Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Morning all.
A very quick Friday blog for you, because there’s nothing concrete going on, but lots of rumours. First, Mikel Merino is reportedly not in the Real Sociedad squad for their upcoming game, with increasing suggestion this is because he’s closer and closer to a move to Arsenal.
Perhaps, and this is a long-shot, things have accelerated over the last couple of days. Other reports say this is due to injury, but it does seem as if there’s a lot of smoke around the Spanish international, and most likely some fire too. Fabrizio Romano says talks between the clubs are ‘active’, and that the player wants to join, and that’s backed up by some other reports I’ve seen.
So, let’s see what happens. His arrival is certainly an interesting one in that he might redefine what we think Declan Rice’s role might be this season. If we have concerns about the age and the legs of Jorginho and Thomas Partey, they could easily be offset by the fact Rice has said multiple times he thinks his best position is at ‘6’, and that pretty much solves that problem because he’s a very, very good player. If he was the man anchoring our midfield, would anyone really have any complaints?
Merino as the ‘left 8′, with Havertz also an option there, gives us a bit more depth in that position, but the knock-on effect of that is that it leaves Gabriel Jesus as the first choice centre-forward. If he can maintain his pre-season form and sharpness, that’s not exactly a massive problem either, but there is risk given his injury record. Not to mention he can’t play every game, and when the other big rumour of this morning is Eddie Nketiah’s move to Marseille being back on, it means Arsenal need to be active in the forward market too.
I don’t know how much truth there is in this Eddie story, I’ve seen stuff on social media about how he’s been at the Marseille airport, and all I can think of is the lunacy of transfer plane tracking which most of the time turns…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/08/rumour-mill-alight-with-merino-and-nketiah-chat/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-08-09 04:54:41
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