Arsene Wenger has been so impressed with Konstantinos Mavropanos that he’s considering keeping the new signing in the squad until the end of the season.
Originally, the plan was for the 20 year old to go out on loan, with a move to Werder Bremen more or less arranged between the two clubs, but the new signing has impressed the manager so much he now wants to keep him until the end of the season.
Speaking after the 0-0 draw with Chelsea in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night, Wenger said, “I personally want to keep him until May to know him better, to asses his level.
“The first signs he has shown are so encouraging that I decided to keep him until May.”
It may also be a case that he provides some defensive reinsurance at a time when we’re without some key players.
Both Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac are currently sidelined, while Laurent Koscielny is struggling with his Achilles problems. Add to that Per Mertesacker struggling in his final season as a player, and he might well prove to be useful cover.
Given he’s a signing identified by new Head of Recruitment, Sven Mislintat, it’s a first chance to see if the German’s eye for talent is as good as we hope it is.
Fingers crossed.
Great idea. We are short at the back so if he looks half-ready, keep him here. Quite excited to see how the first of Sven’s talent-spots works out for us.
Let’s hope he’s good at avante garde, free form defending. Express yourself Konstantinos! Be the ball, be the pitch, be the wind, and the air!
Get Bouldy to do some role-play with the defenders. “Alright lads, it’s time for rainbow rhythms. We start off in red, the colour of primal urges…”.
Be water, be heart. Heck, just be Captain Planet
And the rumors with Cristian Pavon came out of nowhere as far as I’m concerned. If true and is the work of Sven, we’ve to give him props for it.
This guy…he’s like a new signing!
I am going to try and connect the dots here: This new defender is going to slot in as a CB and he will be considered instead of Monreal who goes back the left wing back, so one of Monreal or Kolasinac will play as LWB (other kept as back up) allowing Niles to move into the the spot left by Coquelin.
Not exactly internal solutions, but this could be a possibility of Wenger’s thinking.
That’s very much it I’d like to think. Thank goodness Wilshere found his form again out of the blue, that sorts of filled the void left by Santi, and we can see how much a difference that makes to our performances. Replace Sanchez adequately, and get another top notch winger to replace Walcott and we’re not left so bad really. There seems to be plenty wingers out there (who seem available) this window for some reason; Malcom, Lucas Moura, Draxler, Lemar, and as I mentioned earlier Pavon. Sign two of them up, and make sure Ozil’s tied up; and the… Read more »
That’s the beauty of it. The problem is clear every season, and we all know which positions need to be fixed in the starting 11. Yet, every season we are left disappointed in the transfer market. This window will be no different unfortunately
yeah, I think AMN and Xhaka could be a real complimentary pair in midfield! Hope Rambo’s back soon, we’ve really missed him too.
If we’re playing 3ATB, who will AMN replace? Xhaka or Ramsey/Wilshere? Or we go with a 3 man midfield with AMN as DM?
Xhaka could probably use a breather. Rotate a match here or there for him, fill in on the wingback when needed, come off the bench as an extra closer (if we’re ever in such a luxurious position). Hector might need a break pretty quick here too. I think AMN is in on the cusp now.
more bull shit from wenger
Yeah, I hate it when he signs players ready for the first team. I much prefer a Wellington Silva, where we sign him just to loan him out for 5 seasons…
If only his middle name was sopranos…
If he has a bit of pace, he’s got to be challenging Chambers for a spot in a back three.
Not how I like to judge a player but on Youtube clips he looks very pacey to the style of Varane at RM.. huge strides eating up the ground.
I actually loved us sitting deep last night vs Chelsea it was refreshing to see us head everything and block everything which came our way. No coincidence our defenders look a lot better when there isn’t 50 yards of grass between them and the goal..
If he’s likely to get a few games then this is probably good, get him accustomed to life at Arsenal.
If he’s hardly going to play though, I think he’d be better off on loan somewhere rather than playing reserve football…
Ah, didn’t know he was the debut Sven acquisition – interesting indeed!
Hope he doesn’t go the way of other nonWenger (Stat DNA) signings.
How about the non statDNA direct Wenger signings like Santos, Gervinho, Park, Etc?
Good start from Sven… hopefully.
Yet another young defender who will have his confidence destroyed played for us…
I want to assume wenger was always going to keep him. He just didn’t want it to look like that’s our main signing with all the sh*t flying.
Doesn’t matter though, just waiting for when this reign will end. It has to end eventually.
Mavropanos was born in 1997 so he counts as an under-21 player both this season and next. Especially if we keep playing in back 3, no reason not to keep him around.
