One Player from Each Euro 2020 Semi-Finalists’ Squads Arsenal Should Target by Cameron E-B
Major tournaments are often viewed as opportune scouting grounds for us fans. Therefore, with the Euros semi-finals soon upon us, it is time to consider who to focus on in these crucial matches.
Each player discussed have been previously linked (no matter how tentatively) and would bring attributes required to this Arsenal squad. Statistics provided by fbref.com.
Joakim Mæhle (24, Denmark)
It is well reported that Arsenal are on the hunt for a right back this summer. Euro 2020 has highlighted a number of talented players in the position. Di Lorenzo from Italy and the exciting Denzel Dumfries, Netherlands, have impressed. However, arguably the right back of the tournament has been Joakim Mæhle from Denmark. The Dane has had a breakout tournament, ranking third in the squad for expected goals and assists per 90, 1.8 (2G, 1A). Who can forget that superb assist against the Czech Republic.
Mæhle can pass well also, being second in the squad for progressive passes and completed passes into the box. However, the primary job for right back is to defend. Although his strengths may lie in going forward, his defensive numbers back-up the hype around him. Once again, the Atlanta player came second in the Danish squad for blocks, interceptions and successful pressures. One to certainly look out for.
Mikel Oyarzabal (24, Spain)
Now I have to be honest, there were not many Spanish players jumping out at me (other than the highly unrealistic Pedri) but one who I would happily see at Arsenal would be Real Sociedad’s Oyarzabal. He has transferred some of his excellent form in last season’s La Liga (11 goals and 8 assists) to the Euro 2020 tournament.
Most notably, he has produced 11.94 shot creating actions per 90, the next best in the Spanish squad being the supremely talented Pedri with 4.43. Moreover, he was top in the squad for shots per 90 (6.43) and was second for goals and assists per 90 (0.92).
Admittedly, most of Oyarzabal’s statistics have come from off the bench. Hopefully we may get a better look at him in Spain’s semi-final against Italy.
Manuel Locatelli (23, Italy)
You would have had to have been living under a rock to have not seen the links with Locatelli. The majority agree he would be an excellent signing, but how good has he been?
Locatelli has looked very composed on the ball, completing 89.7% of his passes in the tournament and producing 2.55 shot creating actions per match. In a side which prides itself on its defending Locatelli has proven he can hold his own, with 7 tackles in his few games. However, the greatest surprise has been his form in front of goal. 0.85 goal and assists per 90 has him ahead of the likes of Ciro Immobile and Romelu Lukaku, to name just a few.
Clearly a player who, on the form shown in this tournament would be excellent at the Emirates.
Raheem Sterling (26, England)
Arguably England’s player of the tournament so far, Raheem Sterling has proven his doubters wrong. Sterling has improved upon his 0.60 G+A per 90, which he achieved for Manchester City this season, to 0.90 in the Euros. That includes 3 goals and 1 assist. 2 of which being winning goals against Croatia and the Czech Republic.
Additionally, he has been a creating force in the team, which has been sorely needed at times. Producing 10 shot creating actions, the most in the squad.
Although it would be a shock to see him line-up for Arsenal next season, there were links with Sterling due to City needing to shift some high-profile players to fund any Kane or Grealish deal.
Would you be keen to see any of these players at the Emirates next season?
By Cameron Emanuel-Burns (@camemanuelburns)
All four of them “On-loan” for the season with their parent club agreeing to cover their wages 100%. Oh, they can include a clause to “compulsorily buy at the end of the season” under just one condition. That one condition being, Arsenal qualifying for the Champions League the next season.
Gunners should target Raheem, Olmo, Locatteli
Pointless exercise if you ask me!
Siamois I totally agree with you WHERE is the money coming from your living in Cuckoo land GET REAL
👍
AM TIRED OF ALL THE PLAYERS IN THE WORLD BEEN LINKED WITH ARSENAL DURING TRANSFER WINDOWS VERY SOON WE WILL BE ASKING GOD TO GIVE US ANGEL MICHAEL TO BE IN OUR POST BECAUSE HE HAS WINGS AND CAN FLY TO PICK ALL BALLS I HOPE THE TRANSFER SEASON COMES TO AN END I AM JUST TIRED
Even if City are selling and we can pay the fee I don’t think Sterling will be open to join us unless we pay him around 400k per week. Those wages can pay for four excellent players.
