Arsenal Eye Eric Garcia on Cut-Price Man City Deal

What Arsenal Need to Accomplish First

At the price quoted, with Premier League experience and being well known to the manager are just three of the boxes that Garcia ticks.

Still with room for improvement and tinkering needed in certain departments, he nevertheless poses a genuine option at a great age for resale value.

Just a shame that Arsenal have too many centre-backs. The desire for another right-sided one is not without reason, but the reasons are entirely dependent on movement in the January window. With David Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos all seeing their contracts run out at the end of the season, additions will be needed.

In an ideal world the latter two of those would leave in the winter to free up space in the squad and ease the wage bill, but you’d be hard-pressed to find buyers when the pair have just six months left on their deals to run. Barcelona and Juventus have been mentioned…but come on.

With Garcia a free agent in the summer it’s only really January where action can be taken. As a young Spaniard with Barcelona and Real Madrid waiting with open arms, the likelihood that he’ll opt for La Liga is relatively strong. Arsenal convincing him to join a side languishing in 15th place in the table? Not so alluring.

Central defence shouldn’t be the priority this window. Of course, if an opportunity arises in the winter then securing said player six months before a mass exodus will grant them more time to integrate in the squad, but the eye has to be on shifting players out and securing creativity first of all.