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.”

Not signing new goalkeeper

On top of selling Woj, Arsenal then seemingly forgot to sign another goalkeeper instead. Therefore, Arsenal only have David Ospina, who can’t even hold a football, and Cech, who is well past his best, available.

Emi Martinez is on loan at Getafe and Matt Macey is at Luton Town.

Both Ospina and Cech’s contracts run out in 2019, and there’s no way either are Arsenal’s long-term solution. However, despite the odd rumour, there doesn’t appear to be anything solid linking the club with a decent replacement for either. Scratch that – ANY replacement for either.

Cech’s 35, so while he might well sign a new short-term deal with the club, as the Telegraph reported last year, there’s no way he can continue as #1. Not after making six errors leading to goals this season – the most in the Premier League.

Meanwhile, Ospina could actually be leaving in the summer.

“I am open to everything. Today I give everything for Arsenal, I like to be successful here, but you start to contemplate every alternative depending on each situation,” Ospina said Arsenal lost 3-0 to Manchester City in the League Cup final, reports Goal.

“I still have a contract, but as I say, I always like to have more opportunities, to have more continuity in the squad as every goalkeeper needs.

“Today, I am sharing my position with an excellent goalkeeper in Petr, but he knows that I like to play and I know he likes to keep playing, we have this competition between us, I just like to have continuity, I will think about the future at another moment.

“Today I live day by day, I don’t like to say anything about the future but I will make the most of every each training session and every moment at Arsenal.

“The manager has his reasons for deciding who does or does not get to play..Our position as goalkeepers is a very complicated one because you have less opportunities, in the team there is just one player who plays in that role, and who gets the support. I always try to do my best.

“Mistakes can happen but those mistakes (that the goalkeeper makes) are more visible to everybody, but I keep working, making the most of every opportunity that I have.

“When I speak to Wenger he always tells me that he trusts me. I will keep demonstrating my skills each time I get to play, in every training session, and I will keep waiting for my opportunity that I have been waiting for, and I will make the most of it, as I did in my first year at Arsenal.

“As I always say; for me to be part of Arsenal was and is a dream come true. When I used to think about it, it seemed so far away. I was able to materialise it and that’s why I like to do my best, to be outstanding at Arsenal.”

The Colombian made these comments after the January window had shut but still, considering he was heavily rumoured to be moving last summer as well, you would think some preparation would have already been made.

As much as I love that Wenger gives no effs about splurging cash on top attacking players, it would be nice if a few pennies could be thrown towards other positions the team actually needed strengthening in.

Not signing a first team defender in January

This leads me onto something else weird that happened in the summer and still hasn’t been addressed at any stage this season.

Arsenal sold Gabriel to Valencia for around £10m but then didn’t replace him. This wasn’t a player who had been out on loan – he was a squad player that Arsenal desperately needed since Laurent Koscielny’s Achilles is causing him more trouble by the season.

Arsenal’s defending has been nothing short of shambolic ever since. Not because Gabriel was secretly the glue holding Arsenal together or anything, but because whenever one of Shkodran Mustafi or Kos are sidelined, Rob Holding or Calum Chambers have to step in. While Chambers is improving with game time, neither appear to actually be ready to defend in the Premier League.

Therefore, you would think that Arsenal would sign a centre-back in January.

Sure, they signed Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina but there was never any implication that the 20-year-old would immediately become a defender for the first team. ‘The Greek boy’ was supposed to go out on loan to Werder Bremen but, due to first team injuries, he ended up staying. Now he’s playing for the reserves, probably until the summer when he will actually get sent out on loan.

So why has a first team, experienced, strong centre-back not been signed?

Arsenal put in a £12m for West Brom’s Jonny Evans on transfer deadline day in January but, since the Baggies are asking for closer to £20m, they knew their bid wouldn’t be accepted.

It wasn’t a genuine offer – it was probably a move to placate the fans, to show that Arsenal were trying to sign a decent defender. Except they didn’t.

Selling Giroud despite Lacazette injury

In January, Arsenal allowed Olivier Giroud to sign for Chelsea.

The 31-year-old had a year-and-a-half left on his contract and he wanted more playing time ahead of the World Cup this summer.

With the addition of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the France international knew his already dwindling game time would dry up further, even though Aubameyang was yet to complete his move from Dortmund at this stage.

Although Gooners were gutted to be losing Giroud, especially to a rival, most understood his reasoning.

Although the striker could have gone to Dortmund or even Everton last summer, he and his family wanted to stay in London. Wenger being the nice dude that he is allowed him to go to Chelsea for these reasons, which most of us agreed was pretty classy.

The issue was Laca had been carrying a knee injury, which fans didn’t find out about until the following month.

After the 26-year-old’s dodgy performance against Spurs at Wembley, he underwent surgery to correct the problem. And when Wenger confirmed that he would be out for five or six weeks, he implied that the problem was ongoing.

“He got a surprising swell of the knee after the game against Tottenham and he needed surgery very quick,” Wenger told beIN Sports.

“It’s a massive blow for us and we have to find a solution. Nobody could predict that.

“Nobody could predict that, but football is as well to do with unpredicted things and it’s always a good opportunity to find someone who steps in and does well.

“Lacazette is down, but I think he recently must’ve felt something in his knee, I don’t know. Maybe as well that’s an explanation why he was not scoring as many goals as he’s used to.”

https://twitter.com/beINSPORTS/status/963512879407230976

If this was the case, why Arsenal sold their back-up striker, especially knowing that Aubameyang would be ineligible to play in the Europa League, nobody knows.

Giroud was the second forward Arsenal had sold to a rival that month after Alexis Sanchez to Manchester United. Again – another weird decision but one that was somewhat unavoidable considering the position the Chilean left Arsenal in.