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Arsenal: Thomas Muller is Wenger’s dream Alexis Sanchez replacement
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal were apparently in on Germany star Thomas Muller this past summer, which makes sense, as he is literally the dream signing of Arsene Wenger.
Every so often you run into a player that you can just look at and say “yep, Arsene Wenger would kill to have him at Arsenal.” Generally speaking, they have some pretty simple requirements to check off.
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They need to be versatile. Being out of favor helps. Generally speaking, if they are out of the major international spectrum, they are better – since they’ll be cheaper. Being French helps too.
Thomas Muller is not all of those things. But he is a lot of them and when you get down to what exactly the German is, he has absolutely everything that Wenger could ever want, especially in the present transfer spectrum.
Muller is a striker that can be played out wide.
Just stop right there. Wenger has been forcing strikers to play out wide for ages. The fact that Muller is already accustomed to this and fully capable of both rolls just makes the inevitable transition even easier.
Muller is only 27, meaning he could step right in for Alexis Sanchez when the Chilean inevitably leaves. He has a fantastic track record of scoring goals. For seven of the past eight years , Muller has contributed to at least 17 goals at Bayern Munich, with the sole exception being 2011/12 when he only accounted for 14 goals in total.
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He is just as capable of creating as he is of scoring. And he has proven that time and again, even being sprayed all around in terms of positioning in the attack.
He’s like Lucas Perez, just younger and with a stronger resume. And he has that international link to Mesut Ozil who may or may not be here when Muller would show up, assuming he does.
Muller’s dissatisfaction at being a substitute at Bayern Munich is pretty well known and according to reports in Germany, as reported by the Metro, both Arsenal and Chelsea were after his signature this past summer but both obviously failed.
Muller is locked into a contract until 2021, meaning that prying him away from the German may be tough, but if he really wants away, there’s no reason why this couldn’t happen.
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And if you want to talk about viable replacements for Alexis, you can’t do much better than Muller. He has just as impressive of a record as the Chilean and has fallen on a nearly identical situation at Bayern as Alexis had at Barcelona before landing his move to Arsenal.