in Italy,” Wenger explained. “I think that it’s very good for his future because he will certainly take over from Buffon.”