With Chambers injured and Mavropanos out on loan that leaves Arsenal with just four first team center backs, including Mustafi who is reportedly looking to leave. The Loan means one of two things, either Mustafi is staying, or they are confident of picking up a new CB in this window.
I was daydreaming about that that myself when I heard of Mavro's loan. Yes, but depending on their quality & fitness. Our foursome is highly questionable. Right now we've regained perhaps a semblance of confidence in only 2 of them (Luiz & Sok), the 3rd has had so many earlier f-up's that his trustworthiness is very low, and the 4th is just barely struggling to regain fitness and form after a long injury outage.
Marca reporting that Atletico want to offer us a swap of Lemar for Laca. Would not be opposed but would like to see if we can get Partey instead
Rather keep my guy Laca. Lemar isn't a real CF and Laca once on form is much better. He is just struggling now. What does Lemar give us or what better qualities does he have? I don't watch him much...
He's nominally a wide attacking left-footed player, which would give us the immediate benefit of not having to play Auba on the left wing anymore. I don't think Laca has been terrible under Arteta but he's definitely not better than Auba and it's still a bit awkward to have both of them on the pitch, even if Arteta has managed it mostly well. He's also going through "bad form" at age 28 which is...not good. Lemar is a player who we bid 90m for in one of Wenger's last seasons which suggests even a straight swap would be decent value for us.
Some argue that Lemar is more of a CM or AM than a wing but he has played wing going back to his time at Monaco and is more of a natural LW than PEA. The logic behind the deal would be moving a 28yo out of form ST for a 24yo AM/winger that has struggled to find his form playing in a very defensively oriented scheme. This would allow you to move PEA back to ST and balance the attacking formation.
Gives us more tactical flexibility too. Right now we only get width on the left through LB. With a real LWer you can switch it up and even invert the LB like we've been doing on the right. Also, if he is a more central AM, he could be a good backup for Ozil/ideal replacement for him in the next few years
Agreed. My only mild concern with a Laca for Lemar swap would be our lack of ST depth. Currently you are basically left with Martinelli as your only backup. That could be a good thing though as it essentially forces him to grow up faster and take a larger role if/when PEA is sold in the summer. As you said, if he is indeed a better fit centrally, you would already have your built in Ozil replacement on the roster.
It's probably already a foregone conclusion that he's gone on loan but you could keep Nketiah for the next six months
Yeah Medley will just become Mavropanos and he won’t get any game time, either. If Mustafi goes it will be because we have a replacement in, but until that happens I don’t think we should do anything here until summer unless a magical long term solution falls into our laps.
I agree Aubameyang should play central that's his natural and most dangerous position and we do need a LW that's a very big need. This is assuming Aubameyang stays and taking him at his word. I think oddly enough Laca would do better sans Aubameyang but if we had to pick one and offload the other Laca is obviously the odd Man out.
Laca has a longer contract ('22 vs '21) but I think there is a good chance that both would be sold this summer regardless. If one is gonna go now it probably makes more sense for it to be Laca unless you can get an amazing deal for PEA.
If both are gone were relegation fodder mate. We would need top quality Forwards with plenty of experience and goal scoring production in their respective leagues to replace that loss. Because I like Martinelli but he isn't on their level at all yet.
Somewhat related to transfers... Looks like the richest Nigerian (Aliko Dangote) is expressing a desire to purchase Arsenal again.
I do not want stones at all not quick enough and a dangerous passer who doesn’t see danger pep dropped him for a reason