Unai Emery is said to be ready to make his first signing for Arsenal in the shape of Sevilla midfielder Steven N’Zonzi.
The midfielder has been on the wanted list of the club for some time, especially with our defensive midfield role continually failing to match the standard of our rivals.
N’Zonzi joined current club Seville in 2016 to play under Unai Emery, who has this summer agreed to take over the helm from long-time boss Arsene Wenger, and the midfielder is now believed to be in line to team up with the Spanish boss in North London.
The French international has been linked with an exit from his current club for some time, with an apparent bust up with the previous manager, and he has long-been linked with a move to a bigger club.
Emery is now claimed to have persuaded his new board to make the jump and move for his former star, and his arrival could pose a threat to Granit Xhaka’s place in the side.
The Swiss international arrived as a much-needed signing two years ago, but has been inconsistent in his time at the Emirates thus far, and he may now have to up his game in order to feature heavily in the team come next season.
Is N’Zonzi the perfect type of player to be Emery’s first signing? Is his position our weakest link in the side? Has Granit Xhaka showed his worth since his move from Germany?
Pat J
I’m just not convinced by this player at all.His age is against him becoming a long time solution and is he really that good to begin with?I accept the Manager will know what he can bring as a CDM and we would have to trust his judgement IF the report is correct.Its just that I feel we should be setting our aims higher than a player who to me never stood out while playing for Blackburn and Stoke.
Stop talking bull…He is highly rated in Sevilla and usually always one of their best performers so I have no idea what the hell you on about! As a matter of fact, he is easily ranked in top 10 central defensive midfielders in Europe. He single-handedly bossed United’s midfield and pocketed all their attacking players and to top it all off, he has excellent ball distribution and wins pretty much every aerial duels, is strong and mobile – out of every player to moan about signing…How could he be the one you have a problem with?
Mate -are you some king of raving f***ing lunatic or what?I state an honest opinion that I would trust the managers judgement IF we sign him but thought we could do better.And you go all spastic.Your a F***ing uneducated P***k.And I can name you 10 far far far superior CDM’s playing in Europe you TWAT
Not to pile on or disparage the Frenchman but
here’s my list
Torreria
Jorginho
Fred
Fabinho
Javi Martinez
Carvalho
Keita
Vidal
Cassimero
Veratti
Doujcure
Wanyama
Fernandinho
Illarramendi
Gueye
Henderson
Matic
Ndidi
Henderson?! and almost everyone else barring William Carvalho, Fernandinho, Casmiero, Vidal, and Jorginho is way below Nzonzi and half of these said people aren’t even out and out CDMs – they are central midfielders. Javi Martinez is the Spanish Wilshere(always injured and Vidal to some extent). Would you like to see Nzonzi vs Matic? and Gueye…he’s a walking red card. Verrati, doucoure, illarramendi, fred is the Granit Xhaka situation all over again, forcing a CM to shield the back 4 by themselves never works out! To show you how retarded you are you said Veratti…If you did your research then explain to me why PSG signed Diarra and have Motta playing the CDM role. You lot need to stop playing Fifa and watch actual football!!!
You need to chill out and honestly leave this board ASAP.
Your ignorance barely exceeds your malcontent.
Most of the educated members of this site will
simply ignore your confrontational stick.
N’Zonzi is a good player but not $40M worth of good business.
And enjoy the Spuds board Dbag
You’re the ones that are misinformed. Tells you what you need to know about this fanbase – they don’t even know the difference between a CDM and a B2B player. All you lot listen to is transfer rumors and play Fifa – I can see why they take our fanbase for a laughing stock. If you repeated most of the crap you kept talking with other football fans they’d probably die of laughter.
Adam
There’s only 5 DMs in ur list that can compete with Nzonzi at breaking up play and distribution of the ball! Nzonzi is defo in the top 10 DMs in the world and at 6’5 can be a huge asset to arsenal right now now! Makellele was still bossing it in his 30s bcoz ur experience and positioning gets better! 29/30 years old is what we need more of in our backline! I remember him destroying arsenal in the emirates cup by breaking up all our attacks and scored a rocket aswell! So unless Savic, Jorginho and Fabinho wonna join our Europa league club we would do well to get Nzonzi who btw got into Frances World Cup squad ahead of rabiot who just won all domestic cups in France and he’s 23 now that’s saying something
Nzonzi is among the top 10 DMs definitely. DMs, not box to box players. Worthy of 30 mill. for sure. Not more, though, due to being 29 already.
And this idiotic argument that he wasn’t good enough for Stoke… How good was Paulinho for Tottenham??
LOL
Another thing, Xhaka has played as a deep lying midfielder or box-to-box player for us most of the time not DM (except in the Atletico game when Elneny was injured). If anyone is going to replace Xhaka, it’s going to be a box-to-box MF or a deep-lying playmaker, not Nzonzi.
Nzonzi won’t replace Xhaka he will join Xhaka in Arsenal’s midfield if we get him! I agree if we needed to replace Xhaka like for like then we would have to get a more mobile DLP but we need a DM or at least a more mobile strong midfielder like tolisso or spurs’s dembele for etc
So Motta with 14 appearances five as sub is there CDM, will you cop on. And Diarra an obv squad player, if Motta’s not obvious for ya that is. Rabiot and Verratti are the main two, both are good players but Verratti’s pure quality. He’s a defensive midfielder who has quality in more than one area. He breaks up the play dude, if you’ve ever watched them you should know that. When is the last time you watched them?. Nzonzi, is that why you came in here because he’s a Stoke fans wet dream ..go wind up some kids on Nickelodeon channel it might be more your speed.
