Young Spanish centre-back, Ignasi Miquel, has told Catalan press that he thinks Alexis Sanchez will fit in perfectly at Arsenal.
The 25-year-old Chilean international looks set to undertake a medical in London this afternoon ahead of a proposed £30 million move from Barcelona, although it appears an announcement on the deal won’t take place before the Gunners’ unveil their new Puma kit tonight.
Speaking to El Mundo Deportivo, Miquel hinted that Sanchez will find Arsene Wenger’s football philosophy much to his liking.
“Arsenal are a great team for Alexis,” explained the former Barcelona youth.
“Alexis will fit perfectly with Arsenal, it’ll be a joy to have him at the club as he’s a great player.
“Playing for Chile he has much more freedom than at Barcelona. That being said I think he adapted really well to Barca’s style and had games in which he really shone.”
Miquel spent last season on loan at Leicester City but has returned to London Colney for pre-season training. While he’s had limited first team opportunities since making his debut in 2011, he insists that he wants to stay, joking that it’s the only way he’ll help Sanchez settle into London life.
“I hope that I can help him settle in…but to do that I have to stay!”
If we sign him and khedira I’m heading straight down the bookies!
Arsene’s on a spending spree! Arsene’s on a spending spree!
https://twitter.com/LeeDixon2/status/487251717793136640
I’m kinda confused, isn’t Sanchez a winger? We’ve been crying out for a striker all season so won’t that still put a hole in the goal scoring department? Don’t get me wrong, I really like the siging of Sanchez and if we get Khedira…woooowwzaaa.
Now, if only we had a manager with a history of converting wingers into strikers.
Ha-ha great reply..!
Sanchez can play as a lone front man as well. Think of him as a lesser-bitey Suarez.
Classic!
If I remember correctly, he plays as a striker for Chile?
Yeah, but that’s as part of a front 2, which requires a different skill set to being a lone striker. That said, he’s got surprisingly good hold up play, so he might be able to do it. Also, the plan might well be to play him and Giroud together.
After we lost Walcott, look at what happened to our wing play, everyone moaned about how we lack pace. Problem solved? Pace up both wings can be a devastating combo, especially with a play maker like Ozil and a great 2 way mid like Ramsey (look at what di Maria became at Madrid once Ancelotti put him into their Mid 3).
Left wing is a weak area for us, loath though I am to say it. Podolski just isn’t quite first-team quality though he could be/would have been four years ago, and Cazorla is much happier behind the striker. Personally I think Arsene has been influenced by 2010-era Germany/Heinkes Bayern, with the main goal threats coming from the wings (Walcott/Sanchez vs Robben/Ribery) and the striker acting as a hard-working wall off which to bounce short passes. Ozil will become absolutely lethal with a Walcott-Sanchez-Giroud frontline. Can’t wait
i think he played as a central striker for Chile at the WC, and even so, isnt 19 La Liga goals last season enough to prove his goalscoring credentials?!
In all honesty I would prefer Lars Bender or Schneiderlin to Khedira. We don’t need another box-to-box midfielder.
I was unimpressed by seeing Khedira being pole-axed by a tame ball to the side of the head in one of the WC matches. If we’re interested in him as a DM he’ll have to toughen up.
I do have to agree with NoseHair… Khedira for all his awesomeness and being besties with Ozil, isnt what we absolutely need right now. It’s sorta akin to us getting Cesc back, kinda moot. Agree would prefer to acquire the services of Bender, Schneiderlin or Martinez. But in Arsene we trust.
Khedira is nothing like Cesc. Bender however is a lot like Khedira, so you’re making some very weird points good sir.
Great, another injury prone player to keep Diaby company in the physio room. I hope our next signing is someone capable of playing a full season without spending months out with injury. I dont think Sanchez got the body to cope with premier league football. Yes he is a magnificent and great player, And I would be psyched if it was not obvious he will spend alot of time out injured. It is pretty much guaranteed. I know he is perfect for Arsenal football wise, But there should be a red flag popping up when you know we got the… Read more »
He He He evil laugh time. we are in!
John Terry is a cunt.
In truth, it is very difficult to argue with this statement.
John Terry must read Arseblog news….
He’s the one who thumbed you down.
Why does anyone has to argue with this statement???
YeP…
Gotta love the random John Terry is a cunt comments
John Terry is such an immense cunt he could give birth to twin universes.
I’ve always like Miquel. Seems he has a good head on his shoulders. I hope he makes it at the Arsenal!!
Szczesny
Debuchy Mert koscienly Gibbs
khedira/schneiderlin Ramsey
Walcott Ozil Cazorla
sanchez.
