Arsenal have confirmed the signing of Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina.
The 20 year old cost a fee of around £2m, and has signed a long-term contract with the club.
It’s a sign that Arsene Wenger is making plans to cope with the age profile of his current centre-halves, with Per Mertesacker retiring at the end of the season, Laurent Koscielny is 32 and hampered by an ongoing Achilles problem, while Nacho Monreal is 31.
Welcome to Arsenal, Konstantinos ? https://t.co/riLPiqxyX4
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) January 4, 2018
The Gunners do have younger options, with Rob Holding and Calum Chambers in the early stages of their careers, while Shkodran Mustafi is 25.
The new boy is expected to join Werder Bremen on loan to continue his development, and his readiness for first team action at Arsenal will be assessed in the summer.
this makes no sense. we have chambers, holding and bielik in that age bracket, why getting another one? we need a relatively experienced defender who can step in immediately, and this doesn’t send a good message to the current crop.
Or maybe it keeps the current crop on their toes. Maybe they think he’s got more potential than some of them, in which case it’s not a bad move at all.
For god.s sake arseblog..stop getting on the back of anyone who makes a semi negative comment. This squad is crying out for a ready made cb
Apologies arseblog..just exceptionally touchy when it comes to arsenal these days. What u said is perfectly reasonable
We will convert him into a winger once he joins up. Have no fear!
You can never have too many young center halves. You think Chambers, Holding, and Bielik are all going to work out? That’s playing with fire. You see a young player with potential for a good price and you jump on it no matter what the position. Prospects are just that – prospects. If they were solid bets, they’d be 100m in today’s silly market.
Thus this is a great piece of business. Low risk/potential high reward.
Chambers looked to be on the way out in summer until Gabriel left and it wouldn’t surprise me if he leaves this year. Holding was great in the FA cup final but has really struggled this year. Bielek, Sheaf and the others might well be talented, but they’ve played as much premier football as the Greek kid so if Sven rates him I don’t see why he shouldn’t be brought in.
Also with a back four you essentially need 2 center backs for cover, with a back three you need 5-6
And he’s 6ft 4, more height than what we have apart from Met
“this makes no sense”
It makes perfect sense – we have 2 Albanians, thus we must have at least a Greek.
The Greeks usually produce good centre backs
I’m sure our Bosnian loves being called Albanian. James McClean is English too.
If you cannot identify the 2nd Albanian in the squad – as is clearly the case – instead of trying to be clever, you could always ask. 😉
I always thought Shane LONG is Chinese, come on not just the name he is tall
He probably doesn’t care, just like the rest of us.
Mustafi and xhaka?
Yup.
They are both “second generation” albanians.
Or rather “first generation” German and Swiss, if you really want to play that pointless game about nationalities, passports, parents’ origins etc. Neither Mustafi or Xhaka were even born in Albania.
lol…..you got my up vote pal
Great news, another one for the future- what about the present. Another defensive shambles last night. We don’t have a CH worthy of a top four challenge now that injuries have caught up with Koz. The back three were an embarrassment last night. If Morata was a proper CF we were buried.
He only cost 2M? Its about adding players at that cost for potential.
Everyone screaming this past summer why couldn’t we gotten Mbappe when he was cheap? Lemar? Greizman?
Now we bought a player with potential at inexpensive cost and sit here and complain
Damn if we do and damn if we don’t lol
Exactly. Fans are so shortsighted. Buying potential is our forte and we have proved time and again especially recently. I quote, ‘We have signed Sanogo. He has not made the headlines. Why? Because he is not 50-100 million pounds. But I am quite confident he will make them [headlines] soon on the pitch and that for me is the most important.’
Soon, all this potential will be realised. Mark my words.
Fair enough investing in the future but there’s a major need for improving the current backline. Even if the way Wenger sets up has this team prone to concede at any moment, buying quality defenders will at the least cut out the ridiculous mistakes our players make every game.
Know absolutely nothing about him, but I’m happy he’s with us. Seems to have been signed on Sven’s determination and £2m in this market is nothing.
It’s also great to see the club acting early. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come between now, and the end of the summer window, what with the recent board/scouting shake up.
Couldn’t see anything about this being driven by Sven, wouldn’t surprise me, but did I miss something in the article somewhere?
There were a lot of posts on the Arsenal sub-reddit that Sven had connections to Mavropanos’s agent.
Ah rightio. Sven connections working already it seems. I hope Wenger actually gives him a fair go.
He is going to GErmany for a loan deal. How many of our players usually go to Germany?
Could be a hit, won’t be a miss (financially). Like these kind of signings.
Yeah that’s the thing right, I mean we can make 10 signings like this in a year and if one of them work out it’s fantastic business.
So we’re Chelsea now? Look how that worked out for them, salah debrunye lukaku, hell they even signed 2 cms whilst loaning out a kid as good.
I’m not against signing kids with potential but 10 2m signings of maybes is excessive if you think that 20m could be put towards a first team replacement.
Unfortunately, courtesy of the scousers, 20m doesn’t get you anywhere near purchasing a first team CB these days.
Gets you a ross barkley apparently!
