Arsenal: New Dani Ceballos asking price hard to justify

Arsenal has a decision to make regarding Dani Ceballos, but with the new asking price, the decision just became that much harder to make.

From the moment Dani Ceballos arrived, my question was how we could secure him for the long haul. He was Arsenal‘s long-sought-after replacement for Mesut Ozil, who I’ve been desperate to replace for like… three years.

At the start of the season, the reported fee that Ceballos was going to fetch was £25m. That’s a completely reasonable price to pay for what we’d be getting. Even with what little we knew about him. But now we have a new price.

According to a report in the Athletic, Real Madrid was responding to offers last summer with a price tag of £36m.

That changes things. A whole £11m difference makes you reconsider just how much you’re willing to pay for someone that is still largely unproven.

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Dani Ceballos’s outstanding match against Burnley was quickly buried by a lengthy injury and subpar performances. However, since returning, he has been the perfect midfield companion for Granit Xhaka, upholding the defensive end of the bargain along with the pivot role that he’s there for.

Of course, the dissenting reports are only focused on Ceballos’ one goal and two assists. But there’s more to his game than that, and the big injury layoff was not exactly ideal either. What we have to do is evaluate what he has done when healthy and in form. Which, again, hasn’t been all that long.

Still, £36m is a big ask for someone that we really don’t know enough about. yet. I made the point a few weeks back that we had to buckle down and evaluate every step he took with less than half the season yet to go.

With the season now in limbo, we’re not getting the luxury of seeing how he strings together fixtures when fit and healthy. And seeing as how some matches are likely to be canceled, we have to wonder if we will even get a chance to see all that we need to see. Ceballos’ future may be determined on a wing and a prayer.

What needs to be asked is if we can do better for less. And that’s the question that’s really difficult to answer, mostly because there are still too many variables we can’t factor in yet. Still, my initial impulse is to go ahead with it, if possible.