The former Gunner and England international Ray Parlour knows a thing or two about what makes up a successful central midfield and another of his specialist subjects is Arsenal. So it is always worth listening to his opinion on the current version of the Gunners and what we are doing right or wrong.
Without laying the criticism of Arsene Wenger on too thick, Parlour did explain in a Daily Mail report why he thinks the Arsenal boss may have missed a trick and made a mistake with his transfer business this summer. And the Romford Pele is far from being the only Arsenal fan who wanted Wenger to beat our Premier League rivals to the transfer of the French international Morgan Schneiderlin.
The report explains that we were interested in the player from Southampton but for some reason we dropped out of the running and allowed Louis van Gaal to swoop up this talented and Premier League proven star. Parlour feels that Schneiderlin would have been great for the Gunners and he does not sound too convinced that the players we already have are enough.
He said, “Arsenal need a central midfielder who’s going to be sitting in front of the back four.
“Schneiderlin would have been good very good. Are there players in that sort of mould out there that Arsene Wenger can bring in to do that job? Or will he look at Santi Cazorla like he did at Manchester City away last season… can Jack Wilshere do that job?
“People say Vidal, but it looks like he’s going to Bayern Munich.
“I watched [William] Carvalho in the Under 21 Championship – he has a big presence, someone in that mould might be good moving forward.
“But again, they’re very hard to find, these top quality players – like Patrick Vieira when I played. That’s why the scouting system has to be very good and quick in getting into the reckoning and saying they’re the player we need.”
If Carvalho was the reason we cooled our interest in Schneiderlin then it has backfired as he has an injury and will miss around three months of the season. So did Wenger drop the ball or did he decide that we have enough and can use our transfer funds better elsewhere?