EPL: Ray Parlour names players that caused trouble at Arsenal, hails Arteta for removing them

Former Arsenal midfielder, Ray Parlour, has named the players that were causing trouble at the club.

He hailed manager Mikel Arteta for removing the players who he described as ‘deadwood’ from the dressing room.

The former England international believes the club have a realistic chance of securing a top-four finish in the Premier League this season.

The north London club have bounced back to put themselves firmly in contention for top.four finish.

Looking back on Arteta’s opening two years at the Emirates, Parlour told talkSPORT that names such as Mesut Ozil and Shkodran Mustafi were big problems for the Spanish coach.

“It has been a rollercoaster ride, lots of changes since he’s been at the club,” he told talkSPORT.

“He had those problems with the players that he wanted out, [Mesut] Ozil, [Shkodran] Mustafi, there was a lot of deadwood and people causing lots of problems behind the scenes in the dressing room which didn’t make it a steady ship so he did really well to get those guys out.

“He’s slowly brought in a few players. [Takehiro] Tomiyasu has been a fantastic signing at right-back, he’s given the young players an opportunity to get a chance so he’s made a lot of changes.

“They have spent some money, they have backed him. I don’t think he can complain about having no money to spend because he went out and bought Ben White for £50m so he spent some big money in that respect.”