Arsenal: Gunners Must Dip Back Into the Market – Squad Holes Evident

Arsenal has made five signings this summer, and all of them are capable of featuring in the first-team.

Arsenal has followed a quick and effective method of dealing with transfers this summer, which is something we rarely saw in the final few years of Wenger’s tenure. They’ve secured five first-team signings, as new manager Unai Emery looks to strengthen his squad ahead of a huge year for the Gunners.

On paper, the Arsenal squad is quite full, with over 30 names in the first-team ready to make an impact. Despite this abundance of names and numbers, many of them simply aren’t first-team quality. The squad is relatively one-dimensional in the attack, and weak at the back. If Arsenal is to have a successful season and challenge for top four and the Europa League, they must dip back into the transfer market to spend what they can to fix the existing holes in the squad.

Centreback core is lacking

Last season, Arsenal were slammed for having a horribly weak back-line which seemed to leak goals to even the lowliest of opposition. The club went out and signed Bernd Leno, who will help out in net, but the signing of Sokratis at centre-back seems to be questionable. Sure, Sokratis brings some much-needed leadership to the squad and wasn’t expensive, but is he truly someone who can take the Arsenal defence to the next level?

It’s hard to believe so. He is simply too similar to Shkodran Mustafi, as he can be comical in his mistakes so often but also turn up with a dominant performance the next week. It’s this uncertainty at centre-back that makes Arsenal the most famously inconsistent side on the planet, and they have no hope of competing with their rivals unless this area is ironed out.

Perhaps Unai Emery and his staff are hoping that Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, and Rob Holding can tap into their potential this coming season, but living off of this hope is a dangerous game for them to play. If the opportunity arises to sign a centre-back in their prime (someone between ages 26 and 29, which Arsenal lack), then Emery must leap at the opportunity, as long as they improve the XI right away.

There’s no real point signing a young centre-back, as Chambers, Holding, and Dinos Mavropanos are at similarly young ages and don’t need more competition. Therefore, signing a ready-made centre-back makes the most sense.