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Rewind your memory to January of 2021 and with Arsenal in a resurgent state following a horrific first half of the campaign. A huge Boxing Day victory over Chelsea had pushed optimism back into fans’ minds and the transfer window presented an opportunity to address the squad.

The window was seen as a positive one with Martin Odegaard and Mat Ryan arriving to bolster the squad but, in particular, was the departures. Arsenal were able to offload a huge number of players.

Mesut Ozil, Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Matt Macey left on free transfers whilst William Saliba, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Joe Willock and, importantly, Sead Kolasinac left on loan. Not many batted an eyelid at the Bosnian’s departure but soon it became clear not replacing him would prove critically damaging for Arsenal’s season.

As has repeated again this season, Kieran Tierney got injured. Mikel Arteta opted to use Granit Xhaka at left-back. It went as successfully as you would imagine. In fact, you need not engage your long-term memory as last Saturday’s showing epitomised the experience with painful nostalgia in the defeat to Brighton.

Arsenal failed to replace a player that left them short. Subsequently, the Europa League semi-final first leg began with