Is it quite hard to believe that Arsenal failed to bring in a top class centre-back in the January transfer window as it is blindingly obvious that this is the Gunners most pressing concern at the moment after conceding 36 goals already this season after just 27 games. To put this in perspective, two years ago when we finished second to Leicester in the Premier league, we had only conceded that amount in the whole of the season.
The facts are that Laurent Koscielny (32 years old with ongoing achilles problems); Per Mertesacker (33 and in his last year of competitive football); Nacho Monreal (the youngster at 31, but although he seems to be our most consistent and effective defender he is also getting on in years) and Petr Cech (35) are all getting very close to their sell-by dates.
We do also have Calum Chambers and Rob Holding, but Wenger doesn’t seem to trust them very much and you could say they are not gaining much top-level experience sitting on the bench either.
So you could say that we need a complete shake up in our back line, but even if we could have got just one brilliant centre-back in January it may have increased our confidence at least a little bit.
Well now it is being reported that Arsenal have been sending scouts to watch the Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly and were present when they played Leipzig in the Europa Cup the other day. The Italians were badly beaten on the night but Koulibaly has been lauded as one of Napoli’s best players this season as they try to wrest the Serie A title away from Juventus.
He is said to be available for around 40m GBP, which would be a steal in today’s market, but the French-born giant is 6ft 5 in and would certainly help out with our set piece problems.
Who thinks Wenger should be making Koulibaly a priority this summer?
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