Arsenal interested in swooping in for Sweden international
According to Sport Witness, Arsenal’s technical director Edu wants to bring in Bologna’s Mattias Svanberg to the Emirates Stadium.
With Thomas Partey set to depart for AFCON alongside Mohamed Elneny, the Gunners will be short of midfield reinforcements.
Although they have Granit Xhaka and Albert Sambi Lokonga, the failure of having a decent backup to them is the real problem.
Despite being a half decent option, Ainsley Maitland-Niles is not someone you can trust at the middle of the park.
This is where Svanberg can come in. The Sweden international, despite being 22, has already played more than 150 senior matches.
He is the very fabric of the player the Gunners staff acquired last summer: young but with plenty of experience.
With the midfielder’s contract set to expire in 2023, the North London outfit can acquire his services on a cut-price deal.
When compared to Xhaka, Svanberg contributes more in the final third. His expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) are superior to that of the Swiss international. 0.08, 0.12 to 0.07, 0.08.
Other than the attacking stats, Xhaka has fared better than his counterpart.
5 – Mattias #Svanberg (3 goals, 2 assists) is one of the three midfielders born after 1/1/1999 to have been directly involved in at least 5 goals in the current Serie A campaign (Brahim Diaz and Tommaso Pobega the others). Freshness. #BolognaFiorentina
— OptaPaolo 🏆 (@OptaPaolo) December 5, 2021
If Arsenal want Xhaka to operate as a deep-lying midfielder and Svanberg as more of a number eight, then this deal seems rational.
Despite not being much defensively active, the young midfielder can certainly improve on that aspect.
Given his age, he has loads of time to hone his skills too.
Writer’s view: If the transfer fee is not high, I won’t have any problem with Svanberg trading Bologna for London.
Arsenal have earlier done business with the Italian side for a certain Japanese defender. He didn’t turn out to be too bad!
That could certainly be said of the Swede in a few months’ time.
Good player at a good price – reminds me a little of Roy Keane.
AMN can be trusted in midfield. He just needs the games to develop his passing. Otherwise, he’s more efficient at breaking up play, he’s quicker and has a better recovery time than Granit or Partey to be honest…In my opinion he’s better in the position than Lokongo.
IJS
I wouldn’t say better than Lokongo, but I do think he is fine player. I wish he got more minutes.
AFCON signings are short term thinking, what player wants to move to fill a gap for a month then when the others return?
Like many have said, Xhaka puts a big hold on all potential incoming midfielders. Partey is almost a guaranteed starter and so is Xhaka so who would want to move to sit bench??? CAM is sorted with ESR and Ode so only 2 positions left in midfield on an ongoing basis.
Xhaka doesn’t fit the mould of a DM or CAM or B2B…he’s in the middle of all of those roles meaning we can never get a specialist in these positions.
I’d go for Kessie, but his wage demands may be too high but if we had Kessie and Partey could play B2B man that would be a solid midfield!
Relax, I’m not saying Xhaka is terrible but he limits all incoming midfielders. Xhaka fans cannot see this fact.
Why mention he could be a number 8, we already have a very decent number 8.
Renato Sanches is young, 24, with so much experience. A way better signing.
I would revisit Neves at Wolves.