Arsenal have a lot of problems right now and if some aren’t dealt with soon, they could have massive repercussions going forward.

Contracts chaos

Arsenal have two players who are out of contract at the end of the season. Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla.

While the Spaniard has been sidelined since October 2016 and is highly unlikely to play for Arsenal again, the club are trying to get Wilshere tied down to a new deal pronto.

At the time of writing, according to the Standard Sport, it doesn’t seem as if they’re having much success.

Similarly, Aaron Ramsey, who’s out of contract next summer, also looks like he could leave Arsenal despite the midfielder being a key player for Arsene Wenger’s side when fit.

The problem is, after Mesut Ozil ran down his contract to its final six months and Arsenal handed him £300k-per-week, probably because they panicked, other players appear to have taken note.

Wilshere has been offered a new deal with a pay cut and although it’s reportedly incentivised, the 26-year-old doesn’t appear to be happy. As a result, the England international only has three months left on his current contract and could go for free in the summer.

You see, Arsenal players know they can hold out and if the club wants to keep them, they’ll cough up the cash. If they don’t, the player is free to leave and scoop up whatever fees their future team don’t spend on their transfer in wages.

With the addition of Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan who are on £180kpw and £170kpw respectively, fewer and fewer Arsenal players will be willing to hang around and pick up a measly £80kpw.

Although you can probably understand where they’re coming from, this could be a major problem going forward.

Replacing the irreplaceable – Santi Cazorla

Even with the best will in the world, it’s not looking as if Cazorla will ever be fit enough to play football again… at all, not just in the Premier League… so where’s his replacement?

The 33-year-old only has a few months left on his Arsenal deal and both the club and midfielder have gone quiet about a potential return, which doesn’t look great for his future at the club.

After receiving a kick to his Achilles against Ludogorets in October 2016, the little Spaniard underwent surgery in Sweden. Unfortunately, it couldn’t have gone worse. The wound wouldn’t heal, he contracted gangrene and he ended up having to get a skin graft.

Arsenal’s midfield suffered not having Cazorla in the middle and it’s not been the same since he was sidelined.

Therefore, you would imagine that Arsenal should be on the look-out for an actual replacement. You would hope that they don’t just try to shove a square peg, i.e. one of Arsenal’s existing midfielders, into a round hole.

No one at the club is even close to being the same type of player Cazorla was, so they have to bring someone else in.

Max Meyer has been linked with a move to north London and while the 22-year-old Schalke man is a good shout – and available on a free at the end of the season – there haven’t been any solid reports as of yet.

The German plays in a similar way to Cazorla but replacing the little maestro will be difficult. How do you replace the irreplaceable?

Unfortunately, I can just as easily see Jack Wilshere leaving, and Granit Xhaka and Mohamed Elneny remaining in Arsenal’s midfield.

Old habits die hard – injuries

Even though Arsenal’s injury problems have improved this season and have been steadily getting better since 2014, they’re still an issue.

For example, Alexandre Lacazette, underwent knee surgery in February after what Wenger hinted was an ongoing problem flared up against Spurs.

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

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

“Football does unpredictable things and it’s always a good opportunity for someone to step in and do well.

“I think he recently must have felt something in his knee. Maybe that’s an explanation as to why he wasn’t scoring as many goals as he’s used to.”

The issue is, if the problem was ongoing, why was Olivier Giroud sold to Chelsea in January?

Having Laca recovering from surgery and Aubameyang ineligible leaves Arsenal pretty short of strikers in the Europa League.

Laca didn’t have a knee problem at Lyon, which suggests he’s only suffered it since his move to north London, but why? Of course, it could just be one of those things.

Whether the injury was Arsenal’s ‘fault’ or not, it should have been nipped in the bud long before it got to the stage where the France international needed surgery. Or, at the very least, should have been handled better. Wenger’s comments about the situation made it sound like he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

All you have to do is look at Aaron Ramsey, who’s been out four times this season, or Mesut Ozil’s reoccurring knee problem to realise that Arsenal still don’t fully have a handle on their injury problems yet.

Laurent Koscielny’s Achilles problem has also hampered his season and the 32-year-old is looking far from his best. Although, admittedly this could just be down to age.

Still, while Arsenal are improving in this area, injuries are still a big problem and will continue to be until they have players who don’t pull their hamstrings for fun.

Will the next Arsene Wenger please stand up?

Wenger’s days at Arsenal are surely numbered.

Despite a decent result away to AC Milan at the San Siro on Thursday night, the team’s form has been terrible in the Premier League and other competitions.

Players no longer seem to care about representing the club and simply don’t perform for the 68-year-old.

While Arsenal might play well for one Europa League match, they could completely flop against Watford on Sunday. This inconsistency is a massive problem, which needs addressing.

The Frenchman has until the end of next season on his current deal but there are many fans, pundits and journalists that reckon he could be off at the end of this campaign instead, which would suit everyone.

If he stays, I worry that the toxic atmosphere surrounding the club could get even worse.

“I can understand the frustration [of the supporters],” Wenger said after the Brighton defeat. “What can I say? The League Cup in the middle of the season makes it difficult if you don’t win it. It brings a lot of negative waves.

