Arsenal: Dani Ceballos still a blueprint even if he’s not a solution

There’s a lot of talk about Arsenal’s ongoing negotiations with extending Dani Ceballos, but if nothing else, he’s the model of what to do.

One thing that we learned to shun when Arsene Wenger was in charge of Arsenal was loans. Le Prof just wanted nothing to do with them. He wanted to buy a player and not worry about what happens when they get sent back.

Mikel Arteta is, hopefully, not like that. I’ve spent so much time this year talking about the lucrative “second year” on the Dani Ceballos loan. Given the injuries he suffered, he wasn’t able to get the time he would have liked to merit an immediate purchase, so it makes sense if Arteta wants to see a little bit more before committing to buying.

That said, the idea of a loan in the midfield isn’t exclusive to Dani Ceballos. While it looks likely that Arsenal will spend semi-big to land Thomas Partey on a permanent deal, they will have to get creative to solve the rest of the midfield given the financial constraints they’re operating under.

Even if we don’t get Dani Ceballos permanently, or back for a second loan, the idea remains the same behind getting a loan for someone else—just get someone to prolong the permanent fix.

It sounds semi-pathetic since we should just be able to address the issue and be done with it, but given the financial state of the team, the payment on Nicolas Pepe and the fee for William Saliba, funds are already pretty skimpy. Meaning that the less we have to spend, the better. It opens up more possibilities in other situations like on the defense.

It’s clear what we need in the midfield and if we loan someone in, we’re essentially pushing reset on the Ceballos idea. Test him out and buy him if he’s good. Ceballos worked out quite well, we just can’t afford him.

That’s fine. Rinse and repeat the method for someone else, right? Next summer we will have more money to flaunt when we qualify for the Champions League. There’s no need to panic if we can’t get Ceballos. If nothing else, he showed us how viable the loan system is and why we should keep utilizing it.

Of course, I’d love to keep him and I think Arteta would too. It’s just a matter of practicality and financial sensibility.