Arsenal: Abstinence from Mario Lemina, Riyad Mahrez, shows discipline

Arsenal has been tied to so many players this year, but thus far, all the underwhelming rumors have gone completely unanswered, which shows tremendous discipline.

When Arsenal signed Lucas Perez and he quickly faded away to nothingness, I chalked it up to a desperation signing. Arsene Wenger needed someone to fill the gap at striker while Danny Welbeck was hurt and Olivier Giroud was – somewhat mysteriously – held out.

Desperation signings were never a big concern for me though, because of how stingy Arsene Wenger always was in the transfer market, but seeing that happen made me more acutely aware to the possibility that Wenger is capable of making the occasional ill-advised desperate transfer move when he can’t land the player that he wants.

This summer he landed two players he wanted, but it looks like he has been unable to land an attacking midfielder and a deeper midfielder, two more positions that he wanted to fill. Thomas Lemar and Emil Forsberg were floated about for the former and Leon Goretzka, Jean Michael Seri and others were floated around for the latter.

Somewhere down the pecking order were Riyad Mahrez and Mario Lemina. Two players that, like Marcelo Brozovic or William Carvalho, I didn’t see the point of. They weren’t the player that we wanted and it wasn’t at a position of immediate necessity, so settling for a second-choice wasn’t needed in the least bit.

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Thankfully, it’s looking like Wenger agrees with me. Lemina’s speculation has gone absolutely nowhere and it’s clear that Wenger ignored advice to sign the Juventus midfielder, because Southampton just landed him for a rather large fee. And Riyad Mahrez? Well, we let him pass on to Roma, who then backed out of the chase and, in turn, we have seemingly not entered back in.

This club can only stand to benefit from the best of the best. Utility players and players signed just to fill gaps are not for title-contending teams. The Bayern Munich’s and Barcelona’s of the world don’t sign players just to be subs. They sign only the best to compete with the best that they already have. No one is content on the bench because they all deserve to be in the starting XI.

These two, Mahrez and Lemina, as well as the other names mentioned, would be substitutes with little hope of achieving much more. That is a waste.

Players like Goretzka and Lemar immediately challenge the first team and put pressure on them, something that is working out so well across the board where Wenger has enacted it.

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So after that desperation signing of Lucas, I have to say that to see the Gunners abstaining from similar signings shows excellent discipline.

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