We are far bigger and more prestigious club than Man city but currently we cannot offer any player a chance of winning the league or Champions league.
Sterling is a fit for the club which already has a strong squad and need only one or two quality additions.
Sterling cannot win us the league if we sign him (hypothetically speaking) his wages and transfer fee will take us backwards not forward because it will stop us from further additions to the positions in need of upgrade.
I don’t think we will get any players from, Spain, Italy, Denmark or England squads. James Maddison was unlucky not to get in the England Squad…..we could get him right now. Nabil Fekir is still up with the best and with Albert Lokonga would add to our ONLY three midfielders, Willock, Elneny and Partey. We are in BIG trouble with our midfield at the moment. Pre-season starts next week!!!!!!
We got Ben White.
You believe that do you? I believe in fairy dust.
This is one of those rumors which have high probability of being true.
Yes Sean, I believe in fairy dust. This is coming in from too many different sources for it not to have substance. If no rumours ever proved to be true there would be no need for rumours at all.
Hahaha HH, the fee we are paying for him and the way some are getting excited is like we are signing Kante. We surely have become table team when you see people here saying Ben White will play as DM and he is very good experienced player. 🤣
And when AFCON starts we’ll be saying goodbye to Partey and Elneny from that midfield too. Plus Pepe and Aubameyang. So too Onana, Bissouma, and other potential signings. Don’t get me wrong I’d love Onana and Bissouma, just worried at the possible lack of foresight from our club.
Cameron, Why on earth are you talking about picking one player only from four semi finalists? What is the point of that, as apart from a plainly manufactured “reason” for your article, what purpose does it serve?
I see no sensible or positive reason for our club to be in this “strait jacket”(restricted) scenario. None at all TBH.
Cameron Hope you dont take my above post as too harsh. Some will think so but my contention is and has always been that all articles are welcome but ones with a deal of proper thought behind them are far more welcome than others.
But please write again, as young and keen writers are always in demand. Just try to come up with a non manufactured reason for your article though if you would, please.
Don’t be discouraged by my usual plain speaking. I am like this with everyone, as I just think that plain, unambiguous speech is beneficial to real understanding and not being at cross purposes. Good luck!
For plain read blunt Foxy lol. I’m pleased you softened it with the second post.
Whether any of them will happen is doubtful but I see it as a fun and timely article considering its semis time.
Cameron has put a lot of thought and effort into the piece and has IMO done a good job. I for one far prefer these “who would you choose” exercises to just gossiping about miriad transfer rumours.
See it for what it is people and stop criticising – you don’t have to read it or reply if it’s not your scene.
Good job Cameron – keep them coming!
guy, your view versus mine about the worth of Camerons article depends on ones reason for being on JA at all. In my defence, I like to give this site itself enough respect to take ALL its articles seriously as worthy of proper debate.
In your defence(as it seems to me) you wish to use JA for harmless fun rather than serious debate.
If all you want is what I would describe as downmarket fun then your view is worthwhile . My “crime” is to take JA articles seriously enough to expect – or at least seriously HOPE for – the chance of proper cerebral debate. This is probably a vain hope among the majority of football fans in todays world, I would accept! Social media in general has cheapened and made MOST debate to be downmarket in this modern age, though I constantly fight against this tide .
At the risk of sounding elitist, I would compare it in value to classical music versus modern pop music. (Of course, to those who thoroughly understand the history of classical music, it was once thought anything but elite. It was merely of top quality or not, as the case may be.)
Have you never sat in a pub and debated hypothicals with friends? It is not serious, it affects nothing, but you enjoy doing so, even though it is apparently not “proper cerebral debate”. The subject matter on JA is Arsenal, and we discuss Arsenal. For me there is a place here for discussion of such things, and as you can see many responded positively, and as you know this site caters for a cross section of readers – it is not here merely to mirror your own preferences. It is not an abusive post, it is not a contraversial one and it is not an untruth. It is simply a hypothical piece on a subject that, although topical, is not to your personal taste, as may be a newspaper article that you would choose not to read. A better response may simply be to NOT respond….
