Arsenal: Grading 11 potential Aaron Ramsey replacement

7. James Rodriguez / Grade 6.0 / Price £30m

James Rodriguez has walked such an interesting path. In his early 20s, he was everything you could want a midfielder to be. All the best clubs wanted him, including Arsenal, but the price that had to be paid was in the “oil money” zone, and he ended up landing at Real Madrid.

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There, he promptly died. His value plummeted, Bayern Munich tried to revive him, but in the end, after the loan, they didn’t even want to try to buy him.

And he’s still only 27. How, in half a decade, he completely wrecked his transfer value, is beyond me, but there’s no hiding from the fact that he is an immensely talented midfielder who now has a world of motivation to prove himself as the player we thought he was earlier in his career.

That is the main draw to James – the hunger. Couple that with the talent, and he could be a ticking time bomb of brilliance if we give him the chance.

My hesitation, though, is if he wasn’t good enough for Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, two teams that we want to be competing with in the near future, why then would he be good enough for us?

He has the knack for goals, he works hard, he’s a spark, but recent years have made more than me question his viability as a solution.

No. 6 is next.