Arsenal: It’s time to have the unpleasant talk about priorities

Arsenal need to address a lot of concerns this summer, but none more than the one that they seemingly have the least interest in addressing.

I told myself not to get too up in arms about anything that Arsenal did this transfer window until they actually did something, but I think, at this point, it’s safe to talk as if they have done something, even if it’s based off of rumors and speculation. Because no matter how much we deny rumors, where there are many, there is undoubtedly some truth.

As of writing, the Gunners have made one deal thus far into the Adidas era, and that deal was a small-money move for Gabriel Martinelli.

If you trust where the rumors are headed, we are also in hot pursuit of Wilfried Zaha and Kieran Tierney. If you buy previous rumors, we have also gone hard after Yannick Carrasco, Ryan Fraser, Alexis Claude-Maurice, Leandro Trossard and more.

Notice anything about these names? Other than the fact that we’ve signed none of them, it’s also obvious that none of them are centerbacks.

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William Saliba is the only centerback heavily linked, and the stipulation is we’d have to loan hi right back for a year, so we wouldn’t even get his services right away. The other centerbacks that have been linked are Joachim Andersen, who landed at Lyon for chump change, Samuel Umtiti, who never looked likely, and Armando Izzo, who was a blip on the radar.

This is all leaning eerily close to a message that I don’t want to receive—that the Gunners may not be serious about bringing in an immediate fix to this defense.

I don’t want to believe this, especially not based on rumors alone, but like I said, where there are lots of rumors, there is often truth, and that being the case, there may not be a lot of truth to be found in any hope for this defense. At least not yet.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I’d rather spend all our money on the defense and let the youth take the attack forward. Even if that’s unlikely to ever happen.

What may be happening, if we don’t sign any immediate fixes, is that Unai Emery may be letting the current stock sort themselves out. But the inherent risk there is immense, and you can’t take another year dedicated solely to experimenting.

Hopefully it’s just a matter of time, but the lack of smoke makes me think that no one has lit a fire yet.