It was with great joy to read Arsenal had finally bought a quality striker in the form of Lacazette- an acquisition sorely missed since Van Persie left for Man Utd. There is anticipation and hope from Gunners worldwide that this will finally be our season, that with reinforcements in the defence in the form of Kolasinic and Mustafi from last season we can now be title contenders.
Yet I feel we still have not solved the most crucial of positions that being the Central Defensive Midgielder. Hazard laid bare the frailty in our midfield last season when he shrugged off Coquelin like a clingy one night stand. Xhaka, although a better passer of the ball and with a great shot from distance, is not strong enough nor smart enough to anchor our midfield like Kante does at Chelsea. There are better players on the market, we could have had Wanyama for 17million, or Kante, who had proven their worth in the league. Why aren’t Arsenal looking for a destroyer like William Carvalho, Geoffrey Kondogbia or Grzegorz Krychowiak.
With the plethora of attacking talent at Arsenal we always seem to get undone at the back by conceding stupid goals which cost us in the title run in. Its time we got rid of the injury prone mediocre players such as Walcott, Welbeck and Wilshere as well, and replace them with players that have a steadfast winning mentality and who will not fade during the course of a season. A centre back like Virgil Van Dijk to marshall the defence. A monster in midfield to give the opposition attack nightmares, and a magician in attack to mesmerise the opposition defences into submission.
THEN the jigsaw will be complete
Vishay Pillay