Arsenal will reportedly have to sell a load of first team players in order to afford Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil’s new wages… or will they?

• Premier League introduced short-term cost control rules in 2013/14
• Rules state that Premiership clubs can’t increase wages by more than £7m year-on-year
• Alexis and Ozil’s reported wages come to £15m-per-year

The Daily Mail and Independent both claim that Arsenal will have to sell numerous players this summer in order to afford to keep Alexis and Ozil.

The reason for this being that the Premier League introduced short-term cost control rules in 2013/14, which means that clubs aren’t allow to exceed £7m in wage increases year-on-year.

If Alexis and Ozil’s reported £280k-per-week wages are accurate, this adds up to £15m-a-year. Each.

To get around this, as Arsenal are estimated to lose out on £30m by failing to get Champions League football next season, the Gunners will have to sell some players.

The players that the tabloids are suggesting Arsene Wenger will have to sell include Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jack Wilshere. Mostly names that Arsenal shouldn’t be looking to part with.

However, what they fail to take into account is the ‘deadwood’ set to be cleared this summer.

The likes of Carl Jenkinson, Mathieu Debuchy, David Ospina, Joel Campbell and Kieran Gibbs should all be heading for the exit and considering Debuchy alone apparently earns £70k-per-week, while Jenks gets £45kpw. Yaya Sanogo, despite being mostly absent, still got paid.

This means that by just selling the players that are more or less already gone, Arsenal save £20m straight away.

They can also sign additional small sponsorship deals.

While it’s going to be tight and the Gunners may have to reluctantly part ways with a couple of players that they don’t want to, such as Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla, and Wojciech Szczesny, the club will have something in place.

Although Arsenal haven’t really had to deal with this rule before, it won’t come as a surprise and I’m sure that if they truly are planning on handing Alexis and Ozil new deals, they’ll have taken the short-term cost control rules into account.