When Arsenal tied Arsene Wenger down to another two-year extension at the end of last season, fans thought the decision pretty weird considering the state of the club, but little did we know this was only the beginning.
Not signing a first team defender in January
This leads me onto something else weird that happened in the summer and still hasn’t been addressed at any stage this season.
Arsenal sold Gabriel to Valencia for around £10m but then didn’t replace him. This wasn’t a player who had been out on loan – he was a squad player that Arsenal desperately needed since Laurent Koscielny’s Achilles is causing him more trouble by the season.
Arsenal’s defending has been nothing short of shambolic ever since. Not because Gabriel was secretly the glue holding Arsenal together or anything, but because whenever one of Shkodran Mustafi or Kos are sidelined, Rob Holding or Calum Chambers have to step in. While Chambers is improving with game time, neither appear to actually be ready to defend in the Premier League.
Therefore, you would think that Arsenal would sign a centre-back in January.
Sure, they signed Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina but there was never any implication that the 20-year-old would immediately become a defender for the first team. ‘The Greek boy’ was supposed to go out on loan to Werder Bremen but, due to first team injuries, he ended up staying. Now he’s playing for the reserves, probably until the summer when he will actually get sent out on loan.
So why has a first team, experienced, strong centre-back not been signed?
Arsenal put in a £12m for West Brom’s Jonny Evans on transfer deadline day in January but, since the Baggies are asking for closer to £20m, they knew their bid wouldn’t be accepted.
It wasn’t a genuine offer – it was probably a move to placate the fans, to show that Arsenal were trying to sign a decent defender. Except they didn’t.