Chelsea loan players with a view to showcase their talent so they can sell them for a healthy profit. Chelsea fire managers on a seasonal basis hence all those in charge plan for the immediate present, which is why they’ll never let a Bellerin, Maitland-Niles or Iwobi develop while playing in their first team. Arsenal loan players with a view to developing them and then integrating into the first team. Often we gamble and persue with youth at the cost of buying an experienced Intl player. Not everyone agrees with this strategy but I’d rather do this than what Chelsea… Read more »
Ela Kosta!!
saw something about him going on loan. Any truth there?
Been talks about Werder Bremen
Apologies. Seen this mentioned in the article but thank you for responding!
While a welcome addition, this doesn’t exactly help with the age profile of the centre halves. In fact it somewhat exacerbates the picture.
With Per retiring and Kos/Montreal entering their twilight years , we really only have Mustafi as the senior defender (above age 22). And you now have 4 young centre halves (if you add Bielik to the mix) who are unlikely to hit top gear in the next 2-3 seasons.
I hope Sven and the backroom has a top quality seasoned defender in mind for the summer to partner/challenge Mustafi and lead the other young hopefuls who remain.
5 young CB. You missed Ben Sheaf who alongside Eddie Nketiah and Matt Macey recently signed long term contracts with Arsenal
Ben is described as a ‘cultured centre midfielder’
https://www.arsenal.com/academy/players/ben-sheaf
This is a joke, right?
No. The joke is on you
Why is the joke on him? I didnt understand. What is the joke?
Why is it a joke? Because he only cost £2 million?
Nice height.
And quite mobile with a no nonsense approach!
Not exactly a signing for the now.
I think it may be dependent on how Arsene feels our ‘talent’ at academy level are developing as far as Cbacks are concern.
But near term issues may require more complete player to come in should Holding and/or Chambers not be able to step up quickly enough.
Koscielny shows wear and tear issues, Per is retiring (and under used inexplicably), Monreal isn’t exactly Cback and is also wrong side of 30yrs.
We can’t penny pinch (well we can) particularly as this is a position which shows continuous issues.
Feet of clay.
Wait… Santori didn’t credit David Dein for Holding?! You’ve also dropped your 2017/18 word of the season “nuance” and the previous seasons “Flamini”. Good on you, mate.
We always complain about complacency in the first team, well what about the youngsters? Wouldn’t chambers and Holding be more driven if they knew there was a Greek kid blowing smoke up their hole trying to steal their position? I can’t see how spending an insignificant amount of money on a talented player can ever be a bad thing
If he’s anything like Kolasinac quality then fair play.
I don’t think Chambers will ever be a success at Arsenal, his football brain just doesn’t seem to work quickly enough, I like Rob Holding, think he’ll be ok, but Mustafi always looks like he’s got a mistake in him, never inspires me with any confidence.
Perfectly sums up the way not to support your young players. Write them off early, make no allowance for mistakes in their development. John Stones was being written off last year, and look at him now. Have some patience and show support. It’s really not that hard.
I hope he has some pace as the current batch of centre halves at the club are as slow as cart horses. Teams can just run right down the middle at our goal with the likes of Chambers and Mustafi puffing along behind. No wonder we ship so many soft goals.
Happy for him and hope he makes it, but I’m more concerned for Beilik and Sheaf. I really hate what’s being done at Arsenal to our young DMs. It’s clear Wenger doesn’t fancy “Classic” DMs (prefers the likes of Xhaka as a DM) so now players like Sheaf and Beilik are suffering because of it. They’re being converted into DMs, and now have to compete with this guy, Mustafi, Chambers and Holding and Lord knows who else will come. We need more DMs. change Beilik in particular, and Sheaf back into DMs. Let this guy, Chambers, Holding & Mustafi compete… Read more »
You seem really smart with your comments but to think Arsenal or any academy or U23 could produce 3-5 world class players in the same age group let alone maybe 1 every 2-3 years is illogical. Its not even fair to think that way.
I was using it as an example. The number scales. Basically, I’d rather we develop 1 WC CB and 1 WC DM than just 1 CB. The point is that if you have 6 equally talented players all vying for 1 position, only 1 can truly display their potential. Yet if you have 2 positions, then it’s likely 2 COULD fulfil their potential. Right now we’ve converted Bielik into a CB when we already have 6 CBs (though 3 are retiring soon) and 1 incoming. Bielik has been ok as a CB but has been awesome as a DM and… Read more »
Kinda getting your drift here..but never seen Bielik play in either position so haed to agree or disagree
And we shall call him Konsta
Wenger kidding again?
Young player, small fee, sent on loan to the Bundesliga for experience (not for a passport). Don’t see much of a downside to this. Let’s just hope Bayern don’t try and do a Gnabry on us again if he turns out to be a gem in Germany.
Also, anyone actually seen the lad play? Genuinely curious as to his style of play.
Gotta love the biannual outrage at Arsenal signing a young player for peanuts
How have some people not yet realised that these sorts of signings are completely different to and don’t compete with the big money signings that improve the squad today? Two different discussions. The lad’s a huge chunk of a man at 20 with some experience already at senior level, get around him
If youtube videos are anything to go by, the kid is huuuge with great body strength. Think he goes straight to the first team bench ahead of our other prospects.
welcome Arsenal young bairn. we coaching learn you defending good.
We’ve been spending big money on players with a good age profile in recent years, so getting good young prospects maintains a healthy balance
If we go through the January transfer window only signing this guy Wenger should feel ashamed.
Liverpool go out and spend £75 on one defender but we buy nobody.
Wenger and the board are taking the piss out of the fans.