Tag Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal will have to wait “until January” before selling central defenders

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“Arsenal have 8 centre backs, we need to sell” has been written countless times over the summer.

As it stands, Arsenal have not sold a single one, with only Konstantinos Mavropanos leaving on loan to VfB Stuttgart in Germany – and he was not one of the “Magnificent Eight”.

So what is happening at the club with regards to our central defender situation?

Gabriel Magalhães was signed from Lille over the summer and William Saliba returned from his season long loan at Saint-Étienne, whilst David Luiz signed a new contract.

Arsenal also made the loan deal of Pablo Mari permanent.

A few people have questioned why Arsenal signed Pablo Mari, and then later went on to sign Gabriel, which pushed Mari down to 4th choice centre back – a role Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi could all have played.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

When Arsenal signed Mari, Gabriel was not on the radar as a transfer this summer.

Arsenal would have been scouting the Brazilian, but with a move likely next summer – so Arsenal agreed a deal for Mari back in January with Flamengo.

Gabriel then came available and Edu clearly felt the club could not afford to miss out on such a prestigious talent – even if it meant having one defender too many.

And that is how we came to sign both Gabriel and Mari.

Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba and Mari looked set to make up Arsenal’s defensive options with Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi all no longer required but none have yet exited stage left. The question is why?

A loan deal seemed to be agreed taking Holding to Newcastle, but the transfer quickly died and Holding found himself starting the first game of the season against Fulham.

Despite having 7 central defenders, Arsenal did not have a single one on the bench. This highlights why no one has left. They are all injured.

David Luiz picked up a knock prior to the Fulham game, but has now returned, whilst William Saliba was lacking in match sharpness having not played since March. A few games with the U23s might be needed for the Frenchman.

Those two joined Pablo Mari on the sidelines who is still recovering from damaging his ankle ligaments back in June. Mari is back in full training but it will be a couple of weeks before he is fully fit.

Without Luiz and Saliba in the short term, and Mari in the mid-term, Arsenal did the sensible thing and pulled the rug on the transfer of Holding to Newcastle. He was needed in Islington.

Holding still has a role to play at Arsenal albeit as 4th or 5th choice centre back.

If he remains at Arsenal this season, he will be back up to Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba and Mari; with the potential to replace Luiz as 4th choice next summer. It all comes down to whether he wants to be a bit-part player at Arsenal, or play week in week out at someone like Newcastle.

For now Arsenal can not afford to lose Holding.

Keeping Holding means they can afford to lose Sokratis.

Sokratis is another who is currently injured.

The club said he sustained a “mild strain to right calf in training”, with an of returning to full training “within the next week”.

You feel once he has recovered, his deal to Napoli will go through.

That leaves Calum Chambers and Shkodran Mustafi.

The problem Arsenal face with the pair is they are both injured, with neither expected back in full training until October.

By the time they are “match fit” it will probably be November.

Injuries mean that they are not available to play (obviously) but also unlikely to be sold.

This puts Arsenal in a situation where we have 5 centre backs (Luiz, Gabriel, Saliba, Mari & Holding), and have an additional 2 that are not fully fit, who can not be sold.

So whilst selling Sokratis will take us down to 7 central defenders, only 3 are fit for selection for West Ham and 2 are not going to be full fit for at least another 6 weeks.

This will result in Arsenal not selling Chambers and Mustafi, and potentially not even registering the later.

Arsenal will then look to loan (or sell) the pair in January.

Mustafi, whose contract expires at the end of the season, could end up making a similar move to Cedric Soares.

A team might decide to pick him up on loan for 5 months, with the pre-contract agreement already in place to make the move permanent in June. A move like that would suit Arsenal, Mustafi and the club loaning him.

Likewise, we might see Chambers move out on loan in January, with an option to buy at the end of the season.

A similar deal could be done for Rob Holding if Pablo Mari has returned to full fitness, with Arsenal then having the option of Chambers, Holding or Mavropanos to return from loan and replace Luiz in 2021.

It might feel like Arsenal have a lot of centre backs at the club right now, but the reality is somewhat different.