Fucking give us the title now1
Would prefer the following:
Debuchy Mertesacker Koscielny Gibbs
Khedira/Schneiderlein Ramsey
Walcott Ozil Sanchez
Giroud
Subs: [GK], Vermaelen, Wilshere, Arteta, Cazorla, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski/Remy
I think that gives us a bit more balance up front, and real pace on both wings. Giroud has been great for Arsenal, and I think we really benefit from starting him and Sanchez.
Agreed, Giroud with all that pace on the flanks will be lethal.
Giroud is not lethal xD He is a 15 goal per season striker. Consistent but not a beast like Sanchez.. Giroud is an awesome player but I think Sanchez would be the best player in that position.
I raise you this team
Debuchy Mertesacker Koscielny Gibbs
Khedira/Bender Ramsey
Walcott Ozil Remy
Sanchez
Thats what I call pace up front. Cant stop us now!
No Goalie? Bold Sir, very bold.
Steve Bould in fact.
Agreed. I have a feeling that Giroud will pleasantly surprise us this season.
This is likely how we’ll set up once Walcott is back from injury. Sanchez is definitely not a 1:1 replacement for Giroud, so he’ll be playing mostly on the wings unless we change our current tactics quite a bit.
Giroud plays well with quick players around him, so I can really see him and the rest of the attackers being efficient if we’ve got Theo and/or Sanchez on the wings, with Özil and Ramsey at midfield, and hopefully either Khedira or Schneiderlin too. If all these things come true, we are going to be a force to be reckoned with!
So I guess you have all forgotten about Rosicky. Not even on your bench? His hair is light and bouncy and he has really big shin pads.
I’ve really become a fan of Rosicky. I know he’s aging but he still has great pace & passing. And he may not score often but when he does, it’s a big, epic, heroic goal. Against Sp*rs.
I agree BUT if we plan on walcott sanchez and giroud all in our first 11 we will still need another striker purely as depth incase of injury
I think Sanchez played wide mainly at Barcelona to accommodate Messi and his quietly understated but deceptively enormous ego. I think he will be more of a striker for us. That gives us a different kind of player to Giroud, who is more of a poacher, whereas I think Sanchez will work the channels more and is more of a dribbler.
Szczesny
Ospina
Debuchy Per Kos Gibbs
Jenkinson TV5 Monreal
New DM Ramsey
Arteta/Flamini Wilshere/Diaby
Walcott Ozil Cazorla
Oxalade Rosicky Podolski
Gnabry Campbell
Sanchez
Giroud/Sanogo
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
That is what I call serious squad depth. And the really great part of it is that Ramsey, Wilshere, Diaby, Walcott, Ozil, Cazorla, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky, Podolski, and Sanchez can all play multiple positions. The shifts and movements that will take place during games will just be bewildering to opponents.
oh yes, he is
I hope they reveal him during the kit launch which I’m sadly going to miss as I can’t be up at midnight, during winter, on a workday 🙁
C’MON C’MON C’MON C’MON C’MON C’MON
I see you teams and i raise you:
Scz
Debs, Per, kos, gibbs
Art/new guy
Rambo, ozil
Sanchez, giroud, walcott
Naturally the talents of Cazorla, poldi, ox wilshere the others won’t miss out…
Holy pickled virgin ass that’s some squad!!!
Warning OT:
I know this is OT but I see some mentions for Khedira and Bender in the comments section. Just to weigh in with my two cents (which is probably not even worth two cents), I’d much rather prefer Schneiderlin than any other target we are linked to. He’s young, strong, positional discipline is top class, tried and tested in the premier league and his passing and defensive contribution numbers are through the roof! 20+ mil pounds well spent, I would assume.
Id prefer Lars Bender to virtually any other dm signing, same reasons as you but he is so consistant, he should work well with Özil per and poldi too from national team, what we lose in prem experience we gain in quicker bedding into the squad. Either will do, so long as it dosnt end up being Song.
Actually, I entirely agree with you; I’m not actually that knowledgeable about Schniederlin, I’ve only seen him play against us, but Khedira would not be a good investment in my opinion. He would be expensive, have huge wages and isn’t really a holding midfielder, more of a box to box runner. Where would he fit into this team? We need a calm passer who can spread the play to the full backs whilst adding some snappy tackling while Ramsey bombs forward. Arteta does this now, but he is in his twilight years, God bless him. Bender is also more of… Read more »
I honestly think none of them are coming though, Arsene still likes Arteta and he signed Flamini only last year, and he has Ramsey, Wilshere and Ox in the midfield role, so no, I don’t think he is going to sign a DM. All the rumours are from shitty sources. It is really aad that everyone assumes that it is going to be Khedira or Schneiderlin, because at the end, the joy of Alexis would be dampened by the sadness of not getting a DM that everyone wants.
