Arsenal’s lack of defensive personnel is clear for all to see at the moment. Whilst Arsene Wenger brought in players like Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck during the summer, he left his back-four seriously short of quality options.
Given that both Thomas Vermaelen and Bacary Sagna moved on in the summer, Arsenal needed to do more than bring in Calum Chambers (a 19-year-old right back/utility man) and Mathieu Debuchy (who is, of course, injured).
Arsenal only have two proper centre-backs. God forbid that either Laurent Koscielny or Per Mertesacker pick up an injury. The Gunners season really would come undone if that were to happen.
It’s still some time away, but I’m sure that Arsene Wenger can’t wait to crank the January transfer window open, reach in and grab up some defensive talent. Let’s just hope that The Gunners aren’t out of the running in all the major competitions by this stage.
The January transfer window isn’t usually a good place to snap up the very best players and yet The Metro claims that Arsenal are ‘ready to open talks’ with Borussia Dortmund regarding a deal to sign their star centre-back, Mats Hummels. If this claim is true, it’s very exciting news indeed.
The World Cup winning German centre-back is one of the best defenders in world football. He’s made 227 appearances for Dortmund and has established himself as a tough tackler who’s completely dominant in the air and positions himself well. This combined with his distribution from the back makes him a real asset for the Bundesliga side. If he was a bit pacier, he’d be the complete package.
Still, Dortmund won’t be willing to let him go without a fight. The player himself doesn’t seem too keen to move on (check out his recent interviews for evidence of this) and the German side has no compelling reason to sell. Arsenal are going to have to spend a lot of cash to push this deal over the line.
Making it happen would be a sign of Arsenal’s ambition. Failure to bring in defensive personnel this January would probably function as admitting defeat.
What’s your take? Can Arsenal really compete for Mats Hummels?
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When will these sites stop running video with sound enabled?
For crying out loud, set the default to mute and do us all a favour! I clicked to read the article not listen to some wannabe sports reporter