Holding will stay, Sokratis will be sold, and not much else can realistically happen until January.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 2 – 1 West Ham

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Arsenal (1) 2 West Ham United (1) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Saturday, 19th September 2020. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Rob Holding, Gabriel Magalhães, Sead Kolašinac, Hector Bellerin; Dani Ceballos, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Willian Borges da Silva, Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Substitutes: Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pépé, David Luiz, Mohamed Elneny, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock, Matt Macey.

Scorers: Alexandre Lacazette (24 mins), Eddie Nketiah (85 mins)

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 63%

Referee: Michael Oliver

Assistant Referees: Stuart Burt, Simon Bennett

Fourth Official: Darren England

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Chris Kavanagh; AVAR Neil Davies

Attendance: A maximum of 300 attendees due to UK government coronavirus restructions

Our second Premiership match of the new season, and another London derby as well! It is to be noted however, that before we went into the match tonight, that Arsenal have won ten of our past eleven home games against West Ham United across all competitions, and that our opponents have lost thirty-one Premier League matches against us, more than against anyone else. Therefore. one could say that the omens are good for this, our first home game of the season. Let’s go!

The opening stages of the match appeared to be played mostly in our half, as the visitors decided to attempt to try to take the game to us, which came as some surprise to our defenders as they were put under pressure by a lively and creative West Ham United. We struggled to find our rhythm as our midfielders saw their passes go astray and the strikers were forced to come back to win the ball, as opposed to them being in the position to receive it. Bukayo Saka was caught offside when he ran onto a pass that took him into the visitors’ penalty area, and after twenty-four minutes, we took the lead when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ran onto a ball from Bukayo Saka and crossed the ball for Alexandre Lacazette to powerfully head the ball into the net, which unbelievably, was our first shot on target in the match. Of course, there was the usual VAR check when it was thought our captain was offside when he collected the ball, but thankfully the goal stood. This goal certainly fired some much-needed confidence in the team, and suddenly we looked in control. Ironically, there was a VAR check for a possible penalty against Gabriel a few minutes after we scored, but thankfully it wasn’t given as the VAR team decided that the ball didn’t hit him below the T-Shirt area, which is a new rule for this season, of course. In the minutes up to the break, we appeared to lose concentration at the wrong times; literally with a minute or so before first-half injury time, Michail Antonio equalised for the vistors with a well-taken goal from point-blank range. As our players went off for the half-time break, one could sense the feeling of disappointment amongst them, with a collctive realisation that they must do better in the second half.

With no half-time changes, we earnestly started the second half in good heart, with Bukayo Saka’s shot being pushed around the post by Lukas Fabianski for our first corner of the new half. Our passing was better, our movement off the ball suddenly became more urgent overall. Bernd Leno made an amazing save at close quarters from the feet of scorer Michail Antonio and this incident made us realise that danger could be upon us in a heartbeat. Somehow, we appeared to fall back into the same sluggish first half habits that got us into so much trouble; on the hour, Willian was substituted for Nicolas Pépé by Mikel Arteta in order to zip things up a bit. Obviously not, as shortly afterwards, chaos reigned when Michail Antonio’s header bounced off the crossbar, and Bernd Leno dropped the ball, falling awkwardly, but composed himself quickly enough to save a snap shot shot from Jarrod Bowen. That was a close run thing. Eddie Nketiah replaced Alexandre Lacazette to add yet more bite to the strike force with fifteen minutes remaining, which it did. Eventually. With five minutes of normal time remaining, Bukayo Saka released Dani Ceballos on the left, who deftly slotted the ball across the visitors’ penalty area for Eddie Nketiah to make no mistake from six yards. David Luiz was brought on for Bukayo Saka with minutes left of the match to shore things up at the back, and with four minutes’ injury time, his experience was desperately needed out there tonight. Thankfully the whistle was blown soon after, and three points was ours. Thankfully.

