Arsenal could sell five senior players after Champions League elimination as Mikel Arteta wields the axe

Arsenal could sell up to five senior players this summer following their Champions League quarter-final exit to Bayern Munich, according to reports.

The Gunners were knocked out of the competition on Wednesday following a 1-0 defeat at the Allianz Arena.

They went into the clash with the scores locked at 2-2 from the first leg, but Joshua Kimmich's second half strike for Bayern consigned them to defeat.

Arsenal struggled to create impetus in the final third, and despite the late substitutions to bring on Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard, came closest to scoring in injury time when Manuel Neuer pushed Martin Odegaard's effort wide.

A lack of cutting edge has been a common theme at times for Mikel Arteta's side this season, and reports claim he will look to bolster that area this summer.

According to The Athletic's David Ornstein, Arsenal are considering the possibility of promoting youngsters such as Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly to the first team next season, where they would be classed as home-grown players.

Ornstein adds that most of Arsenal's targets would not qualify as homegrown, meaning that various squad changes would indeed have to be made to meet the Premier League's quota.

That is, because, according to reports, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Aaron Ramsdale, Kieran Tierney and Emile Smith Rowe could all be sold this summer to fund a squad rebuild.

Should all five players leave the club, the Gunners would still have Declan Rice, Ben White and Bukayo Saka as home-grown players, while Gabriel Martinelli misses out on fulfilling the required criteria by a month, having joined the Gunners at the age of 18.

Each Premier League club must include eight homegrown players as part of their 25-man squad, meaning Arsenal would either need to dip into the domestic market - which naturally comes at an increased cost - or look to their academy to fulfil the required quotas.