High-profile injury leaves Arsenal with Premier League’s 4th most-expensive squad

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Arsenal now have the 4th most-expensive squad in the Premier League, thanks to a high-profile injury to a rival footballer.

Arsenal, along with all other clubs, formally submitted their squad list to the Premier League on Tuesday. It’s was arguably the most notable of the lot, too.

Sokratis didn’t make the cut, along with, most notably, Mesut Ozil. The German will not play in the Premier League until at least February but you’ve got to imagine that’s it for him at the club.

You can read our thoughts on that one here.

But despite leaving out a £42m player, Arsenal have unexpectedly moved up in the rankings when it comes to squad value. The Mirror reports that the Gunners have the 4th most-expensive squad in the league.

They sit behind Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea when it comes to money spent. By quite some way, too. Their £454m spent lags behind Chelsea’s £577m spent and is nowhere near City at £810m.

But Arsenal should have been fifth.

Man down

Arsenal have moved up in the rankings thanks to Virgil van Dijk’s injury. Liverpool would have been some way ahead of Arsenal but opted to leave the Dutchman out of their squad.

As a result, their value dropped to just £550k below the Gunners.

So what does all this mean? Well, it certainly puts some perspective on expectations this season. For one, Arsenal are quite some way behind the Manchester clubs when it comes to investment.

But it’s hard to look at this list and not expect Arsenal to compete for Champions League football. They have a top-four squad in terms of value and they’ve got to compete like it this season.