Let’s not dwell too much on the why’s and wherefore’s of this plodding, pedestrian, and at times, boring match. Let us just be thankful of the three points that we got here at the Emirates tonight. Yes, it could have gone badly wrong, but it didn’t. The visitors could have had a penalty, but they didn’t. At the end of the day, we scored two goals, we attained sixty-three percent possession, we have a one hundred percent record, and tonight Arsenal are second in the Premiership behind Everton. And that’s it.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Wednesday, 23rd September at 7.45pm (Carabao Cup). Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

Risky Runar Runarsson

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Arsenal have taken a risk signing unknown Icelandic keeper Runar Alex Runarsson.

Our friends over at Gunners Town have spoken to the Vice President of the official Arsenal Iceland, Hilmar Guðjónsson about his fellow countryman, and the exclusive makes fairy grim reading.

Hilmar reveals that “Iceland are not blessed with good goal keepers”, which is a concern when Runarsson has just 5 caps, and has not played since 2015.

Runarsson joined Dijon in 2018, but last season lost his place as number 1, starting just 9 Ligue 1 games.

Hilmar goes on to say that Runarsson has a poor shot stop ratio and does not dominate his area.

Arsenal goalkeeper coach Inaki Cana has previously coaches Runarsson at FC Nordsjælland, so you have to feel he has been recommend to the club.

So Runarsson does not arrive with a glowing reputation. Arsenal are clearly taking huge risk signing him.

Arsenal received a reported £17m upfront from Aston Villa for Emi Martinez, and a decision has clearly been made to buy the “cheapest option possible” leaving the majority of that fee to be spent elsewhere on the team.

The club could have gone out and signed David Raya from Brentford for £10m.

Spaniard Raya is an experience Championship goalkeeper and, importantly, home grown. Instead Arsenal went for Runarsson for just £1.5m.

That leaves Arsenal with £15.5m spare from the Martinez deal, rather than £7m.

Arsenal are taking a risk on Bernd Leno staying fit.

Leno is undisputed number 1. He will be between the sticks for every game. Runarsson is being signed to take a seat on the bench.

Arsenal would have looked at Leno and realised he is a fit young man.

Leno has missed just 19 League games in 9 seasons, playing out of 296 out of 315 league games for Arsenal and Leverkusen.

According to Transfermarkt, he has had 2 spells in his career when he missed games.

Back in 2012/13, he missed a handful of games with an elbow injury. More recently he missed games for Arsenal following a dangerous challenge by Neal Mupay against Brighton.

By signing Runarsson, Arsenal are banking on Leno maintaining his excellent injury record.

But what if he gets injured again?

My feeling is Arsenal would request the Premier League to authorise an emergency loan to cover Leno rather than promote Runarsson to number 1.

Premier League rules state that “teams are allowed to sign goalkeepers on emergency loan cover, but this is generally if no senior goalkeepers are available”.

Arsenal would then have to make the case that, despite being 25, Runarsson is not a “senior goal keeper”.

In their favour, they could argue that he has yet to start a Premier League game, and only made 9 starts in France last year.

If the league agree to the loan deal, Arsenal could then scour England for the “best available number 2” to come in on a temporary basis.

If Emi Martinez is playing week in, week out for Aston Villa, there is a high chance that could be Tom Heaton.

Arsenal might have to write off the “additional fees” to secure the England international, whom Villa signed for £8m just last summer.

Fraser Forster from Southampton and Marek Rodak of Fulham would also be options if the time came to it – the later will probably be usurped as number one by Alphonse Areola this season.

The emergency loan would then come into the first team with Runarsson remaining on the bench.

By going cheap to Runarsson, Arsenal are freeing money up to be spent elsewhere, but it is a risk.

Note: Since writing this blog, news has broken that Arsenal might also sign David Raya, with the deal being completed this summer, by Raya allowed to stay on loan at Brentford for the season.

This would only make sense if Arsenal only made a down payment this summer, with the rest of the transfer fee being paid next summer. And Arsenal had a clause in the loan deal allowing Raya to be recalled at any time if Bernd Leno picked up an injury (with the remaining transfer fee payable immediately).

An interesting development.

Keenos