Portugal’s Renato Sanches is the latest central midfielder to be linked with Arsenal, following Yves Bissouma, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Manuel Locatelli amongst others.

Sanches certainly splits opinion.

He burst onto the scene at Euro 2016. Aged just 18, he became him the youngest Portuguese to play in an international tournament as well as the youngest player to win a UEFA Euro final.

Sanches scored one goal during the competition and won the Young Player of the Tournament as Portugal captured the title for the first time in their history.

His performances for his country led Bayern Munich to do a deal which could have been worth up to €80 million.

It was always huge money for a player that had barely a season of senior football under his belt. And he struggled.

Four seasons at Bayern Munich saw him hardly play for the Bundesliga giants, and a less than impressive spell on loan with Swansea will stick in most fans heads.

Fast forward to the current Euro’s and he was one of Portugal’s best players prior to them being knocked out.

This led a lot of fans to make the joke that “Sanches hibernates between Euro’s”, commenting that his club form in the 5 years between the two competitions has been less than impressive in comparison to that of his Portugal form.

Others came out in his defence, pointing out that he was not a very different player to that who ended up playing 12 league games for Swansea; and that he was an integral part of the Lille side that won Ligue 1 last season.

But whilst he was part of that success, he was perhaps not as key as some are making out – just 14 league starts as he was in and out of the team with injury and form.

In fact since joining Lille 2 seasons ago, Sanches has started just 30 league games.

It is not the sparkling record to make you think he has now arrived as a player, fulfilling that potential he showed 5 years ago.

So if Arsenal signed Sanches, which version of the player would they be getting?

The Portugal star that has impressed across to European Championships? The Bayern Munich huge money signing that flopped on loan at Swansea? Or the middle of the road midfielder that has been in and out of the Lille team?

I have always kept on eye on Sanches since those early performances, and whilst I like him I am not sure he would solve Arsenal’s midfield problems.

At this stage in his career, it would be a huge risk for Arsenal to sign him as the first choice midfielder alongside Thomas Partey.

His place in the pecking order should probably be one below that – with Partey partnering someone else and Sanches being back-up.

But that is a position that Lokonga is coming in at, with Mo Elneny then providing the 4^th choice midfield option.

I am just not sure Sanches is the man to be a week in, week out regular starter as Mikel Arteta rebuilds the team.

I am happy to be proved wrong, however.

Keenos

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— 🎗 ///SHE WORE/// 🎗 (@SheWore) June 15, 2021

A deal has been reached to sign Nuno Tavares from Benfica.

Depending on which journalist you believe, the fee is between £6million and £9million.

Tavares will become Mikel Arteta’s first signing of the summer and will provide the first choice cover to Kieran Tierney at left back. His signing will hopefully be the first of many this summer.

We are also still heavily linked with Anderlecht midfielder Albert Sambi Lokonga.

Arsenal will be looking to add 2 central midfielders to the squad alongside Thomas Partey and Mo Elneny.

Lokonga’s signing goes into the “one for the future” box.

We should not expect the 21-year-old to go straight into the first team – he would more likely be the like for like cover for Partey.

That would leave Arsenal still in the market for a starting midfielder.

We have been linked with Brighton’s Yves Bissouma for a few months, but that trial seems to have gone cold.

In recent hours (literally) news has broken of an apparent bid for Sassuolo’s Manuel Locatelli.

The Italian midfielder is a fantastic player and would become not only Arsenal’s best midfielder but one of the best in the Premier League. But I am sceptical about the links.

News of the bid has come from Sassuolo’s Chief Executive Giovanni Carnevali.

A deal for Locatelli to Juventus looked pretty much done last week. Carnevali releasing the news that Arsenal had “bid” feels more like him trying to get the hurry up from Juventus ahead of meeting next week with them over the transfer.

By releasing the Arsenal bid – whether true or not – it makes it clear to Juventus that there are other parties interested and they had better hurry up and meet Sassuolo’s demands or risk missing out on the transfer.

And to throw another spanner in the works Juventus were linked to Granit Xhaka yesterday.

I hope I am wrong as Locatelli would be a fantastic signing.

Finally Ainsley Maitland-Niles flipped his car on the M25 yesterday morning.

If rumours are true, the incident will probably spell an end to his Arsenal career.

Keenos

In recent years, Arsenal have wasted a lot of money on ageing former stars whose best days are behind them.

Stephan Lichtsteiner, Willian and David Luiz are the names that first spring to mind. Old players reaching the end of their career signed to plug a gap in the squad. But the policy of signing older players did not stop with free transfers.

Arsenal also signed the likes of Sokratis (30 years old when signing), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (29) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (29).

Signing players in their late 20s creates two issues for the future:

1) They are usually close to, our over the hill; meaning you end up with a highly paid player who is on the decline and are unable to sell them as no one else will match the wages

2) And if you can move them on, the transfer fee is usually minuscule meaning that you are basically “writing off” their original transfer fee knowing you will not get much back.

Of the 6 players above, only 2 (Willian and Aubameyang) are still at the club. None of the 4 who left generated a transfer fee.

It is short term fixes and, bar Aubameyang, none of them have really worked out.

So it is fresh to see Arsenal chasing the likes of Albert Sambi Lokonga and Nuno Tavares.

Lokonga is a 21-year-old Belgium central midfielder currently playing for Anderlecht. He is an all action midfielder that will add more pace and power into the middle of the park.

Also just 21 is Portuguese left back Tavares. If Arsenal get the deal across the line he will provide the cover for Kieran Tierney.

In years gone past, Arsenal would have gone for Ryan Bertrand or Patrick van Aanholt.

Whilst both would have been solid additions as free transfers to back up Tierney, old and cheap would have had a lot of fans think “here we go again”.

The advantage of signings the likes of Taveres and Lokonga is sell on value.

Both players will be tied down to 5-year deals. If they progress and fulfil their talent, Arsenal will look to make a huge profit on the pair financing further signings somewhere down the line.

If they do not quite reach the highest level, Arsenal would still look to make a profit on the pair in 2 or 3 or 4 years time.

Sell on value is so important to keep your squad fresh.

The pursuit of Brighton’s Ben White and Yves Bissouma is also exciting.

Whilst both are a little older – White 23 & Bissouma 24 – the pair still have youth on their side.

I have always thought that the likes of Arsenal, Dortmund, Atletico Madrid, etc operate best when buying players 24 & under. Recruiting the “next big thing” rather than just buying “ready made, off the shelf”.

Our transfer policy got a little lost post 2014 with the recruitment of Petr Cech.

And whilst the likes of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil were fantastic signings, both were huge investments which we knew we would not get much return from when sold.

When you look at the current Arsenal squad, the likes of Gabriel, Tierney, Smith Rowe, Saka, Martinelli are all 24 and under. You add White, Bissouma, Taveres, Lokonga and that would be 9 players in that age range.

Hopefully the Taveres and Lokonga pursuit shows the club recognises that we have wasted too much money on senior players. That we need to be building for the future.

From Vieira to van Persie, Henry to Adebayor, Toure to Nasri, I could go on.

The equation is simple. Buy players U24, develop, sell and start again.

Keenos

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— 🎗 ///SHE WORE/// 🎗 (@SheWore) June 15, 2021