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:
4Luke Shaw
- Age: 22
- Current club: Manchester United
- Contract until: 2018
- Market value: £13.5m
Shaw continues to struggle for any sort of consistent game time at Manchester United under Jose Mourinho. This season he is only up to seven Premier League appearances, just three more than his total for the u23s.
Around the turn of the year, it seemed like things were finally looking up, with four consecutive starts. Since then he’s started once in seven matches.
The full-back’s contract expires at the end of the season, although he is reportedly preparing for talks to extend it. Also, United often put in an option to extend their players’ contracts by a year, so they could activate that to buy themselves some time. We saw that with Juan Mata in January, who was in the same situation.
Nonetheless, if talks stall, Arsenal could take the opportunity to pounce. They apparently made an enquiry in January, and are monitoring the contract situation.
If the club could unlock the promise Shaw showed when he first broke through with Southampton, he could be a great buy.