Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger seems to love splurging on creative talents – show him a top attacking midfielder and he goes weak at the knees – but he is far more apprehensive about spending big money on defenders and destroyers.
And when we look back on his career, this might be identified as his major failing. We applaud his love of the beautiful game but fans of the club would love to see some serious silverware too.
So it’s rather dismaying to see another average defender being linked again this week. The Telegraph writes:
Arsenal are being linked with a move for Roma’s Kostas Manolas, with Arsene Wenger understood to have made tentative enquiries over the defender.
The 24 year old is a decent defender who has played 20 times for Greece. He moved form his home country last year to play in Italy and had a good season at Roma with 30 league appearances.
But making the leap from Italy to England may be his undoing. At very least he would take time to adapt to the pace of the game and Arsenal could use someone to step into the breach in defence sooner rather than later.
With Per Metersacker on the wane the hope is that Gabriel Paulista can step up this season but we are yet to see empirical evidence of his suitability.
We would rather Wenger went out and bought a top centre back. A beast who will scare the opponent just by looking at them.
But, we rather suspect Arsenal will continue evolve their defence on the cheap.
Let’s see Manolas in action. Arsenal fans: keen?
