Arsenal: Hakan Calhanoglu a rarely seen bargain buy

Arsenal’s need for creative players isn’t at a peak, but if a player like Hakan Calhanoglu is part of a bargain sale, then it’s ridiculous to pass him up.

It seems like Arsenal are exploring every possible avenue to cover for the potential loss of Alexis Sanchez. As it stands, with Alexis and Mesut Ozil in tact, there is no pressing need for another creative player, though it would sure be nice. Alex Iwobi is there, Santi Cazorla will be back, we have young guys pining for a chance.

But as Arsene Wenger once said, when you see an exceptional player, you go for it. And if he is coming at a bargain price too, then what the hell are you waiting for?

Hakan Calhanoglu has £32.5m release clause in his Bayer Leverkusen contract. For a 23 year old attacking midfielder, that is pretty fair. But given Arsenal’s situation, and the lack of a pressing need (unless Alexis really is leaving), that is too much money. It could be rerouted to a new striker, which they absolutely need more than another creator.

However, reports indicate that the Turkish creator could go for as little as £17m, which, for the quality that Calhanoglu brings, is an utter steal. That release clause is market value, he is worth every bit of it. And as Arsenal has made perfectly clear, market value players are something to be avoided like the plague.

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To get a player with the upside of a 23-year old Calhonoglu at just over half the market value cannot be passed up. The stats speak for themselves, so let’s do that talking for a bit.

The stats aren’t blindingly superb for Calhonoglu, but they are solid and, given the right circumstances, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t improve those numbers. Over the past 10,000 minutes playing in the Bundesliga, the Turkish attacker has tallied 34 goals and 28 assists. That’s in 137 appearances. That’s roughly a goal contributed to every two appearances.

Not too shabby.

And this past year, despite limited appearances totaling just 1217 minutes, he managed six goals and five assists. Again, not too shabby. He consistently creates 2.0+ chances per appearance, which would fit handsomely with the Arsenal attack, especially if they are forced to lose one of their primary attackers.

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At some point in the future the Gunners will have to replace their primary creators and from what Calhanoglu has shown, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic that he could be a prime time creator on a prime time club like Arsenal. Plus there’s that added sugar of filching him out from underneath Chelsea.

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