According to The Express, Arsenal are planning a January swoop for wantaway Barcelona man Ousmane Dembélé.
The deal would see the Frenchman team up again with Arsenal’s head of recruitment Sven Mislintat, after the pair were together at German giants Borussia Dortmund.
With the Catalan club seeking to recoup the £135m they paid for the winger in 2017, that would obviously mean The Gunners will need to fork over a huge amount of cash. This will therefore have permutations with regards to FIFA fair play regulations, as the club have spent a considerable amount of money of the past few seasons.
If Arsenal need to be wise in how they spend their money, there are certainly more pressing matters that they need to address, and the main one is their defence. The club have either an ageing defence, or some players that have not quite won over the fans. For example, in the left-back position, Nacho Monreal is now 32 years old, while his rival Sead Kolašinac is persona non grata at The Emirates. But it doesn’t stop there.
While Hector Bellerin has a firm grip on the right-back position, Stephan Lichtsteiner is now 34, and not yet established at the club. Likewise, Laurent Koscielny is now 33, and already has people doubting his future after his achilles injury, and Sokratis Papastathopoulos is now 30. The Gunners are not very far away from being very depleted when it comes to their defence.
In the likes of Rob Holding and Calum Chambers (on loan at Fulham) the club do have young talent in their defence, but there is the feeling that they will need to bolster it more if they are ever going to compete with the likes of Man City and Chelsea.
