Arsenal: Franck Kessie one hell of a shot at replacing Aaron Ramsey

Arsenal won’t find it easy replacing Juventus-bound Aaron Ramsey, but Franck Kessie gives them one hell of a shot at doing so.

When it was first made official that Aaron Ramsey was leaving Arsenal, I said that it would be impossible to replace him or, at the very least, impossible to replace him with one player which is pretty much the same thing.

Ramsey has just done too much, he’s too ingrained, he’s too special. But what makes him really stand out from the crowd is how many things he does. And he doesn’t just do a bunch of little things, he does them all really well.

He scores, assists, defends, dribbles, creates, innovates – we’ve seen it all this year, and we’ve seen it as a No. 10, a wide midfielder, a deep midfielder, a straight central midfielder. You don’t find players like him often that can do so much at so many different positions.

Hence my claim. You don’t just replace that. Not with the funds that the Gunners have available. However, there may be an overlooked solution by the name of Franck Kessie.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

I don’t know why I didn’t think of him until the rumor popped up, but the AC Milan man (help us out here, Gazidis) has one thing in common with Aaron Ramsey – he does a lot of things. At 22 years old, he’s still in the prospect stage, and he certainly hasn’t mastered many traits, like Ramsey has, but he has the makings of being able to do a lot of the same things.

You go back and watch him play and you’ll see that engine, you look at the numbers and you’ll see a spattering of figures – goals, assists, created chances, dribbles, ball captures – it’s all there. He’s decent in the air, he’s got a physical presence, he’s fairly tidy with the ball. Again, while he is a master of nothing just yet, he’s adept at quite the handful of attributes.

Ramsey had to grow to get to where he is, and he had a bit more bumps in the road than Kessie has had thus far in his growth as a professional.

The market valuation of Kessie is a cool £30m, but with modern inflation, you may be looking at another 30% added on to that, but for the sake of replacing Ramsey, that’s a bargain. Plus, you wouldn’t be replacing Ramsey with one guy – you’d be adding him to Guendouzi, who has a lot of the same makeup as well.

It’s no guarantee, but it’s certainly a chance worth taking. You have to replace Ramsey somehow, might as well try to make it as simple as possible.