Albert Sambi Lokonga hardly played for Arsenal last season after struggling to nail down a starting spot on their team.
The Belgian had his chance at the beginning of that campaign but soon proved to be below the quality of others at the club.
This forced Mikel Arteta to build his midfield around the likes of Thomas Partey and the Ghanaian continues to show he is better.
Even Mohamed Elneny has done better in defensive and central midfield roles than Lokonga.
His playing time has not improved this season and other clubs are now considering the midfielder.
He was linked with a move away in the summer, but he chose to stay at Arsenal to fight for his place on the team.
That has not been successful and he could leave them in January, with a report via Sport Witness revealing Napoli has an interest in him.
It claims the Italians might move to sign him on loan before making the transfer permanent in the summer.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Sambi Lokonga did not take his chance in the team, which is why he is struggling to play for us now.
However, he is still young and probably needs to leave on loan to gain more experience before returning to become a regular.
With us expected to sign a central midfielder(Danilo?) Sambi will be pushed further down the pecking order behind, Partey, Xhaka, Elneny, New signing, Odegaard, Viera and possibly ESR able to play as an advanced 8 too, so a loan move probably makes sense at this point.
He should have been sent out in loan instead of AMN, in my opinion…
Yeah I think so too in retrospect. AMN looked decent in midfield last season
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Napoli are flying at the moment, so it seems strange that they’d be interested in someone who’s struggling at our club.
BTW, I haven’t seen elneny was good covering for partey last season (DM), but i would prefer Sambi to him in xhaka’s role (CM). I think the idea at the start of the season was likely to have elneny as the partey backup and Sambi as the xhaka backup, but due to the injury to elneny, sambi’s been asked to play the DM role in most of his appearances, which he’s not best suited to. It’s unfortunate really.
A player is only good if his playing style suits the team,he may not be at his best at arsenal,but that don’t mean he can’t make it elsewhere. Maybe Napoli likes his character and the way he plays and they feel like he’d be that person they looking for.🤷🏽♂️
Yeah they seem to know what they’re doing, so if it’s true that they’re interested, they probably think he’d fit in well in their system. Sambi clearly has some ability, I think he would prove himself capable in the right system – I just think it’s strange that napoli would go for a struggling player now that they’ve got a strong side, rather than someone who’s doing well at a smaller club/league, but who knows.
Here is where I think Edu needs to step up his game, the kid should have loan out from in the summer.
He could well come alive after a full season on loan with regular game time.
But Arsenal should insert clause in the loan deals to ensure players get maximum playing time.
Vieira and Lonkango are two of not the most impressive of our recruitment, but they both could come alive in a season or two
Vieira has been impressing,c’mon. With more game time he’ll be one of the best in the league.
The did not want to move. How is this Edu’s fault? Smh. He said he wanted to fight for his place and has not impressed.
The plan was loan him out.
Worst with the injury of El, he was the next best cover.
Still trying to see how Edu gets blame. 🤦🏿♂️
Thats fine £80 mio, then he is yours.
I can see why Lokonga was kept here , last season given thre lack of number in nour midfield andPartey being injury prone It was wise to keep jhim as back up. But eben tth extremely limited Elneny is more effecticethen him. So, provided we strengthen our midfield in Jan or more likley during next summer, then Lokonga needs to b elet go But NOT UNTIL we havevmore numbers in midfield which in all likelihood means keping him til next summer.
But it is now clear he is not at the level we need and IMO will never reach it. He lacks the technique to play anything but boringly safe passes that lead nowhere, and we need GAME CHANGERS!
I agree with u Jon fox.
Sometimes we need cut our losses quickly and move on…. We need to accept that It is not all the players we bought that will become stars at arsenal some might not hav the character to pull through even though they hav the talent.
If we buy 5 players and 3 out of the 5 become star, that’s good enough anou
Maybe pedantic, but i don’t agree that Sambi is one of those who only goes for the safe passes – he does try to be more than that. He’s maybe looked that way this season because he’s been tasked with covering Partey’s position, and struggled a bit, so his focus has been more on just keeping the ball.
Not saying he’s been good enough so far, but i just disagree with that point. He’s actually quite forward thinking in his play, usually.