Great, so we have Per (retiring), Kos (soon to retire I bet, Mustafi, Chambers, Holding and possibly even Monreal. Ample cover for both a 2-man or 3-man defence.
So please, I know you don’t like classic DMs, but please let Shaef but Bielik especially return to being DMs again please? Bielik in particular hasn’t been anywhere near as impressive as he once when he was a DM.
Plus with Coq gone and Elneny likely next, even with AMN, we’re gonna need more DMs.
Or perhaps sign someone new…
I’ve said it repeatedly, but Marcos llorente would fit the bill of what we need in the midfield.
Conspiracy theory: Is this a Wenger power play. He was not involved in this signing at all, and perhaps not involved in the idea to loan him out in Germany… So he overrules that decision to show he still wields the power?
Probably not. But who doesn’t love a conspiracy theory?
Or maybe an opportunity to sling a bit more baseless shit in wenger’s direction?
I am confident with Sven , its not just the dortmund players who were highlighted , one guy whom i got impressed with this season is Mikel Merino who plays for newcastle. Seeing him i thought this was exactly what i wanted xhaka to be , researched about him and got to know he is from dortmund too signed under sven network. This guy really has an eye for talent and not just based on stats.
Merino is wasted in that toon midfield. He looks like a young arteta, and he’d be much better suited to a side where he’s not being asked to play 2 positions (as shelvey is always wandering).
Sounds like Arsenal. Sign him up.
Play him out on the wings first to gain experience ?
Do we know if he plays as a left sided CB. We seem dominated by players who favour the right excluding an aging kos and monreal. Would be nice to get someone more comfortable on the left of a 2 or 3 cb formation
Good. I want him to stay and learn the language. Communication is the key in his position. We have a fantastic batch with Chambers, Holding, Beilik, Mavropanos, Kolasinac, Bellerin, Ben Sheaf and Maitland Niles with Mustafi, Kos and Monreal to guide them. I like the profile of this batch. Think they have a bit of steel about them.
I remain unconvinced that the young lad is ready for the big step up, but hope I will be pleasantly surprised.
That said, the cynic in me thinks this is what we are as a club now- a slightly higher tier southampton- buy low and sell high to funnel more talent up the premier league table to the billionaire stratosphere while the Kroenke regime bleeds the club of its soul.
Historically, we’ve often considered a season training with the first team as a preliminary step for a young player *before* a loan to a Championship or foreign side. So this doesn’t really seem out of the ordinary.
unconvinced?
Do you follow the greek league? I understand its not even close to the Prem but what are you unconvinced about?
Sounds like more penny pinching. Hope he’s right. Its difficult to say if an expensive solution will cure our ills in defense. The issues have been systemic as much as with individual concentration levels and decision making. Holding and Chambers look better with the midfield yesterday affording more support. Midfield have been as much culpable over last few matches in not tracking runners into the box as have individual errors with the back line. Maybe Mavropanos could add more redundancy but we lack the experience IMO. Evans OTOH would be a band aid and frankly not the type of signing… Read more »
Probably keeping him bc he wants to spend in other areas. Looks like he will elect to turn a blind eye to issues in midfield and defense and reinforce potentially higher up which is typical feet of clay approach. We look like we can bring in about 50-60m income this January if all goes right. We already sold Coq for a good 12m. Potentially Alexis we can sell for closer to 25m, maybe Walcott for 20.That’s 55m (minus 2m on Mavropanos) Maybe we can move on Debuchy for 5m make it 60m…doubt we find a buyer for the mediocre Elneny.… Read more »
FRankly our problem over last 5 years in which wenger has tried to spend more to ramp up quality is that we have not got the balance right and are still playing catch up. We have still been over reliant on buying also-can band aid players like Silvestre, Squillaci before and later Santos. . But we have also the Elneny, Perez buys which are OK but not necessarily the players we need to spend to take us to the next level even with a number of marque signings. We have consistently been short of 3 or 4 top quality players… Read more »
“I personally want to keep him until May to know him better, to *asses* his level” – oh yes, *Arse*ne knows 😉
I find that a little bit exciting – am I being naive?
After watching some of his highlight videos I’m convinced. He’s almost as tall as Per but built like a kolasinac, and loves a header and a good hard slide tackle
Iwobi and Walcott must go on loan then we recall Campbell and Perez. Buy Marez it Drexler then we will be good. Niles can officially move into the midfield now that Coquelin is out. Keep Sanchez and Ozil. If we win the Europa league I feel like the summer isn’t going to be a real team changing moment. And next season could be out season