Killmanch89, you should not call fellow bloggers names regardless of provocation.
You can make your point against an opinion without attacking the person with the opinion.
you seems a little mixed up between B2B and DM
If responding to my list John, there maybe a few B2B players(Veratti especially) included but the majority of those dudes are younger upgrades over N’Zonzi.
Agree to disagree, I’m all for meaningful banter.
89 stepped over the line with both myself and Phil, no place for it on this board
Adam Criniti, You should shut your hypocritical mouth. It’s OK to slag of killamch89, for opposing Phil your hero with his ‘combative stance’ despite not actually insulting Phil. But you don’t say a word to Phil and his God complex insulting everyone with an opposing view. Calling fellow Arsenal fans ‘uneducated pr**k and f**kn lunatic’. Being older does not always mean wiser. Phil you have a propensity to bully other people whose opinion differ to yours. I’ve asked Admin to look into this previously when you were bullying someone else on another forum.
Feel free to come back at me with insults as you usually do.
As per the topic of discuss, Nzonzi has the physical and combative attributes we desperately lack midfield and has two Europa cup winners medals to show for it. More than I can say for every other upcoming CDM linked to us recently.
@Abel-this just goes to show what a hypocritical two-faced ASS you really are.So in one breath you advise not to resort to name calling and you then proceed to tell Adam Criniti to “shut your hypocritical mouth”.I bet your mother is so proud of you.What did you and Kilimanjaro find so offensive with what Adam posted?He gave his opinion on a topic line as did I and yet you two morons go steaming in to make yourselves look important.zGuess what?You don’t.You only make yourselves look more foolish and childish.As for me coming back at you.If I could find out what mid hut village you come from then perhaps we could indeed have a discussion.That would be interesting
True to type ; you continually spew garbage from your mouth. Simply incapable of holding a mature discussion without throwing insults. Your inferiority complex and insecurity is noted.
You see what you have caused admin. I appreciate your effort on giving us something to wind down time with on daily basis but let true be told we don’t deserve this torture called transfer rumour. I read that everyday, everywhere and i don’t want that on my number go-to arsenal blog. This article will be number 999999999 article on who will be our DM next season and the transfer market barely started.
Spot on Phil some fools will say he’s rated by Seville yet he turns 30 and at bets we may get 2 years out of him
Underwhelming.
Nzonzi is 29. Has 3 or maybe 4 years left at the top as a DM who doesn’t rely on pace too heavily.
He’s only 6 months older than Aubameyang, but when both lose their speed, whose career is gonna suffer more – Auba’s who relies on pace or Nzonzi’s??
I prefer Doucoure.. Get me that monster mislintat!!!!!!!!!!!!
dont worry… Mislintat will get everyone their favourite choice of players
a player for you, a player for him and a player for everyone
1 billion spend and 50 players signed….everyone will be happy
Doucoure is a box-to-box player – like Ramsey who seems is staying.
We need a DM, and while Nzonzi would only be a solution for 3 years, he’s also likely cheaper than virtually every other DM who is among top 10 or 15 of those.
If no one saw just how much better Nzonzi was against United THIS YEAR than Elneny – our only DM right now – they need to improve their understanding of football.
And no Maitland Niles is not a DM. He himself said his natural position is on the wing, but may also become a box-to-box player – our long-term replacement of Ramsey…
I suggest Emery goes for Andrien Rabbiot he is little bit younger or better still Tollisso
Maybe he could work well with Emery again, because they worked together before and he must be doing good to be called by France World Cup team
As long as he is below twenty millions, he is worth the gamble, but maybe his price could be higher because of his participation in World Cup
Regarding Xhaka, he must be tried as a deep lying playmaker and accompanied by a good DM like Elneny. We could see his creativity level after several matches next season
I’m hoping Elneny has trouble making the bench this season. Only footballer in the known universe who practices passing sideways, interspersed with a few back passes. Absolutely useless!
We tried it on a few occasions last 2 season … It produced underwhelming performances in large part because neither are quality needed for a starting 11 … At least One of em should be sold in summer
We have to trust the Arsenal trinity of Unai, Sven and Raul. So far with Aubameyang, Mhikataryan and Mavropanos they haven’t let Arsenal down.
And the match we lost to Leceister was caused by whose needless red card in th first 20 minutes of a game we would have won easily?
Be honest and unbiased. Mavropanos is not nearly ready for first team duties as he will lose us points from his rash challenges and poor decision making.
Auba and Miki are class though.
Mavropanos was bought as a prospect and in all honesty its a bit early to assess how good (or how bad) he may perform over his Arsenal career. However, he has looked promising and you are a tough marker to dismiss him after one red card.
Why are talking on rumours??? Nothing is concrete because Arsenal have not contacted anyone…. Liverpool have signed Fabiano… Man United on verge of Signing Fred as he will go his Medical on Monday and we are completely quite…
must be wenger’s fault with the delay…..waiting for epic last 24hr closing sale….
Wenger is history, your obsession with him is sickening, move on!!!!
Haha. Lots of double standards on show.
Apparent bust up.with previous manager lol
Another “first signing” article 😐 😐 😐
So far just a media rumour, who’s the next apparent first signing going to be, I’ve lost track, there’s been so many, as for Nzonzi to old and his current price to expensive.@ killamch you use the word retarded loosely, if it was a sexist word or racist word, you would of been called out for discrimination, which leads me to believe that you are a bit of knucklehead with a great disregard towards others who are different.
My thoughts, Nzonzi would be a reasonable signing, more mobile than Xhaka and add size to our midfield, the only issue i have with this signing is the price at his age, hopefully we can get 2-4 years out of him if signed.