GoonerKent

Renato Sanches Szn

Arsenal’s astonishing form to this point in the 2021/2022 season has caused Arsenal fans to salivate on the possible transfers that could take us closer to the likes of City, Liverpool, and Chelsea. When going through our current starting XI going into next season, the two glaring improvements we need to make is at the striker position which I have wrote numerous blogs on potential replacements but also on the Thomas Partey partner in the center of the pitch. That role is filled with Granit Xhaka currently with Sambi-Lokanga as the immediate replacement coming off the bench. Granit Xhaka has been fine this season and has brought a stability that comes with someone that has the experience he does however when you play with Xhaka, you must deal with Xhaka tax. The Xhaka tax comes in many shapes and sizes, most of it being with untimely red cards and decisions that have cost us countless points over the years.

With all that being said, Thomas Partey has been exceptional for us as of late and will need an improved partner in midfield to take us closer to where we want to be in the Premier League table. My number 1 target to fill that role and to replace Xhaka would be in the shape of a 5 ft. 9in. 24-year-old Portuguese right-footed CM who plays for Lille ( I am aware he had to come out due to a muscle strain against Saint-Etienne yesterday) (I am also aware that Milan and Maldini have claimed his services after this season but I am going to still write his blog regardless in hopes Edu can work his magic). Renato Sanches is everything I love in a modern day “8”. A player who is dynamic, press-resistant, athletic, but also possesses the ability to combine with teammates while covering every blade of grass on the pitch. I don’t feel like I am asking for much haha. Renato covers all those requirements while still very young which matches up with the young core Arsenal are trying to build. Even though he hasn’t reached his full potential that we all projected after the 2016 Euros with Bayern signing him up before the Euros that year, his performances with Portugal at the past Euros and Lille have brought back all the hype. Let me go into what Arsenal but probably Milan can expect to see from Renato Sanches coming into next season.

PRESS RESISTANT: I went into this same characteristic in the Thomas Partey blog but I am just obsessed with this ability. Being able to dribble or pass out of the press in the midfield areas is such an underrated characteristic that gives teams a massive advantage if able to find players who can do it. Renato Sanches does this for fun, dribbling himself out of pressure, bouncing off of defenders, using his athleticism to get past plffayers is something Arsenal can use from midfield. Martin Ødegaard isn’t as dynamic in those areas and Sambi hasn’t shown that ability in an Arsenal shirt yet. Having a player who can get the offense started from a deep midfield position from someone that is not Thomas Partey will be crucial going into next season as smart teams next season will man mark Thomas Partey out of games when we are in possession.

The poise in these areas is something most teams don’t expect and can open opportunities and mismatches going forward.

Arsenal letting me down off the pitch

Just fucking shit. Edu Gaspar and Mikel Arteta have become masters at letting go of our dead weight for almost no return value and just refuse to get the requisite players into the club when we need them. Somehow we have pleasantly found ourselves in a position pushing for a Top 4 place this season. And in typical Arsenal fashion, the only business we did was finding ourselves an American center defender from the Kroenke owned Colorado Avalanche who might not ever make an appearance for the club. You can’t make this shit up. We let Auba, Kolasinac, AMN, Chambers, Flo Balogun, Pablo Mari, all go and brought in no replacements or enhancements to the squad for this season. In principle, letting all those players go out is fine cause none of them were influential to our season up to this point but not signing ANYBODY that can help us this season is just incompetence and negligence of the highest order. In a world where I took over Arsenal, I’d have built a time machine and fire Arteta in 2019 when we lost to Leicester last season at home, but if I took it over now, I’d give him the end of the season to make top 4 to save his job and then fire him if he didn’t. That will not happen of course cause the Kroenkes for some reason have some ridicilous amount of loyalty to a guy who accomplished much less than Unai Emery who did way more for the club in half the time.

I’d go to Barcelona too

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang “Auba” is kind of a legend. He is in no way a club legend but he I think can be described a legend of life by finessing a move to Barcelona after basically not playing competitive football since December. He got into a disagreement with Arteta which has left him out of the Arsenal XI for over a month and has now turned that into a 3.5 year deal with Barcelona. What finesse by the Gabonese International. Now FC Barcelona are going through their own issues at the moment but to play under Xavi and play alongside Pedri, Ansu Fati, Busquets etc. is not a terrible proposition.

Now Auba’s time at the club never fully convinced me, I was always in the camp where he should play out wide with Laca through the middle and there was a technical side to his game that was missing that the world’s best strikers possessed. But at the end of the day, facts are facts, and you can’t take away his prolific goal-scoring record. 92 goals in 165 appearances for the club is as good as it gets with 2 20+ goal scoring seasons in the Premier League in there. He never fully got back to his best after his scare with Malaria last season but regardless, still one of the best strikers in our club’s history despite the lack of team success during his time in North London. Let’s go into his top 5 moments at the club

