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Arsenal: Lucas Moura is everything Arda Turan isn’t
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal are digging in for options in replacing their two want-away superstars and Lucas Moura has emerged. At the very least, he is all the things Arda Turan isn’t.
Arsenal may or may not have to sign someone immediately if they decide to sell Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil in January, but it doesn’t hurt to look. That said, given how lukewarm the pertinence of such a move is, the players being pursued are going to have to make a lot of immediate, practical sense.
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Arda Turan simply doesn’t. He is past his prime, he never saw Arsenal as anything more than a fallback and he has nothing left to prove.
I am starting to get leery of older players coming from the two superclubs in La Liga. Especially since Karim Benzema’s statement about how he had reached the pinnacle of football with Los Blancos.
Well… if he’s already reached it, then where do you go from there? Everything else will be a step down and there will be nothing to prove.
Turan is in a similar boat. Sure, he hasn’t been the exact same, as he is struggling for playing time, but at 31 and having the best parts of his career behind him, I question his motivation. And motivation is all I want to see out of any new or old Arsenal player.
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Lucas Moura is different. Just 25 years old, Moura has always struggled staying in the PSG starting picture and with the set-up they now have, he has no chance. None. This is a man who has everything to prove.
Once heralded as the next great thing thanks in part to his blinding speed, Moura has fallen off the pace (pun intended) a bit with his prolonged stay at PSG and a next step would be the most logical course of action.
He’s a solution, not of desperation but of practicality. He fits a specific need, a replacement, not a stopgap like Turan. He is Theo Walcott, but with more to prove.
Moura is a smart, sensible investment because of the upside and the lack of any sort of sense of entitlement. Everything will have to be earned because the Gunners already have a bunch of in-house solutions.
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Moura has since spoken out about how he wants to fight his way back into the PSG starting XI, but that’s what you’re supposed to say. Realistically, the odds of him accomplishing that are slim to none and he knows that. At the Emirates, the odds are much greater.