Arsenal: There’s a lot to like in William Saliba but… Koscielny?

Arsenal need defensive help, especially with Laurent Koscielny on the decline, but is William Saliba really ready to take on that mantle?

There are a lot of things I’m not liking about Arsenal‘s transfer window thus far. For starters, we are linked to more strikers than defenders. This club needs defensive help more than anything, especially with Nacho Monreal set to leave and our best defender and captain, Laurent Koscielny, not far behind.

The talk has been pretty happy thus far, with links to Matthijs de Ligt and Samuel Umtiti, but both of those rumors have taken a turn for the worst, not least of all because we still have no money. Even Joachim Anderson has delivered a swift one-two kick to the gonads of his own link to the Emirates.

That leaves the club having to get creative. And William Saliba’s name has re-emerged, with the teenager looking to fetch a girthy £25m.

In case you missed the memo, I love the idea of investing in talented young players, and doubly so on the defense. That’s why I’ve been talking about de Ligt since like… before he was born.

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But now the talk is that Saliba is the handpicked replacement of Laurent Koscielny and suddenly I’m over here staring blankly at the ceiling.

Of course, it’s all hearsay, with nothing set in stone, but the idea of replacing our best defender, and the one hope we always had in some sort of defensive consistency, with an 18-year-old centerback from Ligue 1 is… scary.

I think of Matteo Guendouzi. Great kid. Great player. But had we asked him to replace Granit Xhaka in the middle of the pitch last season, I don’t know if we would be as pleased with his season. Sure, he’s got tons of potential, but asking him to take on such a big responsibility is a bit much.

Of course, we still have the likes of Sokratis and Rob Holding, and that’s wonderful, but someone has to provide the confidence that Koscielny provided and asking that to come from Saliba feels a bit dicey.

Then again, with the limited funds we have, there is going to be a lot of dicey in the coming months, so perhaps it’s not the worst we could do.

And, honestly, if he becomes the Guendouzi of the defense, then we could be far worse off than some of the other options out there.