Arsenal: Matthijs De Ligt hopes dead in the water with Marc Overmars

Arsenal had hope of landing the elite youngster Matthijs De Ligt when Marc Overmars was still coming aboard, but now that he’s not, all hopes are shot.

There is nothing in the world I want more for Arsenal than a young, prolific defender who can immediately slot into the first team and take over for the pending departure of Laurent Koscielny, perhaps also inspire some confidence in a back line that has been so shaky in recent years.

I still have hopes in Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos, but Matthijs De Ligt is just on another level. He is so ridiculously talented that, for as much as I love the Gunners they really didn’t have a chance up against the likes of Barcelona and Juventus, who are both in on the guy, simply because they play in a spot that guarantees them Champions League runs.

Perhaps, when we qualify for the Champions League, the playing field levels a bit, but money is still a big concern too, as we never quite know how much will be available to the club for any given transfer window.

The one iota of hope we were getting came from the statements of Marc Overmars, who said that when he leaves the Sporting Director role at Ajax, his first signing, no matter what club he ends up at, is going to be De Ligt.

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He gushed about the kid and made it perfectly clear that there is no “aiming too high” for him, he’s just that good.

When Monchi officially declined Arsenal, I was doing cartwheels. I believe the article I wrote following it indicated that this could “only mean one thing,” with the insinuation being that we would get Overmars and, with it, our best hope of landing De Ligt.

I was wrong. Now that Overmars has extended his contract with Ajax and locked in for the long haul, I have trouble seeing anyway that we can secure the signature of one of the best defensive talents to rise up in quite some time. And keep in mind, I’m the optimistic on here at Pain in the Arsenal.

It’s not the end of the world though. I still think that Mavropanos can be an elite defender, and many others are in agreement. Who knows why it’s taken him so long to get game time, but my optimism will win out here – he’ll be back.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other solutions to our defensive problems. Even if De Ligt was the best of them.