There are many impressive semi-finalists, but we’d better look for the 27 years old players or younger:
– Italy: Nicolo Barella and Gianluigi Donnarumma
– Spain: Pedri and Ferran Torres
– England: Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Phil Foden, Mason Mount, Kalvin Phillips, Luke Shaw, John Stones and Jadon Sancho
– Denmark: Kasper Dolberg and Yussuf Poulsen
Unfortunately with Arsenal lack of Europa this season, we not be able to attract these players. We also don’t seem aggressive enough in buying players. Other clubs will easily snatch them from Arsenal. As desperate as we should be, we are yet to complete signing of any player. How are we going to get players to join in time for pre season? We are still trying to convince S Row to stay.
Our popular brand, high salary and London life can attract some of them, like what we did to Lacazette, Aubameyang and Pepe
Dani Olmo, AM – Spain
Manuel Locatelli, CM – Italy
Kasper Dolberg, CF – Denmark
Reece James, RB – England
None of which will happen.
True they wont happen but its interesting to get readers preferences. Good choices Tommy.
Well placed
I think it’s becoming increasingly apparent that there’s no 250m to spend or that there was ever any clear planning really. I think Arteta was thinking he could sell on a considerable amount of players for some respectable cash but he severely underestimated how much damage he did to our player’s valuations with his appalling man management.
I believe the situation can still be salvaged without an obscene budget or spectacular signings, but it’ll require Mikel to admit to himself how very wrong he was and do a complete 180 and do what he was brought here to do. Which is build by coaching our exceptional young talent and supplement with cheap young upcoming talents with potential high resale value.
Starting from the GK department, Leno is more than fine for a team with no European football. Stick Okonkwo behind as a deputy for the early stages of the cup competitions and develop him now cause Leno doesn’t wanna be here long-term. Oh and fire that GK Coach for goodness’ sake!
Our defense would have been fine with mavro and Saliba joining, and maybe the sale of holding as he had a good season and could fetch an okay sum. But the boys are gone and we need a backup RCB. I don’t see the white deal happening if we don’t sell and have some actual money to put on the table, so recall Chambers to the centre and let Bellerin and Soares fight it out for the RB spot. LB we of course have our future captain and hopefully Tavares who’ll be cheap and able (fingers crossed).
Midfield we have Partey and El Neny. Add Willock, Azeez (mostly for cups and subs) and lokonga. The key here will be giving the young guys a chance alongside Partey. We know what Elneny can do and he ain’t moving any mountains for us. Develop the young guns, they have the potential and stop playing with a single central midfielder! For AM just give ESR the nr 10 jersey and let him own the spot, Willock can cover for him now and then.
I won’t touch on the wings and strikers as we are well stocked in those departments for the number of games we’ll be playing. We just have to stop parking the bus every single match, we have the attack to cause damage if the system is conducive to that sort of football.
Let’s stop dreaming of 250m’s and becoming a City lite, we will never be that without a change in ownership. It’s funny that while typing all this I could imagine Wenger actually doing all i just described and telling everyone we have a wealth of talent and people just don’t realise it. It feels more like what an Arsenal would do. Making superstars instead of buying false ones. The ball is firmly in Arteta’s court, let’s see what he’s learned these past 2 years.
My dream centrebacks going into 2021/22 season are the following;
LCB: Tabsoba and Gabriel magalhae
RCB: Ben white and Takehiro Tomiyasu. And a backup centreback comfortable on both left and right like saliba( hateteta why oh why!). Imagine having these solid centrebacks for a whole season. Any ways just me dreaming.
I cannot believe anyone who has a knowledge of the game could consider Gabriel to be a”dream centreback”.I consider him to be the weakest of the CBS who played for Arsenal last season and I very much doubt if he will make the grade.That said, I hope he goes on to prove me wrong and end the cycle of mediocre centre backs which Arsenal have bought during the past decade.
I’m really undecided about how good Gabriel and Mari both are and can be. Gabriel certainly has some good strengths but bad weaknesses, primarily carelessness/over confidence alternating with losing the plot after he makes a mistake. Mari is even more difficult as he is often the “silent patner” at the back – not dropping clangers but also not very visible.
Intereste to hear your thoughts on White, Granded. Not on the price or whether we should be buying a CB at all – rather do you rate him and is he a step forward? I think he is btw.
