Arsenal Must Maintain Composure In William Carvalho Pursuit

Arsenal are in the market for a defensive midfielder and while overpaying for a star is acceptable, overpaying for William Carvalho simply is not.

There are a bunch of players out there that I think Arsenal should potentially overspend for. Grzegorz Krychowiak, Granit Xhaka and Lars Bender. All three of these guys are worth whatever the asking price is. Pay up to £50 million on one of these guys, it would still serve the most important purpose – driving Arsenal to glory. Arsenal is quite literally desperate for a defensive midfielder.

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But desperation does not mean that everyone should be overpaid for. William Carvalho may very well be a future star. He could be a fantastic talent. He could be the next Patrick Vieira for all we know, but the odds are incredibly slim. Currently, the Metro is reporting that Carvalho can be bought for his release clause. Which totals £35 million.

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Nope. No way. No how.

William Carvalho is not worth £35 million. Sporting CP reportedly received a bid from Arsenal over the summer in the region of £23 million but they turned it down. They then did an aboutface, again, according to reports, and wanted to accept the expired offer. Whatever parts of that are true are up for interpretation but one thing we can be sure of is that £35 million is way too much.

Carvalho is unproven. He has shown plenty of flashes of potential but he has shown just as many flashes of immaturity. At 23 years of age, he needs to be showing a lot more in Portugal in order to be worth a release clause equal to Krychowiak’s.

Carvalho has spent the majority of the year injured and is just now getting back into first team play. By that standard, he is still getting re-acclimated to first-team play.

Luckily for us, Arsene Wenger is not one to lose his head and send a massive paycheck to Carvalho’s doorstep asking for his services (that’s how it works right?). He’s not Louis van Gaal. Wenger knows what Carvalho is worth and if he cannot get him at a fair price he won’t have him at all.

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The problem with that is that Wenger knows what he thinks a fair price for Krychowiak, Xhaka and Bender is too. And unfortunately if he cannot get a fair price for them he will not buy them either. It’s a double-edged sword.

Whatever the case, January will be interesting. A loan would be a stopgap option, but surely Wenger would prefer a long term solution to a long term problem. Carvalho could very well be that answer but the price cannot be so ridiculous.