Yeah, that’s more realistic. We do have Flamini too though, and there is some possibility, slight though it is, that Diaby could do this role. I won’t mind if we don’t sign a DM. Most of the top teams in Europe don’t play with a bona fide holder anyway, it’s about having the balance and the tactical discipline from the two central midfielders about who stays and who goes.
Arteta wasn’t at all a DM when we signed him, look at him now? It’s actually possible that a footballer does what the manager tells him to do, and not just ‘plays like he plays’. If Arteta, by trade a CAM, can be ‘converted’ to a DM, I’m not worried in the least that Khedira, by trade a box to box CM, is capable of hanging back a bit. It’s all about timing the Ramsey role anyway, if one of them burst up field, the other one stays back. I don’t think Wenger wants (or should be looking for) an… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more with this, and Lars Bender is this sort of player. Ramsey forward, Lars back and vice versa.
If you want a proper, out and out DM, you need Sven.
I’d be happy with either Bender….
😉
All excited!!! Fingers crossed yo fellow gooners… We waited for higuain last season but we got an upgrade of him this time which is really worth our wait 🙂
On another note . I just noticed that there is am icon at the top of arseblog articles that turns the backround black and the article white.
This is much more pleasing to my eyes
good job blogs
p.s van persie is a cunt
I think that is a rather unpleasant description of Van Persie, although I agree that he irritates me. ‘Tosser’, ‘Arsehole’, ‘Pillock’ would be words I would use for Van the Man, the C word I would reserve for Mourinho and people who almost hit your dog on the road before you dragged him back on his lead in time, but still kept driving, they thought they got away but you recognized their idiotic bumper sticker in the supermarket prking lot about making fox hunting legal and slashed their tires, and best of all there was no CCTV in the shopping… Read more »
I call bullshit. What icon..!?
A new Arsenal era begins…. Now!
If we buy Khedeira, would it mean that Real Madrid are officially our feeder club?
It would. The funny part about it is that tottenham are their feeder club, forever in our shaddows
So Spurs would be our feeders’ club’s feeder club, which would make them bottom feeders…so no change there then.
We are buying world class players for fun. Wenger Out!!
Good lad, Miquel. Hope he makes it at us, liked him ever since he scored against Coventry (I think it was?) in the CO Cup 2 seasons ago. Seems like a young Kos in the making. Oh to be a gooooner!
Ps. When van judas said he disagrees with the direction the club is heading in, I wonder if he agrees with where United is going now!
Infinity thumbs up for your PS!
Sanchez,bender,carzola,ozill,walcot,ramsey,the squard will be harzardeous
Wenger out!!
C’mon Arsenal. Stop teasing us !!! give us a peek of the signings. Just a small one. Please ?
I was reading on Özils wikipedia page a while back, and this quote from Lahm (half decent player) explains exactly why I am so excited about this signing: “anybody who has played with Mesut will tell you how intelligent he is as a player.” He further said; “His vision is probably the best I have ever seen and that is why it is so important to have the right striker ahead of him. “He is a dream for strikers and you saw that with [Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Karim] Benzema when he was at Madrid. If Arsenal can find the right… Read more »
Fun Fact, even in Ozils worst season to date, no one in the league created more chances per minute played than him. i think maybe Silva was similar. but seeing the fluent attack machinery Silva got to work with contra Ozils working conditions with a rather static Arsenal attack where holding up the ball was more important than passing it forward, that is pretty good. so i thought he got alot of unfair critisizm last season. In his last season for Real Madrid, Ozil nothched an insane 36 assists. but Madrid had a fluent attack and several players making runs… Read more »
I must admit I have never been as excited in any recent transfer windows. Is this the time when we with our own hard earned money spend as much money as those with an Arab or Russian sugar daddy.
Cue the shrieky teenage girl screams of joy
Up the Arsenal
Is this a confirmation that I can finally cream myself?! God it feels good to be a gunner!!
Holy shit(e), we might actually sign him, eh? I’ve been trying to maintain skepticism, but it’s becoming nearly impossible.
Has something happened that makes everyone think Khadeira is real?
Also this window is an absolute disgrace Arsene.
Where’s the new young kid who nobody has heard about from some Ligue 2 side?
Are Arsenal planing of introducing this “attractive” only policy into the Arsenal ladies?
Don’t hate on the Arsenal Ladies; they have had more champagne sprayed on them than the first team in recent years. Also the Ladies’ goalkeeper is a striking beauty, so there.
That wasn’t champagne.
Wine spritzer, then.
I would like to marry Siobhan Chamberlain, except I’m already married and Siobhan’s younger than my daughter.
I was referring to Emma Byrne, actually.
I still don’t get it. Most people seem to expect/want Sanchez to play on the wings with Giroud in the middle. How does that solve the problem the squad had last year? Who do we have to come off the bench or start the next game when Giroud tires? The solution to Giroud not being able to play 50 games can’t be to make Sanchez play 20 games up front and 30 games on the wing, can it? But it would make even less sense to get Sanchez and never play him in his best position. Count me confused.
