Duncan Castles has claimed that Arsenal are ‘looking again’ to sign Brighton’s Tariq Lamptey.
The full-back has emerged as one of the brightest young talents in the division since leaving Chelsea in January 2020.
The 21 year-old actually made his senior debut for the Blues against us in the Premier League back in December 2019, helping his side to overturn a 1-0 deficit to win using his fearless attacking prowess, but Chelsea decided to cash-in knowing they already had Reece James in their ranks.
It is no surprise to hear that we hold an interest in him after his astonishing debut performance against us, and while he did suffer a long-term injury, he has since returned to form.
‘What you have here is Arsenal, who had an interest in Lamptey when he burst onto the scene before that difficult injury that you referred to,’ Castles is quoted as stating in the Metro.
‘They are looking again to sign him and exploring the parameters of the deal. I think Lamptey is an exceptionally attacking full-back. The limitation on him is his height and I think, therefore, he needs to play in a defence that either uses wing-backs or uses the full-backs progressively,” Castles said.
‘With Brighton, the policy of the club is that if they get offers from higher-status teams which are attractive to the players, they will not stand in the way of the move, assuming their asking price is met – and that’s what we saw with Ben White.
‘They wanted £50m for White, Arsenal went through a series of offers before they got to that number, and you may be looking at the same scenario with Lamptey who is under contract until 2025. Brighton will be happy to have discussions as long as their pricetag for the player is achieved in the ultimate transaction.’
I don’t think you’d hear a fan of any club complain about interest in Lamptey, who isn’t just young and full of potential, but already retains enough ability to put the fear into any defender. His pace and movement is a menace to deal with, and you’d imagine his signing would be perfect to us.
We already have Takehiro Tomiyasu in the first-team, but he lacks a little when pushing up into the final third, whereas Lamptey is quite the opposite. Just like on the left, we now have Tavares and Tierney, with the Portuguese the more attacking option, bringing in Lamptey would give us the same choice on the opposite side.
Patrick