Arsenal Must Spend This Summer’s Money On Youth

Arsenal’s fellow title challengers have worked over the past two years to buy young talent for their future sides, and the Gunners cannot get complacent.

This summer, as usual, Arsenal has been linked with a multitude of world-class players. More often than not the price tag has been alarmingly high, as fans have most recently seen with Olympique Lyonnais’s in-demand forward Alexandre Lacazette.

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The backroom staff at Lyon have released a statement saying they won’t accept anything lower than a massive €52m (£43.5m) for the proven goal scorer – albeit proven in Ligue 1, arguably the weakest in terms of talent among Europe’s top five domestic competitions.

Lacazette has a goal scoring record of more than one goal every two games in his past two seasons with L’OL, but £43.5m for a player that is chased by Arsenal, West Ham and Tottenham alone seems like an overspend when Arsenal don’t seem prepared to offload any of their own talent.

Or turn current first-choice forward Olivier Giroud into their second choice, for that matter.

Another player currently on the radar of Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is Inter’s Mauro Icardi, who has been put up for sale by his club, according to Calciomercato.com.

Allegedly, Icardi will also cost any Premier League club upwards of €35m (£29m). Considering his one-in-two scoring record in Serie A during one of the Italian top division’s low points, that seems like a huge price tag for a player that may not prove to be any better than Arsenal’s current first-team forward Olivier Giroud.

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Excluding Hector Bellerin, who is playing his second full season, this upcoming Premier League season will be Arsenal’s third year playing together, as the newest star player Mesut Ozil will now be playing his third campaign with the Gunners.

The majority of Arsenal’s key players are aged 27 and over, and some of them are approaching the end of their careers’ stages where they can compete for a Premier League title. (Per Mertesacker, Petr Cech and possibly Nacho Monreal)

This team – and particularly its stars – need to step up to another level if they want to win a Premier League title. Fans have expected, for two years in a row, for Arsenal to challenge for the league title like their team did eleven seasons ago, and perhaps this team needs to be given one more chance to give their all at a championship.

In a year or two, players like Per Mertesacker, Theo Walcott and Nacho Monreal might not be anywhere Premier League winning sides. Arsene Wenger is clearly intent on giving them that chance. Therefore, if the money is going to be spent on more than just Monchengladbach midfielder Granit Xhaka, it has to be on youth.

Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool have all been investing in their future sides across the past two seasons.

Divock Origi, Kenedy, Bertrand Traore, Kelechi Iheanacho and Anthony Martial have all made their impact for their teams as young attacking players. Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi has been their star youngster. But he only made his first appearance in March 2016.

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Manchester City are reportedly in for highly-rated Atletico Madrid defender Lucas Hernandez and Atletico Nacional winger Marlos Moreno. That only goes to show Pep Guardiola’s intent on making them a team that can challenge for years to come.

Arsenal must match this intent. Signing one star player every summer only works if there is an end product, and if there’s not the already existing pieces – Walcott, Ramsey, Giroud, Koscielny – will become no more than average players.

“Wonderkids”, such as Breel Embolo and Renato Sanches have already been moving to big leagues this summer. Arsenal have to go out and spend the cash working to inject some new youth into their side.

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Not only will it challenge the existing players to step up, but it will provide a fallback plan for when, for example, Olivier Giroud is past 30 and unable to do what he did when he joined the Emirates from Montpellier.