Arsenal: Julian Draxler journey must end now

Arsenal are again being linked with a move for Julian Draxler with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez seemingly nearing an exit. Arsene Wenger’s flirting must end now.

The Arsenal squad is steaming towards a substantial shake-up. With many players entering the final months and years of their contracts, many of which have been at the club for some time, others nearing retirement age, and other, squad members having already departed, the time for change is here.

Most prominently, the pillars on which the recent era has been built — Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez — are set to leave at the end of the season. In team bursting with attacking talent, it has been Ozil and Sanchez that have forged the path for the current crop.

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With them gone, new attacking instigators will have to be found. Finding players of such quality is not easy, and they have to be of the right age. Too old, and they cannot bed into the squad; too young, and they lack the necessary experience and consistency to perform and produce each and every game.

Alexandre Lacazette is the beginning of that process. But unlike Sanchez and Ozil, he is not a creator, a starter, a catalyst. He is a thorough-bred finisher, a goal poacher, a ruthless and clinical centre-forward who flourishes in front of goal. If Arsenal to replace both Sanchez and Ozil, they need to find a player/s capable of starting and sustaining attacks, not merely finishing them off. Those players are rare. Thankfully, Arsene Wenger has been tracking the perfect option for some time.

Julian Draxler is an extremely talented player. Fluid mechanics, graceful and slaloming movement, precise and pacy dribbling. He is elegant on the ball, swerving his way in and out traffic, his passing his penetrative and incisive, his thought is quick and purposeful.

Draxler is the ideal ‘Wenger’ player. Techincal and intelligent. Smooth and stylish. He has also only just turned 24. His prime is just before him. And it is currently being wasted. Paris Saint-Germain, after remarkably splashing the cash on Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, no longer have a great need for him.

He has played only 579 Ligue 1 minutes (Edinson Cavani has played 917 minutes, for context), and is no longer the entrenched starter as the depended-on attacker. At Arsenal, that would be his exact role. And there have been growing rumours that Wenger wants to make that a reality.

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Ultimately, though, such is the extension of the transfer saga, it must come to an end either way. Ozil and Sanchez need to be replaced. Either Draxler will be that replacement or someone else will be. It’s time for Wenger to commit.

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