Arsenal and David Luiz: Unwise or untrue?

David Luiz has reportedly been the subject of a £17.5 million bid from Arsenal. The reports, that stem from France, are either untrue or unwise. Take your pick.

Even though Arsenal’s business seems to be rolling along quite nicely with a number of moves ostensibly in the pipeline, the transfer rumour mill is relentless, and often not in the most enjoyable manner. And here we have another example.

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The Gunners, remarkably, have allegedly made a €20m offer — worth the equivalent of £17.5 million — for unwanted Chelsea defender David Luiz, with the reports now widely publicised in the English media but initially reported by French media outlet Le10 Sport.

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Luiz has actually been linked with a move to north London before. I was never that convinced of their truth then. I am not any more convinced now. Nevertheless, the rumour has spread widely in the past 24 hours or so and is now being reported as a seeming very real possibility. And there is some logic behind its surfacing.

Luiz has fallen out of favour at Chelsea and will likely be sold, even with a new manager coming in. Arsenal seemingly believe that they need another centre-half and have a restricted budget to sign one, so pursuing an unwanted one means that they may be able to a good deal, with £17.5 million would be, if the reports are true. But that’s where the logic ends, really.

Perhaps most importantly, Luiz is 31 years of age. He is not a long-term solution at the position and the Gunners have already pursued a cheap, experienced, short-term answer to the defensive problem in Sokratis Papastathopoulos, who is expected to join in a £16 million deal from Borussia Dortmund in July. Why sign another, very similar player?

Moreover, Luiz isn’t actually very good. Is he any better than Calum Chambers or the potential of Rob Holding or even Konstantinos Mavropanos? Perhaps, but not by much. He is erratic, mercurial, unpredictable, and although talented, often undermining himself with frequent individual errors, many of which are mental.

The Arsenal defence already struggles enough from those type of players. They most certainly do not need another one. Putting an absent-minded Luiz at the heart of this defence is a nightmare recipe. And yet, that is precisely what this report is claiming Sven Mislintat and Unai Emery are considering.

And so, it leads to a fairly simple either-or: Either the rumours are untrue and the Arsenal brain trust is being sensible and misrepresented, or Luiz is a genuine target and the club has lost its mind. It’s either untrue or unwise. Neither is especially good.

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There is only one way that I see this working: selling Shkodran Mustafi. Perhaps that is what’s going on here, but I am not all that convinced. Either way, Luiz is not an avenue that I would want this club to be exploring.