Arsenal: Winger shortage fixable with quality over quantity

Arsenal absolutely need new wingers, and it’s clear that they know this, but it’s important to focus on the quality, not the quantity, of the targets.

Arsenal‘s attack is diverse, star-studded and damn talented, but even still, they often find themselves stunted by their own inabilities. They have two world class strikers and two world class attacking midfielders, not to mention someone like Aaron Ramsey, who is an invaluable wildcard.

But, as we have covered on numerous occasions, wingers are absolutely needed. With the speed and precision of these strikers, it is important to have wide options that can augment the attack as is. Augment as in keep options across the pitch, as well as be on that back post when a ball trickles through.

As it stands, the Gunners have no one capable of doing that. Not a soul. Alex Iwobi is the closest thing, but we all know that he isn’t a winger.

Every coming transfer window, barring any exits, is going to have one big need – wingers. That’s literally the only thing we currently don’t have any of. Fast, technically gifted players that will play wide and, more importantly, stay wide.

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But it’s important that the transfers are focused on getting two quality options rather than, say, several okay options that can serve as rotational players.

Honestly, if we can get two quality wingers in there, then I don’t care what happens to Ozil or Mkhitaryan, they can move on somewhere else. Two top quality wingers would top what they bring any day. Plus, it would allow our fullbacks to focus more on defense, which they clearly need to do, given the frailties back there.

Over the summer, we saw lots of ties to lots of young, quality wingers. Kingsley Coman, Leon Bailey, etc. These are the kinds of guys we need to focus on. And, if things work out, I’d like to believe that Reiss Nelson can be one of those two wingers. That’s what this loan is for, isn’t it?

The point is, given the strikers that we have, we need sharp service coming in from all angles. Give Ramsey the No. 10 slot to create and two wingers outside of him and all the angles are covered.

As far as what happens to our two creative attackers, well, that’s the question. But competition and options never made a team worse, that much is for certain.