Arsenal Have Nothing To Gain From Dimitri Payet Breakdown

Arsenal are reportedly linked to West Ham play-maker Dimitri Payet with his recent contract negotiation breakdowns, but what would the Gunners do with him?

Arsenal have their fair share of creative attacking midfielders. Namely, they have this guy named Mesut Ozil who is the greatest creator in England and one of the best in Europe. They also have Aaron Ramsey and Alexis Sanchez, not to mention Santi Cazorla when he returns to fitness.

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By that token, it is a bit confusing why the Metro is tying Dimitri Payet’s recent contract negotiation breakdown to Arsenal. According to the report, Payet’s agent has demanded that his client be paid £125,000 a week. This would be a considerable raise over his current £65,000. It would also be just £15,000 under Mesut Ozil’s current wages and just £5,000 under Alexis Sanchez’s.

West Ham is apparently rather unhappy with this development, calling such demands “unheard of”.

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Somehow, this comes back to Arsenal. Apparently everyone who is French and/or a creative midfielder would be a great fit at the Emirates, yet the Gunners would stand to gain little from this potential move. For starters, if West Ham are unwilling to pay the wages, what exactly says that Arsenal would? Why would Arsenal fork out that much money for someone that they already have? It makes no sense and it would be very unlike Arsene Wenger.

While Slaven Bilic may be of the opinion that Payet is every bit as good as Ozil, he apparently does not want to back his words up with his wallet. Being paid less than half of what Ozil makes is going to prompt a guy that you compared to Ozil to want to be paid as much as Ozil. It’s natural. Especially with the all-telling stat that West Ham win 50% of the time with Payet but 14% of the time without.

Any move for Payet would cost Arsenal gobs of money. As we know, Arsene Wenger is not too keen on dropping a load of cash on one player, particularly one he does not need.

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We are well aware of how good Payet has been. Working around his extended injury layoff, the Frenchman has scored six goals and assisted on four. But again, the bulk of that production is coming from a central position, something Arsenal have covered ten times over.

The only potential use Arsenal could have for Payet is if they put him on the left and move Alexis over to the right. That would provide an unbelievable creative force between Payet, Ozil, Alexis and Ramsey. But Again, is it needed? Absolutely not. Wenger still has a ton of faith in the Ox and Walcott and he needs an avenue to fall back on for Welbeck. Plus, Payet may have most of his appearances from the left, but he has only managed one goal and one assist from out wide.

Not only that, but Payet is 28 years old, so we cannot pull the whole ‘potential’ card. This is as good as he is going to be. Which is very good, it’s just not a skill set Arsenal is in need of.

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Another creative talent always seems to have Arsenal written all over it, particularly a French one, but Arsenal may be on creative overload. They do not have any problems creating chances, as we saw against Southampton. They can just have trouble putting them away from time to time.