Assuming that Arsene Wenger was actually trying to make Sami Khedira an Arsenal player this summer, this weekend will not have been a good one for the Frenchman’s transfer plans. Real Madrid have dug their heels in and insisted that their German midfielder will not be going anywhere, leaving the Gunners in a bit of a pickle.
Wenger now has two options; do nothing and work with the squad he already has at Arsenal or get the scouting notebook out and make some phone calls this week. Let’s look at the two options, starting with the current players available to us.
Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini shared those deep lying duties last season and this time we have the added options of Calum Chambers, Francis Coquelin and Abou Diaby. That is definitely an improvement and with Wilshere starting to look good again, he and Ramsey give us good box-to-box potential as well. But I still worry about us having the quality to compete in the biggest games, such as Chelsea, Man City and the big European clashes.
So I am still hoping that Wenger is going to sign someone and hoping that the Arsenal transfer rumour in The Mirror is right and that the player is Luis Gustavo. The Brazil international is a proper DM rather than an all-rounder and could be ideal. But we already missed out on him last summer when he went to the Bundesliga club Wolfsburg, so what are the chances of Wenger getting him this time around? The answer could be a place in the Champions League…