Most Arsenal fans would tear your arm off at the bone if you offered them the chance to take Serge Gnabry back to the Emirates Stadium. But not Ray Parlour.
“He’s a good player. A very, very good player,” The Gunners legend told talkSPORT of a Bayern Munich forward who has won pretty much all there is to win after leaving Arsenal for Germany.
“But there’s other positions that they really need to concentrate on. Certainly left-back is a bit of a problem, for me. And central midfield. I think they definitely need a ball-player in there.”
For what it’s worth, Mikel Arteta, Edu Gaspar and co seem to agree.
Talks with Leicester City contract rebel Youri Tielemans are ongoing, and there is a growing confidence that one of the finest ‘ball-playing’ midfielders in Europe will be a Gunners player sooner rather than later. Yves Bissouma remains a target, albeit a more physical, imposing one, with Ilkay Gundogan also on Arsenal’s wishlist.
Manchester City will fight tooth and nail to retain their title-winning hero, however, and can put Champions League football and almost-guaranteed silverware on the table. Bissouma, meanwhile, will cost in excess of £40 million. Tielemans won’t come cheap either, and fell some way short of his usually sky-high standards during a difficult campaign for him and Leicester.
What about Marc Roca for Arsenal?
You could get three, three-and-a-half, Marc Roca’s for the fee Leicester want for Tielemans. According to The Athletic, Bayern Munich are ready to cut their losses on the seldom-seen Spaniard and would accept just £10 million this summer amid interest from Leeds United and West Ham.
That is not to say Arsenal should dump Tielemans by the wayside and go full steam ahead for a man who has started just six Bundesliga matches in two years in Bavaria. Roca has been a target for Arteta throughout his Arsenal tenure, however, and the 25-year-old’s availability – for a mere £10 million – is surely not going to go unnoticed at a time where the Gunners are trying to free up funds for a new centre-forward and a pair of full-backs.
According to Sport, Arsenal looked at Roca before landing Dani Ceballos in 2019. And again in 2020, with one report going as far as to label the former Spain U21 ace Arteta’s ‘dream’ signing. Roca’s lack of game-time at Bayern will be an obvious concern but, as the former Espanyol star explains, he does have arguably the best midfielder in the world to contend with in Joshua Kimmich. There was Jamal Musiala, Leon Goretzka, Corentin Tolisso and Marcel Sabitzer too.
Bayern Munich will sell
What’s more, some of Arsenal’s most inspired deals have resulted in the signing of a player arriving with a point to prove after struggling for starts at a bonafide European giant. Alexis Sanchez, for one, plus Martin Odegaard and Petr Cech. Roca is left-footed too, offering further balance and a potential long-term replacement for Granit Xhaka.
Roca may not possess the allure, the reputation or even the quality of Youri Tielemans. But if Arsenal are looking for a low-cost addition to a squad left relatively threadbare by a string of departures, he’s worth a second – or should that be third – glance.
“He mostly plays as a number eight, he is a bit like Goretzka. A small, technical player. A fine player, can play good passes, he has game intelligence,” says German legend Lothar Matthaus.
“He’s also a bit of a Thiago-type.”
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