Arsenal: Thomas Lemar becoming a righteous crusade

Arsenal’s Thomas Lemar pursuit just got even more interesting, and now the entire world should be rooting for the Gunners to land him.

Arsenal’s ongoing questions continue to linger, from Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil and their corresponding contract situations and whether or not any more new signings will be made to round off an already special squad.

Thomas Lemar is, as always, leading the chase in terms of capturing the headlines and now things are getting even more interesting. The always-reputable Sky Sports is reporting that following their sale of Neymar, Barcelona is scanning the market for new signings and, naturally, Lemar has popped up on their radar.

The Neymar deal may have been shocking, but the aftershock promises to be just as riveting, as the Catalan giants are not going to sit by and let that void go unfilled.

Sky tells us that Ousmane Dembele and Thomas Lemar are both subjects of their fancy, which means that we have a classic case here of an evil empire versus a rebel alliance. You know, that old narrative.

No matter who is involved in a transfer situation, when Real Madrid or Barcelona come into the picture, everything changes. The entire scenario is turned on its head and everyone else is simply playing catch up, hoping to sneak in under the La Liga giants’ watches and pluck the player away from them.

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This has gone from a standard transfer chase to a righteous crusade. While Tottenham were once in on Lemar as well, the Gunners fended them off without any problems, but now we have to face down Barcelona, who can pay any amount asked of them for Thomas Lemar and, in the process, promise him arguably more than the Gunners can.

The problem is that Barcelona’s MSN has broken up, meaning that on one side there is this nice gap where Lemar could slide right into and become MSL. Arsenal, meanwhile, could only promise Lemar the fierce competition of Alexis and Ozil with no guarantees other than a fighting chance.

That is a mighty tough battle to fight, especially with Monaco still holding to their whole ‘he’s not for sale’ stance.

The Gunners could, however, hope that whatever they have built with Lemar up until this point, as well as the allure of the Premier League, is enough to sway his favor as opposed to endless trophies and limited external competition at Barcelona.

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Or maybe Monaco really don’t intend to sell him, which puts the Gunners in pole position for next summer because, again, Barcelona aren’t not going to fill the Neymar gap.

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