Arsenal: Nobody wants Thomas Lemar, please stop this

Arsenal are still being linked to Thomas Lemar, but spending money on him makes so little sense that I want to bang my head on the wall.

Arsenal have some holes in their current set-up that a lot of people would like to see filled this January transfer window. Mainly, we’d love to see a centerback or two (or seven). It also wouldn’t the worst thing to see a creative midfielder (*cough* Santi Cazorla *cough*), but I think that can wait until the summer when we finally part ways with Mesut Ozil

What we don’t need right now is Thomas Lemar, or anyone vaguely resembling Thomas Lemar. This is one of my textbook “stop this nonsense” campaigns, because at its core, this rumor is nothing but pure unadulterated nonsense.

There is nothing to be gained in signing Lemar unless we have drastic overhauls in the future that involve losing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and/or Alexandre Lacazette. And if we do have that coming, then we’re going to need more than Thomas Lemar.

Believe it or not, our winger situation, which used to be consistently one of our most poorly staffed positions, has shaped up rather nicely.

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We’ve got Nicolas Pepe headlining the charge, but behind him we have the magic man Gabriel Martinelli, as well as Reiss Nelson and Bukayo Saka. All three of these guys have proven quite viable in the Premier League. Acclimation done. Prospect status being shaken off.

These are exciting players. And unless the intent is to move Martinelli to striker, it’s a lot of players. Such that adding another—actually, one step further—paying money to add another sounds like a complete waste of time and resources. Complete waste. Total.

Going even further than that, I’d like to revisit an old point I’ve been making about what we’ve learned from Nicolas Pepe and how that should be impacting our Thomas Lemar decision making.

Pepe took time to adjust from Ligue 1. He still is, but he’s crossed the line into being a solid attacking threat.

Thomas Lemar still hasn’t acclimated from leaving behind Ligue 1 for La Liga. Still hasn’t. So why would jumping him over to the Premier League do any better?

Atletico Madrid are trying to recoup on some of their investment into a failed property. We’d be doing them a favor by giving them any money for Lemar at all. Not to mention we just downright don’t need the guy.