Michael Thomas has told both former clubs Arsenal and Liverpool that they should try to sign Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona, but claims the Gunners would be the better option for him.
The forward is expected to leave the Catalan club either this month or for free in the summer, with his current club claiming that he will not play for them again after rejecting their offer of a new deal.
While his next club remains unknown, Thomas admits that he would love for either of his two former clubs Liverpool or Arsenal to land him.
“I think he is an amazing talent who can dazzle and do whatever he wants when he is in the right space,” Thomas told CaughtOffside.
“He is a young boy and needs to play games. He has struggled a lot with injuries and I just feel as though he needs a good run of games in a team to get himself feeling like he can be the player everyone knows he can be.
“I would say Arsenal would be a better fit for him, with all the young talent, but given the contract situations at Liverpool and the age of the front line, he could just as well fit in at Liverpool.
“I would be more than happy for either team to take a chance with him.”
While the player’s talent isn’t in doubt, his injury record and wage demands have to be off-putting somewhat to any potential suitors, although the idea of landing such a huge talent for nothing or a minimal fee could well make the risk manageable.
In an ideal world, he would join us and stay injury-free for the remainder of his career, but realistically he won’t be joining us, nor will he even see out the current campaign without another injury setback.
He will likely have a number of offers come the summer, although it would be beneficial for Barca to offload him from their wage budget this month in order to bring in a replacement, and with us still struggling to land a forward to our frontline, maybe we could well come to some sort of conclusion to sign him. There is no talk of a loan, but if no club is willing to buy him from Barcelona, it could well be an option for both us and Barcelona.
Patrick
Arsenal 0-0 Burnley Arteta Post Match Press Conference – “We didn’t have the quality”
It’s looks increasingly unlikely we will not be signing anyone this month if reports are to be believed. Personally I don’t believe with Lacazette and Nketiah we can get there, there’s just not enough goals in them and Martinelli also is not prolific enough not to mention an average midfield and a certain discipline problem.
Sadly, I’m starting to draw the same conclusions K82…that said, we’ve never been an organization that likes to conduct a lot of their transfer window business early, so I guess it’s not a forgone conclusion…almost as disconcerting as the possibility of doing nothing, is the very real possibility of an 11th hour “shot in the dark” maneuver, which sees us acquiring some sort of lightweight player who will cost us a pretty penny and require assurances that will hurt the developmental process
as for your comment regarding our side not having enough goals in us to snag a European spot, I couldn’t agree more….the only way I can envision us in the top 6, let alone the top 4, is if we get an extraordinary amount of “help” from the failure of others
of course, I love the potential of both Marts and Saka, but they’re certainly no Mane/Salah-like tandem…in fact, I actually think MA has stifled their growth, especially from a goal-scoring capacity, and it’s not like Laca and Eddie are going to make up the difference…frankly, I’m really worried about Arteta reverting back to his oft-times preferred negative tactics simply to squeak out results in order to save his own ass
Top 4 with a mid table team and unproven manager? Surely you jest. What are these fans smoking. It has been the same for 10 years.
Top 4 is a pipe dream. We need the striker and midfield with goals and maybe someone to challenge martinelli and allow Saka to rest. Dembele is excellent. Saw the Burnley game and Martinelli had very little support or overlap on his side and if we can’t score against Burnley we will struggle in Europe. The dithering at the back with Ramsdale was also worrying. We need our own Bernardo Silva to glue the team together. Odegaard and Lakonga in midfield are not enough. Arsenal deserve more and Arteta has to deliver or step aside.