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Arsenal raiding London rivals to sign this 22-year-old defensive beast for £60m is the need of the hour for Emery

Arsenal opinion: Arsenal should sign Issa Diop

According to a report in the Sun, Arsenal have been quoted a price of £60million for the services of West Ham’s 22-year-old centre-back Issa Diop. Arsenal have been busy in the last couple of weeks in the transfer window after securing the services of William Saliba from St.Etienne, who will be heading back to continue his development.

The Gunners have got Dani Ceballos on a year-long loan and made the marquee signing of Nicolas Pepe of Lille. Arsenal are finally showing some ambition in the market after a few seasons and there seems to be a real change in approach.

Diop was one of the best signings of last season. The Frenchman was utterly dominant as he was winning tackles, headers and using his fantastic recovery pace to win most of his defensive duels. Diop was being shown a lot of interest by Manchester United a little earlier in the transfer window.

Issa Diop

Diop is clearly highly-rated and there’s no doubt that he’d immediately make it into most of the top-six squads. Arsenal have been in desperate need of defensive reinforcements for a long time now. They have always had fantastic attacking talent but another season with a leaky defence might end up being very costly.

Laurent Koscielny is likely to leave after conflicts with the club and Rob Holding is still nursing an injury, which leaves them with Shkodran Mustafi, who has not had the best of times at the Emirates.

Arsenal will be hoping to secure a top-four finish at least with the investments they’ve made.

Last season, they came awfully close to achieving both but fell just short. Small margins make a massive difference. Diop could end up being one of those margins.

He would have to partner Sokratis Papastathopulus, who was Arsenal’s best defender last season and there’s every chance that the two of them could lead them for the next 18 months.

Unai Emery
Unai Emery

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Arsenal had a fantastic home record and if they can manage to have a better record away from home, the sky is the limit. They’ll be feeling very positive after the buzz of recent transfers and getting Diop would complete their team.