Arsenal: Kyle Walker move furthers Arsene Wenger’s genius
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal have watched Manchester City spend hundred of millions trying to fix their defense. Meanwhile, there’s is fixed for next to nothing.
Two teams that did not have the stoutest defenses in years past have been Arsenal and Manchester City. Both sides invested in defensive help but could never quite latch onto anything that could shore up the defense.
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In recent years, the two have taken different approaches to solving this problem. Arsene Wenger‘s approach has been one of accumulation and compilation. For instance, they were able to secure Hector Bellerin, Sead Kolasinac and Rob Holding, all Premier League quality defenders, for around £2.5m.
Toss in Shkodran Mustafi, the most expensive defender in Arsenal history, and you’ve got a complete back four, and a damn good one, for under £40m. That is pretty damn impressive and it shows a bit of transfer chops.
Wenger has often been accused of under-spending for the sake of not wasting money, but in these four cases, I’d say it worked out pretty damn well.
Compare that to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, who has recently secured Kyle Walker for £50m, which adds to his earlier investment of landing John Stones for all of £55m. Combined, that means that Guardiola landed a prospective center back and a quality left back for £105m while Wenger achieved an entire Premier League caliber back line for less than half of that.
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Maybe we are simply picking a fight for the sake of it, but it definitely ups my appreciation of Arsene Wenger when I see moves like City just completed for Walker and think of how resourceful Le Prof can be with that much money.
Also consider that City briefly threw their name in the Kolasinac hat, but that lasted all of about a weak. Wenger had won over the Bosnian and nothing City had could convince him otherwise.
Walker is a solid signing, don’t get me wrong, but seeing defenders far greater than him go for far less makes me wonder if Guardiola even bothers to look down every corner for potential under-the-radar signings or if he just shells out the cash for the sake of spending.
I mean, Bonucci cost AC Milan £35m. You cannot tell me in any universe that Kyle Walker is worth more than Bonucci.
Of course this doesn’t always work. We saw Wenger sign an absolute dud in Yaya Sanogo while plenty of other quality strikers were on the move. But as I have yet to see Stones amount to that price tag, and don’t anticipate it any time soon, I wonder what we would prefer – overspending on someone who can’t live up to it or flopping on a bargain buy and having to re-do.
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I don’t know about you, but I certainly provide the latter.