Arsenal: Bassem Srarfi is who Sven Mislintat is here to find

Arsenal brought in Sven Mislintat to do the things he did with Dortmund, just for the Gunners. And players like Bassem Srarfi are the way to do it.

There have been dull murmurings, not necessarily in a negative tone, but more so a questioning tone, about why Sven Mislintat has brought Arsenal just one young phenom (Konstantinos Mavropanos) and two (potentially three) old Dortmund players.

Not that I’m complaining, nor is anyone else (I hope), but I was mostly excited to see him work his magic and dig up unknown names and turn them into stars. That’s what he does right?

To be fair, this is his first transfer window with Raul Sanllehi and the full compliment of transfer masterminds alongside him, so a lot of eyes will be on his targets this summer, and has already stood out as a potential Arsenal target – Bassem Srarfi.

You know how I knew this was a fantastic “Mislintat doing his thing” kind of signing? Because I had never even heard of him. Much like Mavropanos, it was just a name to me. He might have been the accountant down the street, I wouldn’t have known the difference.

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That is what Mislintat is here to do. He is here to dig up Tunisian 20-year-olds that only played 865 minutes in Ligue 1 last year. And I freaking love it. Because if Mavropanos can come into the club, expect to go out on loan only to impress Arsene Wenger (Arsene Wenger!) so much that he is forced to keep the young defender around, then proceed to play in the Premier League and win over a very fickle Arsenal fan base, jaded by season-long defensive frailties, with a few well-timed tackles and overall solid performances, then I want to see what comes next (that was a run-on sentence, I know).

Because you know what that means? It means that Srarfi could come in, hang around, see his way to the bench after someone gets hurt, or fails to impress, gets his chances, scores a few goals and, lo and behold, the Mislintat magic has worked again.

I’m not going to expostulate on what Srarfi is, because, as mentioned, I haven’t heard of him. But the numbers tell us he was relied on by Nice to come off the bench and make an impact, he scored a decent amount of goals, looks to be secure with the ball, with a penchant for technical mumbo-jumbo and passes accurately.

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But then again, what the hell do I know, i”m just reading his stat line and watching highlight reels. In Mislintat’s golden eye we trust!

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