The widespread rumour of a £45m transfer kitty tricked all of us as Arsenal, despite missing out on a Champions League berth, invested way more than £100m on new signings to bolster the squad. But the Gunners’ remarkable summer witnessed a thrilling conclusion when they offloaded Alex Iwobi to Everton late on the deadline day and made an enormous financial profit that could potentially rise to £35m, according to the Evening Standard.
Everton and Arsenal were rivalling each other briefly for the services of Wilfried Zaha. Arsenal cooled down their interest following the mega-money swoop for Nicolas Pepe. The Toffees, in a desperate hunt for a wide attacker, opted to switch their sights on Iwobi when an intriguing offer of £70m plus James McCarthy and Cenk Tosun (as revealed by the Guardian) was rejected by Crystal Palace.
This is indeed a blessing in disguise for the North Londoners who could now be frontrunners to rope in the wantaway winger in January. Although Iwobi exhibited steady improvement over the past couple of campaigns, his inconsistency has been a worrying sign. Truthfully, the homegrown prodigy failed to register a regular role despite ample opportunities. He has not done enough to earn Unai Emery’s trust, and therefore, is no more a part of the battle to reclaim their elite status.
Yet we believe the club should not invest again on an attacker and instead concentrate on tying down a prolific centre-back who is young and established. They have replaced Laurent Koscielny with David Luiz, and the flamboyant Brazilian might work out as a short-fix in deep defence that conceded 51 league goals last season. His Premier League experience and leadership traits would uplift the spirit, but the frailty at the back might still be there if we recall Luiz’s Chelsea stints.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Nacho Monreal are on the wrong side of 30 whereas Shkodran Mustafi has failed miserably having undergone an array of erroneous outings. Youngster Konstantinos Mavropanos has had too many injuries already and Rob Holding, though highly promising and impressive whenever called into action, had his fitness woes as well in the recent past.
Emery, on the other hand, has an exciting attacking third consisting of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Nicolas Pepe and Alexandre Lacazette. The exit of Iwobi should see teenager Reiss Nelson earning his chances after impressing on loan at Hoffenheim. Gabriel Martinelli had a productive pre-season whereas the experience of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil would be key in close contests.
Zaha is arguably one of the best attackers in the league but, at this point of time, Arsenal must focus solely on rebuilding the backline. Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin would inject pace, flair and youthfulness from the wide, but the Gunners require their own version of Virgil van Dijk, Aymeric Laporte or Toby Alderweireld to close the gap and claim silverware.
