Arsenal: No bigger priority than defensive midfield

As Arsenal begin to make plans for the summer transfer window and all the moves that will be made, for me, there is no bigger priority than defensive midfield.

Arsenal have a vast number of positions that need to be fixed in the summer. You do not slip 13 points behind the top four and a massive 31 points behind league-leaders Manchester City without have some rather stark holes that require filling.

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To hammer home the current fate of the Gunners, they are closer to the bottom of the table than they are the top. Moreover, Arsenal’s worst season under Arsene Wenger, in terms of points amassed in the Premier League, was the 2005/06 season. At the end of the year, they had just 67 points, a points-per-game mark of 1.76. This season, they are currently running at 1.6 points per game.

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You would be hard-pressed to find many people who do not think that this squad needs significant and wide-spread investment this summer. But rather than focus on how much investment is needed, I want to ask a slightly more acute question: If you could only address one position in the whole team, which would it be?

For me, it is defensive midfield.

The current defensive midfielder in the team is Granit Xhaka. This isn’t necessarily a piece to degrade his utility and his quality, though that certainly plays a part. I believe that Xhaka is a perfectly average player who does have some useful traits, if pandered to correctly. Rather, the reason the defensive midfield position would be the one that I would invest in first is because of the importance of the position.

Fernandinho. Nemanja Matic and N’Golo Kante. N’Golo Kante. Nemanja Matic. Fernandinho. These are the players that have played the defensive midfield position for the title winners in the past five years, including this current one. All are significantly better than Xhaka.

Similarly: Casemiro. Casemiro. Sergio Busquets. Xabi Alonso. Bastian Schweinsteiger. These are the defensive midfielders that have won the past five Champions Leagues. See a pattern emerging?

The defensive midfield position is one of the most important in the whole of football. It provides stability and security to the structure of the team. It screens the defence, collecting loose balls, winning tackles, breaking up counter attacks. It dictates the tempo of the match with accurate, precise passing. It initiates attacks from deep positions with time and space to orchestrate and create. Xhaka is not good enough. He’s not bad. But he’s not good enough.

So, if I could only invest in one position this summer, it would the defensive midfied position. For me, there is no other position that should take priority. Whether Arsenal and Wenger agree, however, given their track record, I highly doubt.