The January transfer window will close Monday, and while Arsenal have added a central defender and a prospect for the future, they’ve still neglected signing a great defensive midfielder which could make them improve vastly.
According to Rory Smith’s ESPN FC article from last September, “Arsene Wenger’s scouting team met in the aftermath of the FA Cup final victory. The Frenchman informed them the club was in the market for a defensive midfielder. That was top of the list. Everything else could come later. The list of qualities was tightly defined: tall, imposing, combative, tactically intelligent. The only question mark centered on how important it was that any potential target be able to match his new teammates technically. Some of those Wenger solicited felt it was key that there should be no interruption to the side’s smooth running; others believed they could sacrifice a little bit of ability for the physicality they had so sorely lacked at times last season.”
Obviously the team didn’t sign a defensive midfielder and instead have depended on captain Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini who are both well past their prime and have suffered some injury issues as well. Francis Coquelin has come in and done an admirable job especially in the 2-0 win over Manchester City but these players lack the quality that Wenger and his scouting team were seeking in the summer.
In a Sky Sports documentary to commemorate Wenger’s 1,000 games leading the Gunners, former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein said “Arsene is a football, I repeat, a football purist. He’s got a lovely phrase he calls it ‘possession with progression.’ He loves to have possession. If you’re watching any game you will see at any one point the boys will have 20, 25 passes before the opposition can actually get the ball. Because he believes in control and pass, control and pass so that the opposition have to wear themselves out, they’re chasing the game. And that’s why invariably in most games, Arsenal have more possession than the opposition.”
For a team that has a possession philosophy, you would think that they would understand the importance of a holding midfielder more than other sides but Arsenal have yet to fill that void in the team. Around Europe, the best teams have multiple players that play the defensive midfield role at a high level. Barcelona’s got Sergio Busquets and Javier Mascherano, Bayern Munich have Xabi Alonso, Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger, Chelsea have Nemanja Matic, Juventus have Claudio Marchisio, Manchester City have Fernando and Fernandinho and Real Madrid have Sami Khedira and Toni Kroos.
The North London based club had another shot of correcting their previous error but they have not done it. The Gunners did sign defender Gabriel Paulista from La Liga side Villarreal and 17-year-old Krystian Bielik. The youngster actually is a defensive midfielder but obviously he’s not ready to contribute at a high level due to the lack of first-team football he’s experienced. The top candidates for Arsenal during the summer and earlier parts of this month were Khedira since he’s in the last six months of his contract, Sporting Lisbon’s William Carvalho and Southampton’s Morgan Schneiderlin.
Carvalho and Schneiderlin will cost the most and Arsenal will have heavy competition in signing them. Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Manchester United are rumored to want Khedira’s services but they cannot guarantee the playing time that the Gunners can. Arsenal may regret not signing someone at that pivotal position because they can’t progress as a team without it and they face more competition for the Champions League spots this season.
