Arsenal will continue their squad overhaul but not until the summer according to James Olley.

180108 evening standard petr cech
Evening Standard 8 January 2019

The Gunners are in the January market for a left winger and a defender, however, the club are reluctant to do anything more than is absolutely necessary during January. Prices are inflated and it is easy to panic buy.

Writing in an article about Petr Cech, who wants to stay at Arsenal after the summer when his contract expires, Olley writes, “Gunners head of football Raul Sanllehi is generally reluctant to do business in January and the club are expected to continue an overhaul of the squad this summer when money will be available, in part due to the injection of cash from sponsorship deals.”

Sanllehi has talked previously about his dislike of the January window, echoing comments made regularly by Arsene Wenger when he was at the club. Arsenal are also operating on a strict budget and have needed to get their wage bill under control after seeming to abandon the wage structure that kept their spending contained.

Quite what this overhaul will look like in the summer is hard to say but we know that Aaron Ramsey will be off, most likely followed by Danny Welbeck and possibly even Petr Cech unless he moves to a more coachy role. He wants to play until he’s 40 so he might not be up for that at this stage of his career as he looks to eke out every last minute before he hangs up his boots. Nacho Monreal is also out of contract in the summer and there have been mixed reports about his future and a new deal (he’s staying, he’s going).

Mohamed Elneny, Laurent Koscielny, and Carl Jenkinson are all out of contract next summer too and it’s not unreasonable to suggest all three will be gone by then, two of them most likely this summer.

As quiet as it might end up being for Arsenal fans this month when the summer rolls around there will be a lot of change for sure.