Arsenal: Grading 11 potential Aaron Ramsey replacement

5. Piotr Zielinski / Grade 6.5 / Price £50-60m

Like Adrien Rabiot, Piotr Zielinski has long been a player who I’ve been begging to make the jump over to the Emirates. It obviously hasn’t happened, and in the mean time, he’s been a bit of an enigma with Napoli, sometimes he’s been great, sometimes he’s been subpar.

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That’s the main turn off with Zielinski. It’s hard to know what to expect out of him. And there are definitely some similarities to Ramsey there. Ramsey undoubtedly had his flashes of pure geniuses, and his flashes of utter futility, but Ramsey had earned the right to be such an enigma after so many years at the club.

Zielinski would be coming in with a hefty price tag and a whole lot of question marks. There is a chance that it would work out in our favor, but if he proves to be just as inconsistent as Mesut Ozil, then what did we really improve on?

The bright side is that Zielinski checks all the boxes. He has that flare, he has a nose for scoring and assisting, he doesn’t shy away from defensive contributions, he’s a competent dribbler. He just does a lot of things well enough. So if we do end up with Zielinski as the answer, I think we can give the ol’ affirmative nod, but I can’t help but think that there are better options out there, solely because of the price tag attached.

No. 4 is next.