Arsenal: One good winger more important than one good defender

Arsenal might be crunched on their transfer budget this summer, which would bring about the need for priorities – wingers over defenders, hands down.

Arsenal‘s summer transfer budget is anyone’s guess, but there are two numbers being reported, and they are quite far apart. The first – £40m, and a bit disconcerting. The second – £100m, and a bit intoxicating.

Assuming the worst – because that is something we often have to do as Gooners – let’s pretend like £40m is all we have to spend, barring sales and the offloading of any constricting contracts that are sapping away money with no reward (without using any names).

£40m is not a lot of money these days, and if you really want to get down to it, that fee can get you one good player. I can hear the groans already, because this club obviously needs more than one good player, but we are talking worst case scenario here – if no one can be sold and if that is the budget we have no matter what, then we have one of two options with where we invest that in the hopes of getting one good player – centerback or winger.

For me, it’s an easy decision – winger. All day, every day. There is a big difference between wingers and centerbacks on this club, and the difference is simply in what is already here.

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The club already has some quality centerbacks. Laurent Koscielny is showing himself as a resurgent, Sokratis is reliable, Rob Holding will be back, Calum Chambers has to factor in and Konstantinos Mavropanos still has a chance to work himself into the first team picture as this season wears on.

That’s a healthy crop already. It could use some bolstering, and ideally the club will invest in it, but on the supposed limited budget, it’s much more important to address the emptiness, than the cluster.

Going into next season, we will have Reiss Nelson back, and that’s great. Emile Smith Rowe could factor in and Bakayo Saka is on the up and up. But do we have “one good winger”? No, we don’t. And that’s the big difference between the defense and the wings. The wings is a complete emptiness, the defense not so much.

Plus, just look at how problematic creating chances has been this year. It’s been far worse than the defense, and that’s saying something, because the defense has been piss poor.