Swedish Elegance: Alexander Isak

Like I mentioned in my earlier blogs, I knew Arsenal was going to do me dirty and fall short on transfers as it pertained to strikers, Vlahović off to Juventus, and DCL staying in Everton. Arsenal is probably not going to trigger the release clause to get Alexander Isak but regardless he should be our next realistic target to lead our line going into next season. Isak first came to my attention when he joined Dortmund but failed to make an impression in Germany. Alexander Isak broke out with Real Sociedad in 2019 leading the lines with Oyarzabal and Ødegaard behind him with his performance at the Euros last summer being his breakout moment to the world. His performance against Spain in the Euros was one of the most complete performances I have seen from a forward with a goal-line clearance being the sole deterrent from an otherwise immaculate performance. Isak has 16 and 17 goals in all comps in the last two seasons but the goals only tell a small portion of what makes him so special. Let’s go into what makes Alexander Isak a necessity for Arsenal and why we need to not mess this up and get this done:

SWEDISH ELEGANCE: BALANCE & BODY CONTROL: When watching Alexander Isak, you’ll first notice his physical stature or lack thereof. He doesn’t have that imposing stature like that of a Lukaku or Osimhen when looking at a center forward/striker. He doesn’t have that break-neck pace like that of a prime Gareth Bale. But what he does lack in physical appearance he more than makes up for is his technique and body control. What makes Isak such a beautiful footballer to watch is how he is able to get himself away from defenders and physical confrontations through his technical skills/touches on the ball and his balance. What defenders like to do especially at the highest level is to use their physicality to throw attackers off, with Isak, once you try to get your hands on him, all it takes is one stop-go and he’s past you like the examples below:

Isak finds himself isolated in between 3 Spanish defenders in the Euros.

DCL: Apex Predator

Dominic Calvert-Lewin (“DCL”), my word what an athletic specimen. Arsenal have been loosely linked with the English striker for quite some time now as a replacement for Auba/Laca but with Everton fighting relegation at this point, I find it very hard for them to give up on their talismanic striker up top but let me hurt myself again and dive into what makes DCL such a wanted man in North London. DCL broke into Everton 5 years ago but turned into a star in the 20/21 season. Just header after header, tap-in after tap-in, he turned into one of the league’s lethal strikers last seasons with over 21 goals in all competitions for Everton. The thought of DCL being the our striker up top for Ødegaard, Gabi, Saka and ESR is something I’m desperate for but would mean Arteta would have to switch these things up going forward in how he uses the striker. Future Mikel can worry about that later but we first need to nab this guy up as we inevitably will miss out on Vlahović. Let me go into what we can expect out of DCL if for some miracle he finds himself at the Emirates:

APEX PREDATOR IN THE BOX (Heading): Immediately when you watch DCL up top, the first thing you always notice is his aerial prowess. Standing at 6 ft 2in, what DCL does better than just about every forward in the world may be outside of Lewandowski and Cristiano is time the jumps on his headers to allow himself to meet the ball at the peak of his jump. When a striker is able to master this skill with of course an exceptional amount of athleticism (like if I did this well, it wouldn’t mean jack shit), it doesn’t matter what defender is covering you, if the cross is played in well enough, the striker will get clean contact with the ball. Absolutely nothing a defender can do in these type of situations. DCL scored 16 league goals last season with 7 of them coming from his head, let’s go into some examples of his aerial prowess starting off his goal in the Merseyside Derby:

DCL sees a cross from Digne over on the left and gauges when to time his jump.

The Serbian RVP?

The Dušan Vlahović blog. If I am being honest, I admire Arsenal’s pursuits of trying to get this Vlahović’s deal over the line this winter transfer window with the Violas but don’t see it happening unfortunately. Fiorentina would probably want nothing more in getting the most value they can out of selling Dušan ASAP. However Vlahović and his team have no rush to get this deal done with 18 months left on his contract and I’d imagine they are weighing up all their options especially with clubs that are also interested in his services that can offer higher wages than Arsenal not to mention European football. This seems like a deal that will hinge on Vlahović’s representatives and the fat fee they can get representing Dušan in this deal.

Dušan’s stat line this season: 17/4 G/A in in 21 apps in Serie A, 3 goals in 3 apps in Coppa Italia.

If for some reason, Arteta works his magic with Vlahović’s team can get this deal done, these are the things we can expect with this Serbian beauty (I also know that he will probably end up at Juventus and none of this will matter but it is important that I have enough self-awareness to realize that, I can’t be hurt) :

WAND OF A LEFT FOOT – (I am going to go into left-footed player stereotpyes and would like it known that Messi is the exception). This might just be me but when I think of successful left-footed players in football, I think of one-legged human beings who only use their right foot for running. When I think of professional left-footed footballers, I think of players who have unreal quality coming from their left and that is only cause God is overcompensating for their lack of usefulness in their right foot. This is also why I go into minor panic attacks when Lucho uses two left-footed center backs in Laporte and Pau Torres for Spain. But that is besides the point, Dušan Vlahović is no exception when it comes to his wand of a left foot. Over his past two seasons with Fiorentina, he’s shown numerous examples of him opening his body to place his shots as well as putting his laces through the ball to generate power. All the above with minimal backlift. This quality of his left foot can be displayed in this final goal of his hat-trick against Benevento last season: