It should come as no real surprise with the news that Arsenal are in the market for a new centre back. They might have signed Gabriel in January, but they still need a couple of reinforcements for an ageing central defence. Per Mertesacker might be on his way out of the club and Calum Chambers still needs time to adapt and find his actual role at the club.
The news that Arsenal fans might not want to hear is about the replacement that they have lined up, reports coming in say that Arsenal are set to make a move for defender Chris Smalling, yes the same player who Arsene missed out on so many years ago, could be making his move to Arsenal and this is a move which won’t go down well with fans but it doesn’t really make sense from a footballing aspect either.
Is it Arsenal’s new policy to buy United players?
Arsenal might be thinking of continuing to take revenge on Manchester United for the way they lost Van Persie to the Red Devils, but this will never be a popular decision by the Gunners faithful. Arsenal might have signed Danny Welbeck and just about survived, but that does not mean they can keep on signing Manchester United rejects and do well.
Apart from Smalling not being the best option at Manchester United, he would not even fit the Arsenal way of playing. Chris Smalling might be a defender short of confidence, but he has never shown the top ability that everyone expected of him when he joined United from Fulham a few years ago.
Even with his on and off ability on the pitch, his game is not really suited to Arsenal’s expectations of a centre back being able to play the ball, sure he might be faster than the current central defensive pairing of Mertesacker and Koscielny but he does not have the passing ability that Arsenal need in a defender. Smalling also does have a problem of switching off and while Jones and Evans still do put in a top performance in a couple of games, Smalling still has not been able to do that this season and simply buying him for the sake of buying English is not the right way to go for Arsenal.
They might have just about survived with the signing of Welbeck, who has not hit the high marks which were expected from him but the signing of Smalling would only be a flaw in an otherwise decent couple of transfer windows for the Gunners.