Arsenal: Daniel Rugani aversion makes complete sense now

Many Arsenal fans, myself included, were psyched up by the idea of Daniele Rugani, but passing on him makes much more sense now.

Arsenal‘s defense was such a point of contention last year because it sucked. It was awful. Not only was it awful, it was old. The most used centerbacks were Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis. Nacho Monreal worked his way in there as well and the only semi-young centerback was Shkodran Mustafi, who I don’t think I need to say much about.

Rob Holding was out for the year. Calum Chambers thrived at Fulham for the year. That was our youth base. That and Dinos Mavropanos, who was also struggling with injury all year, and who is having the same issues this year.

As such, links to any defender were exciting. Even Daniele Rugani, who despite the hype of his earlier days, has simmered a bit. According to reports, the loan deal that Juventus were trying to engineer required a mandatory purchase at the end of the loan, and that’s what derailed the deal.

Seems like a bummer, but the Gunners were smart in moving to David Luiz, and we’re starting to see why.

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Because the younger options here might not need much help taking command. Even with the acquisition of Luiz, Calum Chambers held firm to his job and I would be shocked and more than a little disappointed to see him losing that starting spot when he proved so much in one outing.

Rob Holding is due back as well, and next year we’ll be getting William Saliba, who’s even younger.

Rugani would have been a surplus to requirement, oddly enough. He would have been another young body in a mass, but that other young bodies, namely Chambers and Holding, had already proven so much more, and Unai Emery would have had to make serious concessions to get Rugani enough opportunities to prove himself.

The key goal with this summer was to find a temporary solution to hold the club over while Saliba served his loan and while Holding recovered. Luiz accomplished that, and even he might find it hard cracking the starting XI if Chambers keeps up the ability that we saw at St. Mary’s.

So yeah, I get it now. I get why we didn’t want to commit to Rugani. Because we have so many other players in the exact same boat who have earned their spot more than he.