Arsenal: Yacine Brahimi transfer the best idea since Joachim Andersen

Arsenal have supposedly opened up negotiations to bring in Yacine Brahimi on a free, and this might be the smartest idea since Joachim Andersen.

Arsenal‘s quest for a winger has lead them down many dead ends, all of which died out for one big reason—price. Yannick Carrasco proved about £5m too expensive, Hakim Ziyech about the same, Ryan Fraser was a out £10m too much and Wilfried Zaha, well, he’s weighing in at about £70m over our budget. So the Gunners are taking the high road, looking to invest £0m in Yacine Brahimi.

It’s genius really. If everything you want isn’t within your budget, start thinking outside the box. All these wingers who are entering their prime are proving too difficult to secure, so take the free route. Not all free players turn out like Stephan Lichtsteiner.

Yacine Brahimi has spent the three full seasons at FC Porto, and each year, even going back Granada, he has scored more goals. It started with three, then five, then six, then his nine goal seven assist effort two years back and a sterling ten goals, two assists this year.

The man knows how to close out attacking moves, and that is what we need most out of any potential winger.

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What else do we want? Someone who can dribble. Someone who can create for himself, who can really cause issues for opposing defenses with his own two feet, and few boast better dribbling numbers than the Algerian winger.

Two years back, his biggest year, he completed 5.1 dribbles per match. Yes, 5.1. The year before that, 4.0. Last year was a down year for him and he averaged 3.0 dribbles per match. The man is a magician with his feet, that kind of thing translates between leagues. He’s been doing it his whole life with very little interruption to his dribbling form.

And to add to that, he isn’t the type of dribbler like Keita Balde, who suffers severe possession loss. Brahimi is a master at balancing out completing dribbles with possession lost, with them almost always zeroing out.

That’s about as good as it gets. There is always going to be some lost possession with dribblers, but he has such a good ratio that you’d hardly notice.

This is genius. It’s such a strong solution to the situation the club is in, with youth products that you don’t want to block, but still having the need to power up the attack a bit.