Arsenal: 3 reasons Jonathan Tah trumps Dayot Upamecano

Arsenal could use another defensive addition to bolster the centerback corps, so here are three reasons that person should be Jonathan Tah, not Dayot Upamecano.

Arsenal‘s defense is filling in quite nicely. Even without any major acquisitions, they have completely flipped the script on what this season was shaping up to be. All of a sudden, with Mikel Arteta in charge, Shkodran Mustafi and David Luiz look like wholesome, impactful centerbacks capable of carrying this team forward.

Still, moving into the summer, we’re likely to part ways with Mustafi and Sokratis at the very least. This defense will refocus on William Saliba, another year of Luiz and the return of Calum Chambers. There’s still room in that for another addition and there are two Germans in line to fill it.

One—Dayot Upamecano, is the belle of the ball. He’s going to fetch around £55m, he’s the perfect solution, he’s everything you could ever want in a defender.

The other, Jonathan Tah, was in the same spot a few years ago but stayed put. Here are three reasons the Gunners should pass on the belle of the ball and instead go after Jonathan Tah at long last.

We start with an indisputable No. 3.

3. He’s just a really big dude

After going through so many years of Arsenal being undersized and pushed around, I get googly eyes for anyone over six foot. Jonathan Tah is 6’4″ and 215 pounds. The dude is bigger than most American football players and yet he’s as agile as you’d want him to be.

When’s the last time we had a defensive presence like that? Even Per Mertesacker, who stood at 6’6″ 190lbs, lost out on the presence portion because of a lack of athleticism. He was a great centerback, but he couldn’t command outside of his area.

Tah is one of the biggest players in the footballing world right now and I would love to have that kind of beef on our defensive backline. Our set-pieces wouldn’t feel so desperate, our ability to handle bigger strikers would be raised exponentially. It’s just fantastic all around.

Upamecano is only 6’1″, 174lbs. Get outta here with that.