Arsenal: William Cavalho undeserving of midfield transfer talk

Arsenal got beat up against Chelsea in the preseason, but going after William Carvalho simply continues the problematic trend in midfield.

Arsenal’s preseason tour didn’t finish so well, as their majority-youth team was smashed by Chelsea’s predominantly first team. It was pretty bad, but the main flaw in the Gunners play was simply a lacking of match fitness.

Which made things a bit rough for Granit Xhaka. The Swiss midfielder did not have a good day and many people pointed a lot of the blame at him. And I’m not here to argue that. But I am here to argue that the solution is to split up this midfield pairing and go after someone like William Carvalho.

There was a time when the Portuguese midfielder was a good idea. That was three years ago when this club had no deep-lying midfielders other than Francis Coquelin. But then Coquelin emerged and Carvalho’s link disappeared.

Why?

Because Carvalho is like the Portuguese Francis Coquelin. He is a continuation of that old trend in the midfield of having one-dimensional players filling multi-dimensional roles. That’s why Arsene Wenger went out and got Xhaka – to buck that trend. That’s why he is phasing out Coquelin.

Carvalho is a tackler. He is a better passer than Coquelin, but nothing like Xhaka (although, who is?). And if athleticism is your cry about Xhaka, if you find him too slow, then you won’t find salvation in Carvalho, who isn’t much faster.

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As it stands, there is dynamism in this midfield. There is the deep-lying passing excellence of Xhaka mixed with the all-around everything of Aaron Ramsey. Carvalho takes that midfield down a notch and removes an attacking option, which we certainly need.

I have watched Carvalho year after year since we were first linked to him because I’ve been waiting to see what he could bring to this midfield that we don’t already have and I just don’t see it. Sure, he has a solid eye for a pass or two. Sure, he can make a tackle, but he does not contribute to the attack.

That isn’t what this midfield needs. This pairing isn’t going to be split up by one poor outing in preseason. They worked just fine last year and they worked just fine in the FA Cup final. Those two are a hell of a lot more convincing than one poor preseason performance.

If you want to say this midfield needs another option, I wouldn’t argue. But they already have Coquelin to do the job that Carvalho would do. If they need anything, it’s another multidimensional midfielder like Leon Goretzka, who has proven he can do it all.

The difference between Goretzka and Ramsey is that the former errors on the side of defense while the latter errors on the side of attack.

Next: 5 Reasons Goretzka Joining Xhaka Is Scary Good

Keep Carvalho out of this conversation, he doesn’t belong.

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