“On top of that, the rearranged game on Thursday night [against City] didn’t help us to compete today. The negativity after losing the final, plus the fact we’re not in a fantastic position in the league, hits us hard. Am I still the right man? Yes, because I’ve done it before. I believe a quality of a manager is to try to shorten a crisis. I believe I can do that.”

Despite the seven-man shortlist that appeared to get leaked to the press recently, Arsenal don’t seem to be making any huge movements towards replacing Wenger.

There’s talk of Joachim Löw, Patrick Vieira and Carlo Ancelotti but nothing really solid for fans to go on, which is worrying.

If Arsenal are really going to replace their coach of 22 years this summer, surely there should be at least some indicator of who they’re going to choose?

The best offense is a good defence

Arsenal’s defence has been pretty embarrassing for years. In fact, once the back four that George Graham had put together – Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Tony Adams and Steve Bould – slowly disintegrated, Arsenal have looked dangerously fragile.

Defending, you see, isn’t one of Wenger’s strengths. He loves attacking players and the coach often seems to believe that, no matter how terrible you defend, if you can score goals then you’re onto a winner.

In the Premier League, this isn’t the case. As English football has become increasingly competitive and intense over the years, defending has to be tighter than ever. It’s all very well and good to be able to score a huge amount of goals, which Arsenal can’t even really do at the moment, but why not defend AS WELL? It’s a crazy notion, I know. At least to Wenger anyway.

In 2012, Steve Bould, who used to be part of the aforementioned George Graham back four, was promoted to the first team to become Wenger’s assist. Fans were thrilled since presumably the former centre-back would actually be able to teach Arsenal how to defend set-pieces, counter-attacks and corners…

Apparently not. If anything, Arsenal’s defending has steadily gotten worse over the past six years.

This is probably because Bould is basically just there as decoration. He was probably brought on board to appease fans during a time when Arsenal hadn’t won anything for a long time and were leaking goals left and right.

Recently, former Gunner Alan Smith revealed:

“You can only do what you’re allowed to do on the training ground.

“Bould takes some stick off some but they don’t see what goes on Monday to Friday.

“And I just think it is a criminal waste of his talents.

“He’s one of the best defenders the club has ever had and not to use his knowledge, just seems senseless to me.

“He does bits and pieces I think without really going to town on getting hold of that back four they way George Graham did.

“Arsene is still in charge of all the sessions so I do think it is a waste of someone like him because he’s not given that free hand to go out and pass on that great knowledge he’s got.”

Wenger apparently still has complete control over training sessions and Bould doesn’t really do anything.

Arsenal’s defending is already a massive problem and it’s only going to get worse.

Safe hands

When Petr Cech signed for Arsenal from Chelsea almost three years ago, Gooners were over the moon. The goalkeeper wasn’t just experienced, he had a fantastic record and had won four Premier League titles, four FA Cups and the Champions League while at Stamford Bridge.

However, it soon became very clear why Arsenal’s London rivals had been more or less happy to allow Cech to sign for them: he was completely past it.

Don’t get me wrong, the 35-year-old has had his good moments since moving to the red side of London but those are becoming few and far between.

Cech has made by far the most errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season – six. Someone with his experience shouldn’t be doing this poorly.

And then Arsenal’s #2 is David Ospina, which I really don’t even want to talk about.

Both shot-stoppers’ contracts run out at the end of next season and while Cech could end up staying, if the Telegraph‘s report from last year is to be believed, Arsenal still need to get a new #1 in.

Gooners were presuming that Wojciech Szczesny was Arsenal’s future #1 after he went to Roma for two years on loan.

Apparently not, as Arsenal sold him to Juventus for about a tenner (…or £10m) in the summer and now the 27-year-old is basically one of the best goalkeepers in Serie A.

For reasons no one knows, Arsenal willingly sold an academy product who had improved massively on loan and was their future #1.

Putting the ‘why’ aside, where’s his replacement? Where’s the goalkeeper who’s going to become a long-term pair of safe hands, who the outfield players can trust? Where’s the goalkeeper that can actually save penalties and hold onto a football?

Fire in the belly

One of Arsenal’s biggest problems is motivation – or lack thereof.

Wenger somehow used to be able to turn a season around. He could motivate the players to bounce back and actually do all that stuff that they harp on about after a defeat. But not anymore.

Wenger’s team often look stagnant and unfazed by the chaos unfolding in front of them. They don’t even look like they care and that’s a real problem.

I don’t blame this all on Wenger obviously. At times I’ve found myself completely disgusted by the way some of these ‘professional athletes’ have conducted themselves. Regardless of whether they want to be coached by Wenger, they should at least play for the fans – if not themselves. Where is their pride? Or respect, for that matter?

Regardless of where it’s gone, they need to find it.

It doesn’t matter who the manager is, who’s injured or not, who the next manager is, how much other players are getting paid or who’s leaving at the end of the season. If they don’t have that fire in their belly to not just play for Arsenal but football in general, why bother?

Without motivation, drive, desire or pride – that fire in their belly – what’s the point?