Arsenal: Ivan Perisic makes even more sense now

Arsenal will have a lot of business to get done this summer, and Ivan Perisi can go a long way. He makes even more sense in the summer than he did in January.

When January came around, there was only one big thing on Arsenal fan’s minds – get some help into that attack. With Henrikh Mkhitaryan hurt, Mesut Ozil banished, and two strikers dying for someone to feed them chances, the only hope came from Sead Kolasinac at wingback.

And as much as I love Kolasinac, you don’t want to build an entire attack around one wide defenders ability to feed balls into the box, no matter how good he is at it.

The answer that Unai Emery came up with was Denis Suarez, the 25-year-old Barcelona man who, had they not signed him at all, the club would have been no different. That’s how little of an impact he has made. And, chances are, when the time comes, he will be sent back to La Liga, barring some drastic improvements in these later matches.

Meaning that we’ll be back to where we began. Ivan Perisic was almost in the situation that Suarez was in, but the deal fell through at the last moment because, apparently, Inter didn’t want to loan him, they wanted to sell him.

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That won’t change by time summer rolls around. They’ll still want to sell him. And that being the case, with Suarez vacating the premises (and even if he doesn’t, really), Perisic still shines as a fantastic option, now more than ever.

Many will complain that he is on the wrong side of 30, but Perisic still has years left to give. He’s battle-hardened, a physical player, and he knows how to generate goals from wide angles. Not to mention that he provides defensive help from attacking positions, which is an Emery favorite.

With so many other things on the shopping list, locking up someone like Perisic for a relatively heap transfer fee and letting him hold the fort for a couple years while Saka and Nelson mature, is a plan that we should all be able to get behind.

This is like when we got Sokratis. Not a lot of excitement, but in time, it became clear how valuable he was.

Lock up Perisic and the same thing will happen. He will provide goals, he won’t have much acclimation, given his nature as a player, and he’s got invaluable experience.