While White is a good CB who has a lot of pace and good positional sense, he lacks the physical presence to dominate in the air .I think he is an upgrade on what we have but not substantially so, and at 50m he is vastly overpriced Guy.You have hit the nail with regard to your observations on Gabriel and Mari.The former commits himself when he should not, whilst Mari invariably backs off when he should be engaging.Neither, in my opinion are top quality centre backs, but as our priority must be to improve our pedestrian midfield, they will do for now.
My dream midfielders going into the 2021/22 seasons are the following;
AM: ESR n Aouar
CM: partey and lokonga
DM: kalvin Philips and Declan rice or bissouma. Imaging arsenal having these players for the whole season. Anyways just me dreaming
All good choices imo, Phoenix
Manuel Locatelli should be Arsenal target after the Euro games.we need a Creative midfielder
I dream of seeing a new Santi Cazorla or Alexis Sanchez, but I just read some one saying which established quality players would sign for us, when we are seen as the ‘Titanic’ of football. At the moment our great club has only Elneny, Willock and Partey as midfielders. Would Aouar, Madison, or even Fekir sign for us, without Europe and without any glamour or charisma football wise? Maybe we be are like the ‘Titanic’.
Can’t agree Sean. I know you’re on a bit of a downer with Arsenal in general (and of course MA in particular):
Partey 28
Tierney 24
Pepe 26
White 23
Saliba 20
Lokonga 21
Tavares 21
ESR 20
Saka 19
Balogun 20
Azeez 18
Martinelli 20
Okonkwo 19
Patino 17
Taylor Hart 18
Moller 18
You think this is The Titanic? It may not be a group for this season or even a show of talent in every position but it is definitely not a sinking ship! With patience this is the nucleus of a fantastic squad for the next 10 years.
Guy
We only have three midfielders at the moment…Elneny, Willock and Partey. We can’t hide from the fact that those three will not get us to through next season. So my point was without some really creative midfielders we are not going to improve. That is fairly empirical. My hope, like all of us, is that we get someone like James Maddison….but will players of his quality come here, or are they seeing us as a sinking ship like Buendía did? Of course we have some amazing young players and I have always been vociferous in wanting them to play, but we are in trouble with our midfield at the moment……factually.
With you on the midfielders Sean. Just dont think that longterm we are the “Titanic” ie sinking ship that you refer to.
Guy
At least you can debate guy, unlike John Fox, who bases his JA world on insults and slagging people off. I’m here to debate not constantly pull others down. The Titanic reference was from an Article I read on ‘Newsnow’. Our kids are great, but you include Ben White who has not signed. Will he want to come here or to a successful club who have European competition?
guy I much agree with you this time and, as ever, I take a very different view from SEAN .
SEAN SEEMS TO ME TO BE ON A RELENTLESS WITCH HUNT AGAINST ARTETA and refuses to give MA ANY credit for anything he ever does.
This is grossly unfair and is also NOT being a supporter, but merely a fan(there is a key difference between those two words) IMO.
My personal view remains that in anideal world (which we do not and never will have), our club would have been far better off with a world famous manager but for the ongoing huge handicap of our owner.
But I believe that true supporters support their manager as best they can UNTIL like Wengers last few years, he has amply proven to have run out of ideas for team improvement.
That situation is IMO miles away as yet for MA , who has been here less than 19 months so far.
You are adding to my post. We are factually short of midfield players, but for whatever reason you are expanding the discussion. But you are brewing something and bringing MA up not me. You ask what credit I give Arteta because you say ‘refuses to give MA ANY credit for anything he ever does’…credit for what? You obviously needed to alter the subject so you’ve had your say. We still only have Elneny, Willock and Partey in midfield.
I was under the impression that Maehle has been playing left wing back in the Danish 3-4-3 set up not RB as suggested in the article.
I thought I would pick a player from the South American tournament semi-finals.
Argentina drew with Columbia at full time, so the game went to penalties.
Emi Martinez, who was in goal for Argentina, SAVED THREE Penalties.
Maybe we should try to get him back.
Perhaps the guy between the sticks ought to be a keeper first, and a footballer second. There’s a novel thought
Just a thought
Raheem is a star who can make real impact in the Arsenal team. We lack that player who can carry the team on his shoulders and make an individual impact. So, Arsenal should go for Raheem