With Arsene Wenger having made just one addition to the Arsenal first team squad before jetting off to Singapore for the first phase of pre-season, many football observers have been left wondering whether the Frenchman has completed his transfer business for the summer.
Not according to the Daily Star he hasn’t, as the paper is reporting that Wenger is styepping up his pursuit of the Greece international centre back Kostas Manolas. This is the second summer transfer window in a row that the Gunners have been linked with Manolas, but last year he ended up signing for the Serie A club Roma instead.
He had a very good debut season for them as well, cementing his place in the back four of Rudi Garcia and helping the club to second place in the Italian league. You might think that this makes Roma more likely to challenge for the title than Arsenal next season, but when you see that they were a massive 17 points off Juventus in the table and that this was the same situation and same points tally as the previous season, you can see why Arsenal might be tempting to the defender.
Roma also failed to get out of their Champions League group and were then blasted out of the Europa League with a heavy home defeat to fellow Italian side Fiorentina. So assuming that Wenger really is keen and that we can persuade Roma to sell, surely Manolas would accept the move. But would this be the final transfer of the summer for Arsenal or do we still need more?
Decent young defender, but we just bought Gabriel in January and Chambers can play as 4th choice. I don’t think we need another centre back right now.
After next season we should sign CB when Mertesaker leaves. Replace Mertesaker with top CB then.
Kostas manolas is a very good centre back, wouldnt mind us signing him at all to provide some depth!
No DM and striker … it’s like a stuck record, but the more logical and obvious it is, the more oblivious Wenger is.
Manolas has been linked to Arsenal for a long time. Does it mean Wenger will get him someday or does it mean the transfer rumor media is running out of new stories and digging up old ones? I don’t know.
I know this: another defender is NOT the final piece of the puzzle.
Last piece of the jigsaw….no.
I think the last piece would be Reus or Draxla….someone who can command that LW….come on…Sanchez on our right…Reus on the left….o my
Last piece of jigsaw Benzema and Krychowiak.
But sanchez has stated and shown many times that he prefers the left wing. Also an inverted left winger suits our style. It would be nice to have different styles of wingers for each side and in sanchez, Walcott, chamberlain, Welbeck, Ramsey and wilshire we have 6 very different players that can all do different jobs out wide as well as performing in other positions. Having the versatility to.play different roles is.paramount to a title winning team.
I hate players being stereotyped into one role, but that said it also important to have a strong spine, with a strong back up. Cech, ospina, mertesacker, koscielny, Gabriel, coquelin, cazorla, ozil and giroud are all going to be paramount to that spine but I would still like to see a world class striker like benzema and a rock of a player like carvalho who can play cb and dm added to that group.
I actually think that benzema and giroud could even for an awesome partnership, as even though they appear a like in many ways they both have different qualities. I just imagine how some teams would buckle with those two in the middle being picked out from crosses by the likes of sanchez and bellerin along with through balls from the likes of wilshire, Ramsey, ozil and cazorla.
I believe our squad only needs those 2 players and with Jenkinson, sanogo, campbell an
Oops I will finish
Campbell and Wellington or one of the keepers moving on two places in our 25 will become free.
Carvalho and benzema will do for me.
Just sign quality striker and quality CDM this season. After next season we can sign CB someone like Godin, Hummels, Ramos or Varane.
According to @KikeMarin Arsenal will try to sign Benzema if Benitez plans to play Ronaldo as striker next season.
I herad somewhere than Sanogoal is going to Ajax on loan. Who would have predicted 15 years ago that Ajax would want a worst striker in Arsenal history lol.
Podolski sold, Sanogo on loan and Campbell likely to leave permanently. Hopefully this means we will sign someone like Benzema. However im still not confident Wenger will buy top striker or
CDM. We have a big squad but number of average, injury prone and older players in the squad.
We should have sold or got rid of Flamini, Arteta and Rosicky. We desperately need another CDM. We can easily promote young players like Crowley, Zelalem and that barca kid dunno his name. Akpom and Gnabry need loan move to premier league club.
One things for sure we def are not signing a winger after what wenger said about sterling yesterday , so if we ain’t signing a winger already got a keeper got 4 cb’s which again wenger has said recently ,specifically mentioning signing Gabriel in January .then that leaves a central midfielder striker or full back and he said he’s looking for 1/2 more players! Me personally thinks that were def gonna get a striker this summer especially as he said theo was a winger yesterday . Hopeful of a dm but 50/50 for me
I remember Wenger said some weeks back that we have two world class goal keepers in Ospina and Sczney (still can’t spell his name though)……but you get the point, right?
Off topic.
ROSICKY injured again.
Stuff your loyalty where the sun don’t shine.
A well payed servant whose past his best. Do you realise that some players,including Rosicky, would have left their ‘wonderful’ club but for the fact that they where F*****G
injured at the same time.
Can’t cut it, OUT.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if Madrid signed hazard which meant Ronaldo to be pushed up top with hazard and bale either side meaning wenger will jump in to play his favourite game of dominoes and pinch benzema!!! I believe this is poss but mayb reus instead ! Madrid always sacrifice 1top quality player every summer to make room for another as we no
Its all crap! the Wenger we know will not sign a new CB, though i will not mind having Manolas, he is a solid CB. We can send Chambers on loan while he and Mertasacker sit on the bench for Kos and Gabriel. But honestly what we realyl need right now to make our squad relatively complete and competitive is a top quality striker and a DM. Any of Benzema, Cavani or Lacazette will be appropriate for the striking position. And either Krychowiak or Wanyama will be great competition for Coq in the DM position.
We don’t have any missing pieces of the jigsaw in defense other than a second top DM and perhaps a 3rd LB.
RB: Debuchy, Bellerin, chambers
LB: monreal, Gibbs
CD: Koscielny, Mertsacker, Gabriel, chambers
DM: Coquelin, Arteta
However, if we get Manolas I won’t complain. He is very good.
Missing pieces for me is another top striker, another top DM and third LB.