It will take more than a baby-faced 18-year-old to save Mikel Arteta’s skin.
Eduardo Camavinga, although precociously talented, would not have stopped Pablo Mari being swatted aside like a pesky mosquito by Romelu Lukaku during Sunday’s 2-0 humbling at the hands of Chelsea.
The teenager is no silver bullet solution to a club with more problems than Jay-Z on a bad day.
But, alongside Ben White and Albert Sambi Lokonga – one of the few to really hold his own against Chelsea – signing arguably the most promising young midfielder in Europe would not only add a splash of guile, poise and class to a spluttering Arsenal engine room, it would also feel like a statement capable of making the rest of Europe sit up and take notice.
As if to say: ‘Yes, we may be 19th in the Premier League table, yes we may have no European football to look forward to, but we still have the sort of pulling power you can only dream of’.
Well, that’s the idea anyway.
With competition from Barcelona, PSG, Real Madrid and Manchester United, it’s difficult to dispel the notion that Camavinga joining Arsenal would be like Elon Musk taking up a job on the help desk in PC World (Le10 Sport).
This is a player with the world at his feet. If he can choose any club he wants – especially with Rennes now demanding a knock-down fee of £25 million after Camavinga refused to extend a contract with just 10 months left to run (Fabrizio Romano) – why choose Arsenal?
But until they find a way to tax imagination, dreams are still for free.
And as Camavinga appeared to bid farewell to the Rennes’ supporters in the aftermath of Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Nantes – Ouest-France believe an exit this months is inevitable – who can blame the Emirates faithful for getting a little carried away?
For Arsenal fans, fantasy trumps reality every day of the week.
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