Arsenal announces the termination of Sokratis contract

Arsenal football club has announced that they have come to an agreement with Sokratis Papastathopoulos to terminate his contract.

The Greek defender had less than 6 months of his current deal to run, and would have been available for free during the summer.

Like Mesut Ozil, soon to be a Fenerbahce player, Sokratis was not named in the squads for the Premier League or Europa League this season.

The 31-year-old joined from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2018 for a fee of around £16m. Since then he has made 69 appearances in total, the last of which came in the FA Cup win over Chelsea in August.

In some ways he’s been a bit unfortunate, while not the greatest defender to have come through the club, he never made the same volume of calamitous errors as Shkodran Mustafi, for example.

He is now a free agent and will be able to agree terms with a new club as soon as he finds one. He’s had links to Turkey, Italy, and Spain, and fingers crossed he can make a decent move.

He obviously leaves on good terms, with Technical director Edu saying: “On behalf of Mikel, our coaches, players and everyone at the club, I would like to thank Papa for his contribution to the club.

“He has been an important part of our group and has been a model professional throughout. The negotiations to end his contract have been collaborative and we wish Papa and his family well for the future.”