The Arsenal academy staff have a lot of work to do this summer in terms of deciding which players to keep, loan or sell and there will be particular focus on what happens to the young strikers at the club.
Discussions will be held over the future of Tyreece John-Jules, with the 22-year-old having had so many injury problems in recent seasons which have hampered his progress.
John-Jules is just back from a spell at Ipswich where he missed the second half of the season, while he previously had loans at Lincoln City, Doncaster Rovers, Blackpool, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town.
There is little doubt that John-Jules is a talented player when fit but now may be the time to let him go and hopefully play regularly elsewhere.
Mika Biereth is back from a loan spell at RCK Waalwijk where he scored just twice in 12 league games, with injuries preventing him from building up momentum.
Prior to that Biereth had impressed for Arsenal U21s after joining from Fulham. Another loan could be on the agenda for the Danish youth international.
Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, meanwhile, didn’t score while on loan at Accrington Stanley in the second half of last season and could be loaned out again.
Nikolaj Moller has already been sold to St. Gallen, while Khayon Edwards, who managed to get on the bench for the first-team last season, could go on loan for the first time.
If all of those players depart then Arsenal may find themselves short of options up front in the U21s, although they do have Billy Vigar, who spent time on loan at Derby U21s, while 17-year-old Omari Benjamin will also be looking to step up.
It isn’t out of the question that Arsenal could look to bring in another striker for their U21 squad at some point this summer.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
John Jules needs to move on – I don’t see him getting anywhere near the first team to be honest.
He also has a blues trio he leads every weekend, which does get in the way of his football career
I have mixed felines about this. His career so far being littered with injuries certainly gives me paws for thought, he’s constantly playing cat ch up. It could be a classic tail of overcoming setbacks but I doubt anyone could tell meow he’d break into the team right now anyway. So if we’re going to sell then there’s no point pussyfooting around, and it’s always useful to claw back some money for the transfer kitty.
I hear Duane Dibbly is a possible replacement
He has his work cat out fur making it into the first team. I’d be lion if I said he’s only a whisker away. But I vet he’d fit purrfectly into a newly promoted side that plays pawsitively.
Scratch that, let’s just be sure to insert a buy back claws if we do move him on.