Arsenal has turned their attention away from Juventus defender Daniele Rugani and are now looking at loaning Barcelona centre-back Samuel Umtiti instead, according to The Suns Mark Irwin.
OK, it is the Sun but at this stage of the transfer window we cannot ignore what is being reported and to some extent, this makes a bit of sense.
Additionally, in the same report, it is being claimed that Arsenal is not prepared to meet the £55 Million that Leipzig wants for Dayot Upamecano.
It has to be said that of those three defenders it would be Umtiti that would be my prefered option but as with the Rugani and Upamecano situations it is a case of money and whether it is a loan deal or permanent deal.
And even loan deals are not straightforward, there is the issue of clauses that come into play as well as salaries.
But at least we know the club is desperately looking for a replacement for their former captain Laurent Koscielny and are now prioritising a centre back.
The Arsenal defence is the weakest part of the team and any of the three defenders named above would almost certainly strengthen the backline, I mean, it would not take a lot would it?
OT.. just saw Jenko’s message…awww I have a lump in my throat now… what a guy!! What a gooner!! ?
Pure class Sue……. oh and it’s hot here in Albufeira ?
??
I hope he has a successful career;Jenkinson has always acted as with integrity as a professional footballer.
I doubt it..
I think Kamara of Marseille would be a decent shout. Not many senior CBs available at this hour and I’m not totally sold on Rugani.
If we sell Iwobi, I hope we get Fraser or Bowen as squad player replacement.
Kamara is a special talent and would
form an incredible partnership with
Saliba for the next decade @ the
Emirates. Arsenal may have
reservations about his age and
ability to hit the ground running
immediately in the EPL but @ £20-25M
Raul and Edu IMHO would be foolish
not to scoop him up and let Emery
slowly integrate him into the 1st
team as the season progresses.
Hell a Umtiti loan and Kamara
purchase would be an UNBELIEVABLE
end to the window!!
agreed
Why is it always left so late?? Surely we should be identifying our targets at the beginning of the window. They look to sign players the way I do my christmas shopping!!!
Sadly as you can see with all of the other big clubs identifying who you want is easy but getting the deal done is far from simple
That’s how transfers windows work,nothing at the beginning or not much but the close we get to the close clubs stop their bullshit , dropped fees.ect,coz they need ready cash to buy their own players!!
Chris Smalling or Lewis Dunk. Excellent central defenders IMO.
Both have experience with PL and can perform from day one.
Alot of transfers are going to happen over the next 24hours. Spurs & Arsenal look like they arnt done just yet. Coutinho rejects Spurs, wonder if Dybala will do the same? Umtiti womt come to us with no UCL, probably the same as Coutinho.
I’m the same as many as being not sold on Rugani.
Throw £40m to Wolves for Bony. Premier league Experience, is a commanding CB and probably exactly what we need along with a Dacoure (watford) type in Midfield to replace Xhaka. Beef up the spine of the team abit.
? The type of players is important; I’ll leave it to Raul to come up with names, based on results thus far.
Only reason I would be happy to sell Iwobi is if it funded Umpacano. The guy is a ready made beast! Saw a lot of him last season. Then get Tierney, once both fullback are fit we would be ready to whoop some arse!
The greatest problem at Arsenal is Xhaka,, why has no other football club made an offer for him ?
The answer is simply that he is useless. We could have a very exciting squad of players this season, but I can see Xhaka Fu**ing it up
???
Xhaka would only be half-decent in Italy – the slowest of top 5 leagues.
But teams who could pay his salary already have at least the same quality in their teams and most of them better.
Perhaps mid-table German teams – but again, they can get the same quality at a lower salary.
The reason is that Emery hasn”t put him for sale end of!
If we are going for a foreign central defender because of a far more reasonable price tag, then I don’t understand why we are not showing more interest in Ricardo Rodriguez from AC Milan, very experienced national defender from Switzerland, age 26. Price tag about £ 15 mill.
I know he has played mostly as left back at AC Milan but has played as central defender for Switzerland several times. 35 app in Serie A last season.
Websurfer
Agree. At least Rodriguez can defend and if we play 4 at the back then he is perfect. Not so good if we play 3 at the back with wing backs but he is a good full back.
Rodriguez is not a central defender,he is a left back!
Tisdiam
He’s a good full back but not a good wing back….Capiche
@ Websurfer Because he is too similar to Kolasinic
Waste if they miss on umtiti who wants to stay at camp nou.. instead they will miss rugani and dayot too…
Umtiti needs to be beside a tall centre back. We don’t have that so forget him. He’s not tall enough to be main CB.
Apparently what attracts Luiz to Arsenal is Matteo Guendouzi’s hairstyle. He said if all players had that hairstyle the world would be a better place. We need more hippies. £$*& Norman Normal.
Actually arsenal did bid 55M for Dayot but once again now they want the release clause of 92M,so you can blame us on this one!!
Before Xhaka AFC were pushovers in CM, that doesn’t be said anymore and it stopped when we signed Xhaka. Xhaka and Torriera were up against three men CM last season and they fought well despite being outnumbered. Outnumbered in the final too but if we had Ramsey fit it would’ve made the world of difference, it was the difference between losers medals and winners medals IMO. Eventually an extra man will count in a spell and Che’s extra man was a player that you have to do a job on, Ozil will never see the game this way as he believes he’s that man for his team that needs man marking to be stopped. Really wish Ramsey had been fit. Even when Ramsey and Xhaka played as a midfield two (just once) versus a three, they came out on top in that game. I remember everything that was said about how weak we were in a battle with midfield being our most crucial soft spot. I am also aware of how individualistic our midfield looked last season when Xhaka went out, and noticed how more mature we looked when he played with Torriera and Ramsey, they looked liked teammates rather than individuals.
If Xhaka could stop the “brain fades” he would be much better given his physicality and passing range. He should also shoot from outside the box more, after working on his accuracy.