Sven Mislintat is looking for a long-term replacement for Nacho Monreal as one of four positions he wants to strengthen this summer, so let’s look at who he could sign.
We recently covered reports of the four areas Arsenal’s new head of recruitment wants to strengthen over the summer, which you can check out here.
One of these areas was at left-back, as it becomes more apparent Nacho Monreal is struggling with the physical demands of the position, and Sead Kolašinac slowly adapts to Premier League life.
In this case Arsenal are looking for someone to support and eventually take over from the club’s current options.
Here are some players they should consider:
2Faouzi Ghoulam
- Age: 27
- Current club: Napoli
- Contract until: 2022
- Market value: £22.5m
Faouzi Ghoulam is a bit older, and probably a bit more expensive, but he’s an option to come in and immediately replace Monreal in the first team, taking the pressure off Kolašinac.
The media linked the Algerian left-back with Arsenal a lot last year, before the club eventually signed the Bosnian instead.
Then, last month, the Italian media reported that the main reason behind Napoli extending Ghoulam’s contract to 2022 was that they’d heard of interest from Arsenal. They were trying to “avoid any surprises” in the January window.
His new deal has a €35m (£31m) release clause, which still isn’t a crazy amount to pay in today’s market.
When available, Ghoulam has shown a lot of quality, and helped Napoli to 10 wins in 11 matches at the start of the league season. The only thing holding Arsenal back would be his current injury problems, as he’s yet to return from his cruciate ligament rupture in November.
We’ll see how he recovers over the coming months.