Sanllehi's transfer focus must change
As ever at this stage of the season the interest and speculation around transfers at Arsenal is about who might be coming in. Names like Ryan Fraser, Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Tagliafico are being throw into the mix with more gossip about Samuel Umtiti and David Alaba.
But if the 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace taught us anything then it was that there are a lot of players in this squad who head of football Raul Sanllehi and the eventual technical director he appoints simply must move on. Shkodran Mustafi, Mohamed Elneny and Carl Jenkinson are no longer of Arsenal standard. It is arguable whether they ever were.
There are others to add to the mix, beyond those who will be leaving in the summer anyway. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is earning an awful lot of money - £200,000-a-week to be precise - to largely warm the bench.
The trio of Mustafi, Elneny and Jenkinson that started against Palace all did little to aid the Arsenal cause and the former downright damaged it. They are all taking up spaces in a squad that is high on numbers and has a oversized wage budget that will go some way to limiting the money Sanllehi and Unai Emery have to spend in the summer transfer window.
Selling them will be no mean feat however and it will take a great deal of ingenuity in the market to get a return. Elneny appears to be the most easy to shift - his wages are relatively low - but it is notable that in a mid-season market where they needed to replace Vicente Iborra that Leicester City opted not to revive their long-standing interest in the Egyptian.
Jenkinson seems an even-tougher sell although his contract will only have 12 months left to run. But getting any serious return for Mustafi now would be a remarkable achievement.
Here is a centre-back who has consistently made high-profile blunders and who, on the basis of his screaming at Bernd Leno after his mistake for Palace's second, seems reluctant to take responsibility for them.
football.london understands Arsenal will make Mustafi available this summer. But then the World Cup winner was widely known to be on the market before the season began and did not curry interest.
Who would want to sign him now? Sanllehi has a tough task ahead trimming back this squad.
Ozil's moments of magic outshine difficulties
In the first half at the Emirates Stadium Ozil was a non-entity in this contest. Palace had a clear gameplan, to use their quartet of central midfielders to press Elneny and Matteo Guendouzi into giving the ball away.
Arsenal needed an outball, someone to bulk up their numbers in the centre of midfield. Where was their No.10? All too often floating around the right flank.
When he did eventually drop deep he crafted Arsenal's best chance of the first half, an incisive pass allowing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to flick the ball to Alexandre Lacazette, who twisted and turned before his shot was blocked.
Still this looked like another game that was passing Ozil by before the 48th minute, when it seemed he had flicked it on its head. Alex Iwobi and Lacazette did superbly to get the ball to the German in the box but from the tightest of angles most players would have faced the challenge of finding a pass through two defenders to tee up Aubameyang.
Not Ozil, who squeezed the ball between Vicente Guaita and the near post with that outrageous chop into the deck that has become his trademark. It is hard to remember many players in recent decades who have pioneered their own move - perhaps that bunny hop Cuauhtemoc Blanco deployed in the 1998 World Cup - certainly none in this generation have done so as effectively as the Arsenal man.
And with that move you cannot help but think that all is forgiven. Sure there may be moments when Ozil drives you to distraction but it is worth it when he elevates his game to a level few others can reach.
Emery's disastrous decision could cost Arsenal
Why was this the game to bring in Jenkinson and Elneny from the cold? Arsenal may have been battered, bruised and exhausted after their trip to Naples - though the latter half of their 1-0 win seemed to be played at walking pace - but their penultimate home league game of the season was no less important.
Lucas Torreira was left on the bench even though he was deemed fit enough to start whilst Alex Iwobi, so impressive as a substitute against Napoli, was once more handed the impact role off the bench.
And if Emery was looking for players to rest why not 34-year-old Laurent Koscielny, a man who has long suffered from chronic Achilles pain and only recently returned from a six-month lay-off.
Emery might claim otherwise but you sense he thought the result was in the bag against Roy Hodgson's side. That hubris could cost them dearly even if the fixture list still has tough assignments ahead for Chelsea and Manchester United.
Arsenal likely need at least four points from their Midlands travels against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leicester City this week to keep their top four hopes in their hands, hardly what a team that so struggles on the road wants to hear. The margin for error is now razor thin and that must come down to Emery.
A coaching dilemma
It's that time of the season where we ask a familiar question of Arsenal. Has anyone seen Steve Bould?
A quarter of that legendary back four of the George Graham era, Bould was among the few members of Arsene Wenger's coaching staff who were retained by Emery, who has the 56-year-old and his close lieutenant Juan Carlos Carcedo as his assistants.
But whilst Carcedo is usually prowling the touchlines along with Emery at the Emirates Stadium Bould appears more peripheral. One would hope that is not the case at the moment because if there is one thing the Arsenal backline, and in particular Mustafi, need right now it is a crash course in the art of defending from one of its great practitioners.