Arsenal are well and truly back amongst the big boys of football nowadays, with an impressive, albeit failed, Premier League title challenge last season and another this year.

The squad is stacked with talent, and Mikel Arteta seems to know how to get the best out of them.

However, it wasn't long ago that the Gunners team was full of overpaid and underskilled players that fans couldn't wait to see the back of, and while most of them left and stunk out the place for other teams, one has gone on to have a great career.

In fact, they've had a more productive season this year than Arsenal's third most expensive signing ever, Kai Havertz – oh, and they were let go for nothing.

Kai Havertz's Arsenal Record

The first thing to clear up is that, for all the stick he gets and for how often rival fans mock him, Havertz hasn't been terrible this season, far from it, but he hasn't been great either.

The German's biggest crime since his switch to Arsenal is just how underwhelming he has been, which is a problem for a £65m signing.

The former Bayer Leverkusen star has made 32 appearances across all competitions for the Gunners this season, scoring just five goals and providing one assist, meaning he has averaged a goal involvement every 5.33 games, which for a midfielder come forward, simply isn't good enough.

At just 24 years old, there is still plenty of time for the player Jacek Kulig once described as a "magnificent talent" to kick into gear and show the fans why Arteta signed him, but at the moment, that's just not happening.

In comparison, the player who left the club for good almost four years ago continues to prove his worth this season.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan's post Arsenal career

The player in question is Armenian international Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who joined the Gunners in January 2018 in what might be one of the most comically awful swap deals in the league's history.

Manchester United sent the former Borussia Dortmund ace to north London in exchange for the electric Alexis Sanchez, who had been tearing it up in red and white for years.

However, the Chilean maestro would score just five goals and provide eight assists in 45 appearances for the Red Devils before finally moving to Inter Milan on a permanent deal in 2020 after spending the previous season on loan there.

On the other hand, Arsenal fared slightly better, getting nine goals and 13 assists from Mkhitaryan in 59 appearances, before he left for Italy, going on loan to Roma in 2019 and then for free a year later.

There was a general sense of apathy about letting the then-31-year-old leave for free at the time, as most expected he'd be just as underwhelming in Italy as he was in London, an expectation that proved very wrong.

In that first season after signing a contract with Roma, the Yerevan-born midfielder scored 15 goals and provided 13 assists in 46 appearances, and while his output did come down in the subsequent seasons, his overall play remained impressive, and he earned himself a move to Inter Milan following the expiration of his Roma deal in 2022.

The "extraordinary" maestro, as former Roma midfielder Stefano Impallomeni described him, has been an instrumental part of the Nerazzurri since his arrival, playing 49 games for them last season, including 13 in their Champions League campaign that saw them reach the final.

This season, the blue and black side of Milan are mounting a serious title charge, and the 35-year-old has once again been an important figure, playing 22 Serie A games, scoring two goals and providing seven assists.

AS Roma

Inter Milan

117

79

29

7

28

10

0.48

0.21

When comparing his output and impact on the team to Havertz's this season, it's hard to argue a case for the German.

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That said, he's got time to improve his form in N5, and Mkhitaryan is playing some of the best football in his entire career at one of the biggest clubs in the world, so at least for him, things have worked out perfectly, and the majority of Arsenal fans are probably happy for him – even if he could never show this sort of form for them.