Squad for next next season - after the dealing has begun

Some two months ago, I touched on the new Premier League squad rules coming into effect in the coming season. The manager has been very critical, both on principle (quality should matter more than nationality) and practically (he'll end up firing perfectly good players in a few years).

For new readers, I'll repeat some of my earlier points, and since players have left some other points are new.

The rules states that a first-team squad is limited to 25 players.

1. Of these, at least 8 need to be "home grown": registered with an English or Welsh club for at least three years before turning 21.

Arsenal can count Campbell, Clichy, Fabregas, Djourou, Song, Bendtner, Mannone and Denilson = 8 players.

(Kerrea Gilbert and Jay Simpson are on their way out, otherwise they too would qualify. I've left Campbell in as the club still lists him as a first team player.)

2. A maximum of 17 players can be foreigners over the age of 21.

Arsenal currently have: Almunia, Rosicky, Arshavin, Sagna, Eboue, van Persie, Fabianski, Vermaelen, Diaby, Nasri and Chamakh = 11 players.

Now that's only 19 players, and if Sol leaves we're one "home grown" short, I hear you say!

Thankfully, no.

3. A limitless number of players under 21 years of age (at the start of the calendar year) can be registered.

Arsenal can include all of their 1989 generation: Walcott, Gibbs, Traoré, Vela and Botelho are all born that year. (Pedro Botelho needs a work permit first.) Mark Randall, also born 1989, is not in the first team plans.

Players under 21 can also be part of the "home grown" quota as long as they have been with the club for three years. Walcott (joined 2006), Gibbs (joined 2007 from Wimbledon) and Traoré (joined 2006) all fulfil the criteria.

If these three are all included, Arsenal still have room for three players under the squad cap, and they can be of any age or nationality.

But the drawback starts next season, if you can call it a drawback more than "natural selection".

Of Arsenal's 1990 generation, Merida has already left, while Gavin Hoyte and Nacer Barazite are on their way out.

But if Ramsey, Eastmond, Lansbury, Murphy, Emmanuel-Thomas, Nordtveit and Szczesny all stay with Arsenal, the club will have to see up to seven players leave before the new season in August 2012.

Well, so what, if we count Luke Ayling, six have left already this summer, I hear you say?

The thing is that the average age of the Arsenal squad is low.

Only Campbell can be sure to have retired by 2012. Almunia, Rosicky and Arshavin will be the only others over 30, of which at least Rosicky will have a year or two left on his deal.

So which players in their twenties should Arsenal sell to keep the squad under the Premier League 25-senior cap? And who will buy them, seeing as all the other Premier League clubs adhere to the same rules?

Well, let me finish on a lighter note, with the Arsenal players born 1991 or later. Whatever happens, they will be "home-grown" from the 2012/13 season.

And they include Henderson, Watt, Bartley, Cruise, Sunu, Coquelin, Shea, Evina (all born 1991), Wilshere, Frimpong , Freeman, Boateng, Brislen-Hall, Meade, Miquel, Ozyakup (1992), Afobe, Aneke, Hajrovic and McDermott (1993).

Many of the 1991 vintage (and two born in 1992) have already made their first team debuts. Wilshere is a first team star as we speak, Henderson and Frimpong are in Austria for senior pre-season already. If they shape up the way we hope, the seniors Arsenal will be selling come 2012 have lost their places in the team anyway.