Arteta all but confirms Arsenal will buy a new midfielder this month
There was a huge uproar among the Arsenal fans after Mikel Arteta’s press conference on Friday evening concluded.
When asked whether there would be arrivals in midfield in the winter transfer window, the Spaniard all but confirmed the club’s plans.
“We are going to move, and we are going to look for options because we are very short there,” said Arteta.
Arsenal does not just ‘want’ a midfielder, they ‘need’ it. With Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny out to participate in AFCON, and Ainsley Maitland-Niles having joined Roma, the Gunners are extremely short on numbers.
Apart from summer signing Albert Sambi Lokonga and former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka, they have no senior figure to play in that position.
Charlie Patino is a name which has been talked about a lot, but with less than 20 minutes of action in men’s football, it will be a gamble to put him straight into the team.
Especially when the North London outfit are fighting for a Champions league berth and are also hoping to reach the finals of EFL Cup.
Several names have been thrown in the ring by media outlets with some high-profile ones being Lyon’s Bruno Guimaraes, PSG’s Georginio Wijnaldum, Juventus’ Athur Melo and Aston Villa’s Douglas Luiz.
But none of them is exciting the Gunners faithful as much as Guimaraes. The Brazilian is valued at £38 million, which could prove to be a bargain in this day and age.
What happens in the next few weeks will certainly keep Arsenal fans on their toes. We also have the center forward position to look at.
Our interest in Dusan Vlahovic is very genuine and it won’t come as a surprise if the London side acquire the services of both Vlahovic and Guimaraes, come the end of the winter window.
That will certainly help Arsenal’s cause of qualifying for the Champions League next season. Maybe Arteta was right, his ‘Arsenal project’ indeed looks likely to go ‘bang.’
Yash Bisht
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