Arsenal: If we lose Kieran Tierney, we better win Faouzi Ghoulam

Arsenal need to sort out their leftback situation, and if Kieran Tierney does in fact get away from them, then Faouzi Ghoulam better be the consolation prize.

Arsenal looked to be the frontrunner to land Kieran Tierney from Celtic, but a series of bids that equated to dragging their feet left a lot of ground to be made up. Bids of £15m and £18m fell noticeably short of the £25m valuation (which, by the way, we absolutely can afford), and now we are at risk of losing him.

Because joining the mix is Napoli, a team that doesn’t have as many financial constraints, and a team that can absolutely compete with us for signings, especially given the current state of the club and their flaccid financial situation.

If the worst case does happen, and we lose Kieran Tierney to Napoli, then we have to mitigate the damage and get Faouzi Ghoulam. The Algerian leftback, currently on the books at Napoli, would conceivably be out of a job with the signing of Tierney, and although Manchester United are currently winning that saga, we’d have to move.

Unfortunately, the rumored price floating about for Ghoulam is in the £40m range, which would raise all kinds of questions if we couldn’t fork up £25m for Tierney, but assuming that price for Ghoulam isn’t correct, he’s the next step to helping fans forget that we didn’t land Tierney.

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Ghoulam has been linked to a move to the Emirates many times before and, each time, he’s been a great idea. Every time his name has come up, I’ve loved the idea of him taking the role and Nacho Monreal serving as a sort of back up.

Nowadays, with Monreal (hopefully) set to move no, the pertinence has upped massively.

Ghoulam is 28 now, three years after he was first linked to us, but make no mistake that while he doesn’t boast the longevity that Tierney would, he would provide the immediate solution that we desperately need. Even if that is only four four years, that gives us plenty of time to address the long-term state of the position and potentially allow for youth investments to see to that responsibility.

Whatever the case, Ghoulam is far from a consolation prize. He’s the better leftback in the here and now, he just doesn’t have the long-term viability.

Of course, it will all come down to price. We just really can’t come out of this having to start over in our leftback search.