Arsenal: Keita Balde transfer riddled with red fags

Arsenal are exploring more options to sort out there attack, but Keita Balde has to register as one of the highest risk, lowest reward players to be linked yet.

Arsenal have had their fair share of links with wide players. I have exhausted myself talking about Wilfried Zaha and why we shouldn’t be sold on him, and I have exhausted myself talking about Hakim Ziyech and why we should be sold on him. And now I have a new player to exhaust myself talking about—Keita Balde.

On a scale of 1-10, I am not excited by this link at all. Generally, with each rumor, there is something that strikes up a fancy. Even with Zaha, it’s his talent levels. With Ziyech, it’s the goals. With Fraser, it’s his insane production last year. With Sarr, it’s the sterling potential. With Carrasco, it’s the quest for redemption.

With Balde? I got nothing.

Keita Balde is on the books at Monaco, but spent the year on loan at Inter Milan, who, at the conclusion of the loan, did not want Balde back. Red flag No. 1. Even Emile Smith Rowe, who I think only ever saw the pitch from the bench at RB Leipzig, was wanted back.

Not Balde. Inter were not impressed.

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Monaco, meanwhile, continue to shop him, as they clearly have no interest in building him up into their first team. Their first team, which finished two points removed from relegation last season. And they think they couldn’t benefit from Balde. Red flag No. 2.

Instead, they are shopping him around for a whopping £30m, ranking him in the same price range as Ziyech, Fraser and Carrasco, all of whom have an actual track record to point to and smile at. Yet Balde is supposedly worth just as much? Red flag No. 3.

Keita is 24 years old and two seasons removed from his breakout, 16 goal, three assist year at Lazio. Since then, he has managed to fade away at Monaco and then again at Inter. Right as his prime years are coming.

The appeal to Emery may be a quest for redemption, to find that 2016/17 form, but when you have one killer year in a pool of average-good years, you have to wonder if that killer year was the anomaly, not the rest of the samples.

There is a lot of risk here, and the reward doesn’t quite match what could go wrong. If the price were cut in half, then we could talk, but at £30m? Not a chance.