The antidote to transfer rumours: real insights into who we are signing in January

By Tony Attwood

I recently wrote a little piece trying to show how journalists create a piece of fantasy transfer news ahead of a transfer window, and did this by looking at our goalkeeping situation, the insane tales from last summer relating to keepers, and then adding in what I thought would actually happen.  A sort of antidote to transfer rumours.

That seemed to work all right so now I’m moving up the pitch.

Last summer the Guardian heralded the FA Cup final with “Petr Cech set to keep Arsenal place for FA Cup final amid defensive headaches” and the Mirror had “Arsenal’s defensive injury crisis leaves Arsene Wenger with few FA Cup final options”.    The Independent went with “Arsenal facing wingback crsis ahead of FA Cup final” and the Standard ran “Arsenal defensive crisis hands Arsene Wenger formation dilemma vs Chelsea”.

It was utterly extraordinary and amazing that we won.  In fact reading those headlines I had to go back and check that perfidious Chelsea hadn’t actually changed the result retrospectively.

But with the defence one can see that something is wrong, in that we are half way down the defensive league table equal with Liverpool having let in 19.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Manchester United	15	11	2	2	35	9	26	35
2	Manchester City	15	14	1	0	46	10	36	43
3	Chelsea	15	10	2	3	28	12	16	32
3=	Burnley	15	7	4	4	14	12	2	25
5	Tottenham Hotspur	15	7	4	4	23	13	10	25
6	AFC Bournemouth	15	4	3	8	13	17	-4	15
7	Southampton	15	4	5	6	15	18	-3	17
7=	Swansea City	15	2	3	10	8	18	-10	9
9	Liverpool	15	8	5	2	33	19	14	29
9=	Arsenal	15	9	1	5	29	19	10	28
9=	Brighton and Hove Albion	15	4	5	6	14	19	-5	17

 

But that doesn’t mean that last summer’s predictions that we were going to be decimated with most of our defenders getting ready to leave, even if they hadn’t done so already, has come to pass  In the end we only lost one wing back – Oxlade C – but gained another, and he was a real upgrade, Sead Kolasinac.

However with Bellerin, Debuchy, and Mustafi all departing (according to reports) we were indeed in the deepest of deepest problems.   Except that they didn’t depart, despite headlines like, “Hector Bellerin questioned why he left Barcelona for Arsenal” (Metro) and “Hector Bellerin tells Arsenal he wants to quit this summer ” (The Sun).   In fact the Sun were stilling running “EMIRATES EXODUS Arsenal stars Hector Bellerin and Shkodran Mustafi both DEMANDED to leave the Gunners this summer” after the transfer window closed, although the impact was a little reduced by the “according to reports” phrase part was through.

However despite this past weekend’s defeat I am not sure the problem lies with the wing backs.   Obviously we have a pairing of first choice wing backs: Bellerin and Kolasinac.  Backing them up we have Monreal, Chambers, Maitland Niles and Reiss Nelson.

When I have seen Maitland Niles play in that position I have been very impressed indeed.  I’m not saying he is 100% ready to play every game there but that’s always the problem: if you have a superb top level replacement and he is waiting on the beach all the time he is going to ask to move.  Maitland Niles seems a great back up just now.  I not sure about Nelson in the wing back position however: all the talent (and then some) is there but when he has played at wing back he has occasionally gone walk abouts.

So what does this mean for the transfer market?

The only big tip for a full back transfer that arose through last summer was Virgil Van Dijk.  He was announced on the grounds he would help us “play a back 3 all the time”.   He was a prime target because “Arsenal’s defence is so fragile”. The Sun announced a last minunte bid – which actually seems to have been a fantasy.  Fancy that!

Arseblog found wing back to be the prime problem coming into this season saying, “it’s clear we have something of an issue when it comes to our wing-backs. It’s not as if we didn’t know we’d have these kind of fixture pile-ups, and the need to rotate to keep players fresh for the Premier League, so obviously the manager felt he had those famed ‘internal solutions’.”

But their worry was playing Maitland Niles and Nelson out of position.  My question is what sort of player of the highest quality are we going to get to come in as a wing back when he knows that he is behind Bellerin and Koscielny.

So could we sign a new wing back?  First off, it is clear that at least for the moment such a person is very unlikely to get into the Arsenal I squad, given that we have two fine wing backs at the moment and some solid backups.  If a player is particularly good he’s not going to be happy to be sitting around waiting for someone to be injured, especially with all the other options the club has.

Likewise we need to keep Maitland Niles and Nelson happy with some games so I am not sure we need an extra player for Arsenal II.   Arsenal II is a brilliant way of making sure that we keep our youth players happy – they know it can take years to break into the first team, but they know there is this reserve XI playing in front of big crowds, and they rather fancy that.   So no chance of a transfer there, I think.

In short any January transfer window story about Arsenal signing a wing back, just as any story about Arsenal signing a keeper (as per the last article in this series) is going to be make believe.

Still it is always fun to collect such stories, just to show how incredibly gullible the newspapers think their readers are.

Next up: the central defenders.

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