Transfer insider Dean Jones has talked up a potential move to Arsenal for Barcelona midfielder Philippe Coutinho.
The Brazilian hasn’t enjoyed his best years since leaving Liverpool in order to join the Catalan club, and his stock has definitely dropped somewhat from being a massive £142 Million signing (re: Liverpool Echo) just three-and-a-half years ago.
While Coutinho now struggles to break into manager Ronald Koeman’s starting line-up, that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t be of use elsewhere, and Arsenal are definitely expected to bring in at least one player who can play in behind the striker.
Insider Jones is of the belief that we should be looking into the option of signing the 29 year-old.
Jones told Touchline Talk: “You have to believe that he can get back to that level and those clubs that you’re talking about there, particularly an Arsenal, who are obviously struggling to attract top-tier players right now because they’re not in Europe – that’s a route they should be looking down.
“With their agent links, I think it’s very plausible that Coutinho can become an option for them. If the player is keen – which I don’t see why he shouldn’t see Arsenal as a good platform – they’re looking for an attacking midfielder, a creator; [they] absolutely should be looking.”
I certainly have my reservations about signing Coutinho, but if he could return to anything close to the level he played at in the Premier League previously, he would surely prove to be a huge bargain.
His stats during his spell with Bayern were more than respectable, despite playing a bit-part role, scoring 11 goals and picking up nine assists in just over 2100 minutes of football(roughly 107 minutes per goal contribution), before returning to Barca to once again find himself rarely touching pitch.
Who knows, but I might go as far to say that the Spanish top tier, or possibly even Barcelona, just isn’t working for Coutinho, whereas he has already shown how dangerous he can be in the Premier League.
Do you believe Coutinho should be on our shortlist for the attacking roles this summer?
Patrick
This is what I have been talking about 😍😍😍,
the kind of “All or Nothing” kind of deal!
Coutinho to Arsenal is worth the gamble, the kind of player that, if works well, will bring us to challenge for epl title. At his worst, I still see him performing better than ESR. And ESR coukd be his understudy..
Another player we should look into is Samuel Umtiti, a cheaper alternative to Ben White. Probably 15-20M is enough to bring him to Emirates.
I know many of us are afraid of getting stuck with more “Willian”, but we must accept that transfer sometimes does not work out. Who are we to say that Ben White would not be the next Mustafi? Willian mistake costs us 30M but Pepe deal is a bigger gamble. Up til today his performance shows he is max a 20M kind of player, and we could probably do without him.
Fyi Im not against signing of young, unproven, cheaper players (excited with Lokonga!) but we go to have a mix of experienced players in as well.
Are you an arsenal fan or a barca agent trying to help them? I would have coutinho from barca cos he will help Smith Rowe have some game times so we don’t completely drop the lad but Umtiti, when last did you see him lined up for barca? Plsssss
Of course I am a barca agent geezz.. I will get some commission if they manage to offload coutinho and umtiti. -______-
We MUST sign Coutinho without any delay.
With Ozil gone, somebody gotta fill his boots, right? Who better than the PL-proven Coutinho!!!
Especially, after hearing rumours about our only attacking midfielder apart from ESR, Willian moving away after just one season with us.
Old, broken and expensive, the AFC way.
Let’s take him on loan for say 5 years..
Last thing we need is another very high wage player with best years behind him.
Exactly how will this help convince ESR that the club see him as an important player now and into the future?
Hard pass on this one, Auoar hands down over another high wage addition.
Umtiti is an even bigger no go. An injury crock that struggles to get in when he is healthy.
Why would we or anyone help Barca out of the mess they created by buying their castoffs?
When they have to sell some of their better players then maybe time for a conversation.
Karma is a B%&ch I’d say, we have our own problems without taking on Barca’s problems too.
Here, here.
Fine by me if Umtiti might be a bad buy. Basically, barca’s financial problem means we can raid some of their players on cheap. Sadly I agree with the article in that not many world class player would want to go to Arsenal. We can try Griezmann, barca would probably sell, but I doubt Griezmann would want Arsenal move..
Anyway, Aouar is hardly any better than Coutinho. His stats is also not that impressive. Pjanic is another player we can get for cheap / free but there are other suitors and doubt he would choose arsenal. Pjanic might be old but he is a class above most of our starting eleven and can play for at least 2-3 more years before we release him..
Or let me put it this way. We need proven players to improve the squad. We might be used to Wenger’s way of buying some no name players but Arteta is no Wenger and has yet to prove he can manage young players well (look at guendouzi, saliba, reiss nelson, willock, martinelli)..
I do hope we have enough sense to avoid a player we have been linked with for many years now. He’s a player of occasional spectacular brilliance, but who otherwise doesn’t contribute much, as Liverpool found out. Surely we have had enough of these ‘luxury’ players.
I dont understand why players come to Arsenal and dont perform. We really a stronger coach one who won something big before.
We do risk a new “Willian experience” if we sign him. He is “over the hill” I am afraid.
Why don’t you enlighten everyone with your list of supposed “no name” Wenger finds since we arrived at the Emirates…making sure that this list only includes those who came good while at our club, so don’t include players like Cazorla, who put up similar numbers during his pre-Arsenal 4 year stint at Villareal, or Coq, who preformed immediately better upon leaving North London, or the underwhelming stylings of both Ox and Iwobi, or the bang average Bellerin, or Giroud, who won the Ligue 1 scoring crown the year before arriving, or even Arshavin, who had such a stellar UEFA campaign in 2008, the year prior to arriving in North London, that numerous suitors like Barca, were clamoring for his services…this whole Wenger narrative as the finder of hidden gems was largely overplayed, as once he was left to his own devices, post-Dein, very few who could be defined as diamonds in the rough ever emerged…this is why I was so relieved when Arsenal seemed to have finally come to it’s senses and acquired the services of the venerable Diamond Eye…only to watch us royally screw that up and opt for the weasel Raul instead
For starter, there was Koscielny and Alex song who was signed from a tier 2 french league team. Then there was nasri, hleb, flamini, diaby, ramsey, sagna to name a few.. and not forgetting a certain rvp. So yea Idk what you are talking about..
Is it still necessary to talk about Wenger, three years after he left us?
Although we officially started to play at the Emirates in the summer of 2006, I later stated that his finds dried up significantly in the post-Dein era, which eliminates Hleb, Flamini, Sagna and Van Persie…not to mention that Ramsey was on Arsenal’s radar the year prior to Dein’s dismissal, Nasri led Marseille to a 2nd place finish and won the young player of the year, named to Team of the Year and won club player of the year over Ribery and Niang, and Diaby was an unmitigated flop
TRUELY ARSENAL NEEDS A MATURE COACH TO SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS(Y DO ARTETA LOAN GUENDOUZI?)