Noel Whelan has backed Arsenal’s pursuit of Tariq Lamptey and believes it would be frightening to pair him on Arsenal’s right-wing with Bukayo Saka.
The Brighton full-back has been on the radar of the Gunners for a long time now.
But they signed Takehiro Tomiyasu in the summer who has been an upgrade to their right-back spot.
The Japanese star is very reliable and remains one of the signings of the season. However, great clubs have quality in depth.
Because of this, Arsenal has continued to be linked with a move for Lamptey, who has just returned from a long-term injury.
Former Leeds man, Whelan believes signing him would be a solid piece of business.
He tells Football Insider: “Lamptey is very exciting, very quick. You can imagine him and Saka down that right-hand side. It would be phenomenal – try and keep up with those two guys.
“He’s done enough, he is an exciting player. It won’t only be Arsenal looking at him. There will be other clubs sniffing around him if he keeps playing the way he’s playing.
“A really good young player. Arsenal are showing the intention of not wanting to stop where they are.
They’re wanting to progress, bring new players in, strengthen the squad and push forward towards Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea.
“That’s where you’re used to seeing Arsenal, in that top four.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
We expect the club to keep bolstering Mikel Arteta’s squad and the next few transfer windows should be no exception.
The Gunners have made good progress in recent weeks. Adding Lamptey to the current group will make us even stronger.
Brighton knows he is a top talent and they will not sell him cheaply, so we need to be prepared to spend a lot of money.
Replacing Xhaka with a reliable, goal-scoring deep lying playmaker will make us frightening. Shouldve done it last summer.
Tielemans would be my choice. Extremely reliable, rarely injured, never gets sent off, scores, creates, defends. Great range of passinhg. Contract until 2023, should be affordable.
I like tielemans as well but didn’t he have a nightmare in leicester’s last game? Also, he wouldn’t come cheap.
I also like Neves – think we were on the right track going after him in the summer. Pretty much everything good about xhaka with a touch more inventiveness, only without the nonsense that comes with xhaka
Why would we be interested in a midget at right back when we have a better tall defender in Tomiyasu? And, as good as Lamptey is going forward, as Tomi is, his defending is not as good, but in any case why would come as a backup?
And why would we spend +20/30 millions for an injury prone back up RB? This target makes zero sense.
Tomi is also very decent going forwards and likely to improve imo. Really think we’ve got the next azpilicueta in Tomi.
Only reason for a new RB is if we’re likely to lose all of our backups over the summer, which is possible
OPTIONS, OPTIONS AND VARIETY GUYS.
Don’t concentrate on 11 players. No one said Lamptey is to replace Tomi.
There are situations that may force us to play a changed system like a back three may be because of a red card or the kind of opposition at hand, the guy would come in and scare the opposition with speed and make them think twice before pressing as like city did.
Elneny should just go. If only he pressed city man on, instead of trying to dance a far off the player with the ball, we could not have conceded the second goal. Never let a cross to come in as it did. better a throw in.
I dont see this happening at all.
No more midgets please! We had more than enough under WENGER AND ALSO WITH TORREIRA. Lamptey cannot defend and a full back needs to do so.
Not entirely convinced by Tariq, as his size and injury history are a tad disconcerting, but I definitely understand the thought-process behind having a more offensively-minded option at RB…at times we’ve been far too unbalanced in attack and it’s frankly negligent on our part for not providing Saka with the protection he both deserves and requires to properly progress…as such, it’s not so much about if, it’s about when and how
if we’re planning on making a more sizeable investment, I would suggest that we wait until we’ve properly addressed our far more immediate/pressing concerns, like up top and in the midfield
if we’re talking about taking an educated flyer on a Nuno-type acquisition, monetarily and upside-wise, then we should have done this yesterday…this is exactly the kind of move a “real” team makes once they’ve acquired a clear-cut everyday starter…this would allow us to slow-play the all-important acclimation/integration process, as the player in question would likely only play in strategically-appropriate League and Cup matches, without breaking the bank…in a perfect world, these opportunities would be filled by well-scouted “hidden gems” and academy graduates