Arsenal: Ousmane Dembele requires more than money

Arsenal are still being (annoyingly) linked to Ousmane Dembele, but it isn’t just the money that’s a factor. There is an artistic investment too.

Arsenal may or may not end up with a seriously amazing winger by the time the transfer window closes tomorrow. That amazing winger is Ousmane Dembele, and it’s hard to imagine him at the Emirates, but then again, the same goes with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Money is undoubtedly the biggest hold up. Barcelona paid £150m for the guy, they aren’t going to want to let him go for much less than that, which is a fee that the Gunners could never conceivably pay.

Going beyond the money though, I can’t help but think that there is another investment that is lacking – the investment of style.

Dembele is a winger, plain and simple. That is what he does. And given the gross vacancy of wingers currently on the books at Arsenal, it makes sense why we’d want to have Dembele in the ranks as our only real option, minus maybe Reiss Nelson (who also mentioned playing centrally).

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But the problem with him being the only option is simply this – what do you do with one winger? I guess technically, you could go for a 4-2-3-1 with Ozil in the middle and Dembele and Mkhitaryan out wide. That could work.

The point is simply that if you go after Dembele, you have to invest into the style of play that he therefore requires. Meaning you have to actually make use of wingers and, given the statute of Dembele, you probably can’t just say “you’ll be a super sub.”

He’s got that at Barcelona already.

There has to be an actual commitment to what Dembele brings. Call it a “Plan B” if you want, but whatever you call it, Dembele requires certain concessions that the club hasn’t exactly been preparing for. They don’t use wingers. They haven’t for some time.

All of their wingers are just repurposed central attacking midfielders who would rather be in the center of the midfield and they consciously drift there more times than not.

You don’t just buy Dembele without committing to what he brings. Which, is something I surely hope we could do, especially in the long-term.