Arsenal may have gotten a crucial win in the north London derby at the weekend, but there’s bound to be some inside the club who are still reeling about losing the race for Mykhaylo Mudryk.
Indeed, after a lengthy pursuit, Arsenal were gazumped by Chelsea this weekend in the race for the Ukrainian and now, the player is officially a Blue.
Arsenal now need to figure out how to bounce back from such a blow, and while it may sound a bit backwards considering their league position at the moment – they need to take a leaf out of Tottenham Hotspur’s book.
Spurs faced a very similar situation to this last year. They lost the race for Luis Diaz to Liverpool with just days to go in the transfer window, but rather than panicking and making a brash decision, they gathered their thoughts and used their contacts to get in a very good alternative – Dejan Kulusevski.
The Swedish winger was Spurs’ Diaz alternative and there’s an argument to make that he’s been just as good for Tottenham as Diaz has been for Liverpool over the past 12 months.
Arsenal need to look at what Spurs did and take a similar sort of action. Don’t panic and get a player this month just because they’re available. Instead, use the contacts that Mikel Arteta and Edu have built up over the years and get a deal done for a quality player.
Luckily, just like Fabio Paratici, Edu and Arteta have a contact book full of talented players, and there are two stars who could very well be targeted this month.
Ferran Torres is a player Mikel Arteta never worked with at Manchester City, but he’ll know all about the player due to the fact he’s worked with a number of his colleagues and has had a similar schooling at both City and Barcelona.
Meanwhile, Raphinha’s agent, Deco, is a close personal friend of Edu’s and given that he’s struggling for gametime at Barcelona, perhaps a deal could be done there.
Arsenal need to find their version of Kulusevski, and they could look towards either Raphinha or Torres as that kind of player.
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