This is actually a good point – don’t really understand why you are getting thumbed down. I certainly do not see Sanchez as a like for like replacement for Giroud, and I am wondering what the plans for Sanogo are for next season. However, and this is where it starts getting really interesting, a lot of critique aimed at Giroud has been about his goal scoring capabilities. For Sanogo it’s been goal scoring and experience. One thing they both do very well is working the defence, creating space for others (lest we forget, the games Sanogo played last season were… Read more »
We will have Giroud, Sánchez and Walcott rotating at CF, and on the wings we’ll have Walcott, Sánchez, Chambo, Cazorla, Podolski, Rosicky and Gnabry. Plus we might have Campbell and Sanogo in the mix there. That’s more than three players in each position, as far as I can tell.
We do indeed have lots of quality attacking players. But if we add Sanchez it seems we still have only one quality premier league-ready player whose best position is as the lone forward. Hence my confusion.
Something I forgot to say: it may well turn out brilliantly, and it certainly will be exciting if Sanchez really does join, I was just expecting us to go for more of a traditional number 9.
….Wenger spending too much on unknown prayers(Ozil,Sanchez)…#WengerOut……………We can only buy from small teams (Madrid,Barcelona)….#ClubInCrisis
Of Khedira, Bender or Schneiderlin, I figured Bender would be the best option but this Squawka piece shows that Schneiderlin would be a pretty good fit.
http://www.squawka.com/news/would-lars-bender-sami-khedira-or-morgan-schneiderlin-be-a-better-fit-for-arsenals-midfield/136781
reports in brazil claim wenger lost his cheque book to a fan…whoever you are hold on to it
What comes as a surprise from the sqwaka analysis is that Schneiderlin has more offensive plays than Khadira. Khadira to me plays in more advance positions on the pitch than Schneiderlin and bender but the numbers say otherwise
He’s one Red Hot ‘Chile’ Pepper
*gets coat
Brace yourselfs the days our rivals witness our glory are edging near…
The club should show some loyalty to Miguel and sign him to a long-term contract.
Wait, my bad. I forgot we only demand star players are loyal to the club. Double standards can be hard to keep straight.
“As of now, Lionel Hutz no longer exists. Say hello to Miquel Sanchez!”
If he plays on muddy wet pitch he might get a bit dirty, Sanchez.
@arseblog I have been waiting to see if u going to b writing an article about how Sanchez is going to get john terry(cunt) red carded. Sanchez already has a history with him, that makes him an arsenal legend even before he put on the red n white!
I fear all you guys whishing for Khedira to join will shed a few tears when
I fear all
damn it…
… when we concede goals from counters again and again.
Khedira needs a true holding midfielder beside him!
It’s virtually impossible for John Terry not to be a cunt.
Herbert Chapman is a Legend
The pain of Ceschelski is over! Looking forward to our Welsh Jesus combining with Ozil and sanchez and santi etc etc. it is pure wank material. I agree with others Girroud will be very effective with Sanchez.
The kit revealing takes place at 3:00p my time. If we unveil Debuchy and Sanchez at the same time, my cubicle walls are going to look like a helicopter crashed into a glue factory.
Hope these are just the appetizers.
So by not signing Suarez last year, we get Ozil and then a dynamic, sane winger (allegedly) in Sanchez. All the while Liverpool lose the player of the year in Suarez in part due to our funds for Sanchez. Indeed a good day (allegedly).
There is a big BUT with this signing. Yes he is an Awesome player and just what we need, BUT he is also kind of injury prone. Will his body cope in the Premier League?. I dont know, But i think it is a bit of a gamble bringing in fragile players no matter how good to a injury ridden club like ours, to play in the toughest league of all. Chances are the amount of injury and the severity of them will only increase in the premier League for Sanchez. Which is why i think Diaby should go home… Read more »
Surely Remy is the cheap alternative/back up for Giroud. Not the most exciting signing ever but a good squad striker.
I haven’t been this excited about a player since, well… Ozil.
If Ozil was like our new Bergkamp, Sanchez will be like our new Overmars, but will hopefully end up more like Henry (ie not bitching about the club if he ever leaves)
Don’t be so greedy Comedian*, Debuchy is the appitizer, Sanchez the main course, Bender/Schneiderlin/Khedira for dessert and a fit-for-a-full-season Diaby the icing on the cake.
Sorry about the random *.
We signed Ozil, we won the FA Cup, we’re just about to sign another world class player…
The period of osterity is over, Arsenal are major players once again. Top players want to become part of the next phase of our wonderful club’s history and I Fucking LOVE IT!!