Truth is they all have a part to play. It should be obvious, but you can’t fill your squad with expensive, highly paid, stars, unless you’re Chelsea and Man City (although FFP looks set to challenge that big-spending policy). A hierarchy is vital; it’s a simple truth that some players will have to get acquainted with those car seats in the dugout, and if you want a happy dressing

It would appear that time is up for a few of Arsenal’s lesser lights this summer. And when news of their departure is finally reported on the Arsenal site, it seems unlikely that gooners will go into mourning or hold candle-lit vigils outside the stadium. 

These players were never the most popular. 

Many will point to Bendtner and Denilson’s inability to hold down a place in the first team as further proof that Wenger’s “project”, as it’s often described, has failed; the manager put a lot of faith in two youngsters who never produced the requisite consistency, never won over the bulk of the fans and, in submitting transfer requests this season, demonstrated that no modern footballer is loyal enough to make a development policy work. 

But it might be dangerous to make this assumption. 

To see why, let’s start by going back to February 2009. Arsenal wasn’t having a great season, but by late winter the team was starting to rally, stringing together a lengthy if unspectacular unbeaten run and slowly hauling in Aston Villa. We met Roma in the Champions League and put on a display of vibrant attacking football, winning 1-0, with only wayward finishing keeping the score so low.

It might seem funny now to think that Denilson, Diaby and Eboue all started that night, in key midfield positions. A fortnight later the same players put in a gutsy shift to take the tie to penalties, and not a single spot-kick was missed as Arsenal strode into the quarterfinals.

So here we had some of the most pilloried Arsenal of recent years holding their own on the biggest stage. 

That season Nicklas Bendtner managed to score 15 goals, as a bit-part player, with a significant proportion of his appearances from the bench. Denilson was a regular, and featured throughout the unbeaten run; a short-passing team player, always in space, always showing for the ball, but perhaps not the most incisive.

Fast forward two years and it’s clear that some of those players have reached the end of the road. Not good enough for Arsenal? Probably – but there are players like these getting games at all the best teams. 

In the days when top-flight clubs were expected to develop their own players you’d have a fresh batch of kind every couple of years or so. Some would make an instant impact and nail down a place in both the starting lineup and the hearts of the faithful; others would take a little longer to make a breakthrough, while some would flicker occasionally, divide opinion, but ultimately have to look elsewhere for first-team football.

Truth is they all have a part to play. It should be obvious, but you can’t fill your squad with expensive, highly paid, stars, unless you’re Chelsea and Man City (although FFP looks set to challenge that big-spending policy). A hierarchy is vital; it’s a simple truth that some players will have to get acquainted with those car seats in the dugout, and if you want a happy dressing room, youngsters make the best candidates. 

Time to make some generalisations to try to understand why this might be the case:

They’ll be both desperate to make their mark at the highest level and willing to wait for opportunities; when they do get game-time they’ll be unknown quantities for the opposition, at least for the first few months; they’ll have an infectious, wide-eyed enthusiasm for the game, and while they may not possess a seasoned pro’s tactical awareness, they’ll learn quickly and still offer plenty of energy on the pitch in the meantime.

And it’s even better if those youngsters have been at the club for a few years, or have graduated from the academy. These days we can guarantee that our youth products will be thoroughly conditioned for our kind of football, as there’s now a satisfying consistency throughout the club. Watch our u18s and reserves and you’ll know they’re Arsenal players – it’s not just the missed chances, defensive mistakes and red and white jerseys that give it away. 

They’re also low risk, costing little in transfer fees, comparatively less in wages and arrive in the squad without excessive expectation on their shoulders.

Some will prove more popular than others, but if you take any squad there’ll be players that fans grumble about. You can find them in Arsenal’s greatest teams. Whether they’re correct or not, many punters will just feel that they don’t quite belong. Importantly though, the majority is often wrong. 

We’re often told that we need players in the squad who are ready-made. Well that sounds like a good idea, but in practice it’s not quite so simple; our football depends on teamwork and familiarity. It can’t be manufactured over the space of one transfer window; it takes years to build up that kind of trust. Fill a squad with players who expect to play first-team football regularly and you risk disruption.

And you only have to look back at the end of last season to see what happens to our game when trust between players starts to falter; players stop taking risks, the combinations break down and we end up circulating the ball without penetration. 

Don’t underestimate the importance of a positive atmosphere. In 2007 we looked overloaded in central midfield, with Gilberto Silva, Flamini and Diarra all vying for one spot. Something had to give, and so it proved, with Diarra refusing to play games, and Gilberto telling the world that he was unhappy on the bench. 

And in the same way, young players will only be happy to bide their time for so long before they lose the qualities that made them valuable to the squad in the first place. Two or three years on the bench and they’ll become impatient, lose some of that verve, and start to think about opportunities at other clubs. 

The key is to manage the squad to make sure that all the players are pulling in the right direction. It’s a tightrope walk, with constant dialogue needed between coach and player, as well as a clear roadmap to manage expectations and a certain degree of prescience on the part of the manager. 

Perhaps we didn’t get it quite right last season; we had a few too many individuals losing their verve and getting ready to move on 

Still, in most cases the best replacements will come from within. It’s a cycle that happens at any club with a decent academy, and long may it continue at Arsenal.