Arsenal, Fred and Fabinho: Another goes down drain

With Fred having signed with Manchester United and Fabinho having signed with Liverpool, two midfield solutions for Arsenal have gone down the drain.

Entering the summer transfer window, if you were to ask all Arsenal fans what the biggest position of need was, most would have told you central midfield, in particular, a hard-hitting, tough-tackling, ankle-snapping, game-breaking defensive midfielder. And I would have agreed with them.

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While there are other areas of the team that certainly require investment, many of them defensive ones, ranging from centre-half to full-back and goalkeeper, I do believe that if only one player could be signed this summer, I would want it to be a defensive midfielder. It is the position that, if improved, would have the greatest impact.

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However, I have no idea if the club held the same stance regarding their respective needs. It has been more than a decade since a solid midfielder has anchored Arsenal’s play, and there have been few signs that they are all that interested in addressing such a shortcoming. But this is a new era, under new management, with new ideas. Perhaps they may see things differently.

Well, perhaps they do — there is still a long way to go this summer and it would be foolish to draw any lasting conclusions regarding their team-building priorities until their work is finished –, but the early signs are not all that positive. Already at this early stage, two players who I believed could solve the midfield problem have signed, or are very close to signing, for direct rivals: Fabinho has completed a reported £43 million move to Liverpool; Fred, of Shakhtar Donetsk, secured a £52 million move to Manchester United on Tuesday.

The two are slightly different players: Fabinho is a stouter, more traditional anchoring midfielder, who also has experience at full-back and is renowned for his defensive acumen; Fred is more of a box-to-box, rangy, speedy athlete, who is also adept in the tackle and is busy in defensive areas. But both would have satisfied a need for the Gunners.

There are other options available and, as I have said, it is naive to say that Arsenal are not interested in acquiring such a midfielder just yet. The transfer window still has more than two months to run. But these are two players who could have been very useful in north London indeed, and now they will be playing elsewhere.

They are solutions that are slipping through the cracks, dropping down the drain. That is not to say that there aren’t others out there. Steven N’Zonzi and Lucas Torreira have both been linked with potential moves, and the likes of Danilo Pereira of Porto has attracted interest as an imposing, physically dominating midfielder. But the club must act swiftly.

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If they fail to secure a defensive midfield solution this summer, then it is really quite difficult to understand what they are thinking. It seems like a clear and desperate need and the options are running out.