All the talk around Arsenal’s transfer plans continues to focus on the midfield, even though there are established needs elsewhere. The focus in the January transfer window was also here and led to numerous sizeable but unsuccessful bids for Moises Caicedo.
Declan Rice is the priority for the summer window, football.london understands. However, there’s a new dynamic emerging with the potential for Granit Xhaka to leave the club. The latest reports from The Mirror, with further reiteration from Germany, is that Bayer Leverkusen want to sign the Swiss international who has a year, with an option to extend by a further season, remaining on his contract.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has relied upon Xhaka for much of this season in the left-eight role. However, with the potential to add Rice and even perhaps another centre-mid, Xhaka could find minutes severely lessened as a result.
READ MORE: Arsenal must learn transfer lessons as £120m Declan Rice challenge nears for Edu Gaspar
However, with Arsenal moving into the Champions League next season for the first time in six years, the need for strength in depth and mastering rotation will come far more into play. There’s often an obsession amongst fans with the idea of replacing a player in the squad with someone better.
On paper, this sounds great. Imagine replacing say Xhaka with Rice for example?
Sounds great, until Rice is unavailable. Then you’re looking down at the options in your plan Bs, Cs or in the case of Arsenal’s right centre-half scenario, plan Ds.
That is why we need to move on from replacing players and instead move to upgrade through reinforcement. Bring in Rice, or Caicedo, or Martin Zubimendi, another midfielder who has been linked with a switch to north London, but keep Xhaka.
Do not allow Bayer Leverkusen to come in and snatch the player for a low-level double-digit fee. What’s certain is no player at the price Xhaka will be sold at will be brought in and be as good.
Xhaka should be upgraded upon but not replaced. Arsenal need to build a competitive squad.
When Manchester City signed Rodri, did Fernandinho leave? No, there was a crossover period before eventually, he did and then Pep Guardiola invested in another Premier League-level competitor, Kalvin Phillips.
The model works, and City’s Premier League title record stands as evidence of this. Arsenal, should they hope to stay with their title rivals in seasons to come, need to operate with the same approach.
The only way to allow Xhaka to leave and not fall into the trap would be to double the recruitment. Therefore it would need to be Rice plus another; this is the way around the issue but it will be a very costly one and Arsenal would hope it would not interfere with needs in other areas.
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