Which Way Will We Go? by Jak Benardete
There seems to be two distinct paths in front of Arsenal at the moment. A key decision to be made by the board, are we ambitious or are we not? It is that simple.
If we are ambitious then we go for a top manager like Allegri who wouldn’t come without knowing that he has a real “project” meaning 200M to spend in his hands – or we go with a young up-an-comer like Negelsman or Viera and give them 50M and hope for the best.
Let’s look at both options shall we?
With Allegri in control and 200M to spend I think we can get the likes of Koulibaly from Napoli and Matuidi from Juve, Meyer from Leverkusen and can even stretch to Oblak from Atletico and Martial from United.. This would probably cost around 220-250M but with a few sales we could cover the difference. This would give us a formidable team for next season that with the right coaching could compete with the Manchester teams.
Gk’s Oblak, Cech
Defense: Koulibally Chambers,Hoding,Mavropanos,Bellerin,Monreal, Kolasinac, Osei-Tutu
Midfield: Matuidi,Ramsey,Elneny,Wilshire,AMN,Meyer
Attack:Martial,Mhikitarin,Ozil,Aubameyang,Lacazette,Nelson,Iwobi
Sold:Ospina,Mustafi,Xhaka,Welbeck.
This team with a more defensive mindset such as 4-3-3 (no Ozil) can pretty much play toe to toe with all the other top 6 teams. And at home against teams that park the bus we can go to a more attacking 4-2-3-1 this time with Ozil. We can even play a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 as we have the quality to adapt like Allegri likes to do.
There is the second option of a slow build with a younger head coach type manager and a transfer kitty of only 50M. In reality 50M can only buy us maybe one top player in today’s transfer market so we will need set our sites lower when it comes to some of the names.
Gk Leno or Butland
CB Evans or Soyuncu
Dm Docoure or train Meyer as one.
We could still sell Ospina but if we are not bringing in top players getting rid of Xhaka or Mustafi or Welbeck seems a little riskier. I would personally do it as I don’t think they are worth keeping around and have the funds to buy one more top player with the proceeds, but this is Arsenal and if we are taking the conservative route, we might not see too many personnel changes – at least in the first transfer window.
I know I would prefer the first option but I’m just happy that we actually have options to talk about rather than waiting another year for Arsene to leave.
Jak