New reports in Europe have confirmed that Arsenal are in the loop to tie up Atletico Madrid midfielder Saul Niguez. Wenger’s men are without a decent holding midfielder after letting go of Francis Coquelin to Valencia in January.
The Gunners currently have an armoury of midfielders in Jack Wilshere, Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey, Mohamed Elneny and young Joe Willock. While almost none of the players have been able to make the news on a regular basis for Arsenal this season, the football played by them has not been so bad.
Their ace in the pack, Jack Wilshere has finally shown patches of his true abilities and Arsene Wenger is slowly but surely bringing back his star midfielder into the rigours of his first team. Should his progress continue without any further injuries, he will become a key member of the club. The situation for Xhaka is perhaps slightly confounding as the Swiss man is an absolute quality player on some days but a complete failure elsewhere. A lot more discipline to his style of play will perhaps curb his natural flair but definitely, see Xhaka play better overall and earn the right to don the Gunners jersey for seasons to come. Aaron Ramsey is definitely going to stay at the club as he still churns out impressive performances here and there and has a knack of scoring important goals for the club.
As for their final option, at just 18 years old, Joe Willock, the Arsenal academy graduate has experienced European football on Europa League. He is a smart player with a calm head and has a good passing range and precision. His willowy style of play means that he also has the knack of dribbling past opposition players right in the middle of the park like Jack Wilshere and Arsenal might have a future star in their team in Willock.
This would mean that while the team has good players, there is no certain midfield star to take the game to the opposition. While Arsenal have excellent attackers in Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, their midfield also needs to not only hold but validate itself in a match for their attackers to express themselves freely.
This is where the move for Niguez comes in handy. The Spanish player is a good dribbler, has an excellent passing range, can tackle and mark in the midfield and most importantly is a roughed up man having trained under Simeone for years. He will add both steel and guile to the Arsenal midfield and alongside Jack Wilshere, he will form a dangerous midfield axis for the Gunners.
