Arsenal: Jean-Michael Seri reveals uncertainty in solution

Arsenal are being increasingly linked with a move for Jean-Michael Seri. The Nice midfielder, though, is different to Thomas Lemar and Riyad Mahrez, showing the uncertainty in Arsene Wenger’s search for a midfield solution.

It is fair to say that Arsenal need a midfield solution. That is an assessment that, seemingly, Arsene Wenger also agrees with. While he has only added a striker and a defender so far this window, the number of players that he has been linked with to bolster his midfield options suggests that he would like to improve that area of the squad.

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However, despite the admission-by-behaviour that improvements are needed, the way in which those improvements come, the players which usher them in, the manner that they happen and the shape of the team once they are implemented is a little unclear.

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Primarily this summer, Arsenal have been linked with out-and-out wingers — Thomas Lemar and Riyad Mahrez most prominently. Now, it is difficult to know whether Wenger saw them as complements to or replacements for Alexis Sanchez. Both have the ability to fulfil either duty with great success and such is the uncertainty regarding Sanchez’s future, from a mere outsider’s perspective, it is impossible to decipher Wenger’s thinking.

However, the situation only becomes murkier when the recent rumours linking the Gunners with Nice midfielder Jean-Michael Seri are considered. The Ivory Coast international is a more central player, in comparison to Mahrez and Lemar, with his skills more akin to that of Santi Cazorla, a mobile, sharp, technically-gifted, creative, intelligent, play-dictating central midfielder, not the pacy, surging, direct winger that Wenger has been pursuing so far this summer.

It seems as though Wenger does not know the solution that he is searching, he simply knows he needs one.

Is he striving for a playmaking, ball-stroking, pass-spraying central midfielder to make the team tick, orchestrating attacking moves from central areas, setting the tempo of the team’s passing and providing the foundation for the more intricate and fast-paced work in the final third? Or does he want a burner of a wide man, an elegant, smooth, quick dribbler who can skip by defenders in a flash and whip a cross into the box?

Perhaps the uncertainty in recruitment comes from the uncertainty in retention. Both Sanchez and Cazorla are unreliable, though for entirely different reasons. Sanchez is, as of writing, yet to return to North London, while Cazorla is oft-crippled and is expected to miss a decent portion of the season already.

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It is quite plausible that Wenger does not know what type of player to sign because he does not know what type of player he already has available to him. Over the coming weeks, it will be extremely interesting to see how he chooses to solve his midfield issues. Only time will tell if it will be the right decision or not.