According to Spanish journalist Kike Marin, and Charles Watts of Goal, Arsenal are interested in signing young French defender William Saliba.
The 18 year old plays for Saint-Etienne, and made 19 appearances in all competitions this season, including a run of games at the end of the campaign which saw them finish fourth.
They still have one final fixture to fulfill, away to Angers on Friday May 24th, and the Gunners had scouts in attendance at last weekend’s game – a 3-0 win over Patrick Vieira’s Nice.
Saliba is 6’4, so would add some height and physical presence to the defence, but at 18 he’s still hugely inexperienced so it’d be a lot to ask for him to come in and become a first team regular straight away.
It might be a case that he could be signed as one for the future, with another more experienced defender coming in to bolster the back-line which has been so leaky.
There’s reported interest from AC Milan in Shkodran Mustafi, while Calum Chambers’ homegrown status could see him reintegrate into the squad next season.
Rob Holding is expected to be fit to start the season having suffered a cruciate injury in December, while Sokratis and Laurent Koscielny add experience to the defensive line-up.
Given how restricted our transfer budget could be, buying young players early in their career and developing their potential seems to be a decent approach to transfers, but as ever we’ll wait and see what the club do with so much depending on what happens in Baku on May 29th.
Great when they come through but at 18 they might easily not, there is a lot of growing up to do and central defenders are best once 24, at least, so a long time to go.
Not necessarily.
Not saying he is a Varane, but he was active already at 18. Not saying he’ll be ready now, but doesn’t necessarily mean we have to wait for them to be 24 for him to provide his value. Holding isn’t at his peak yet, but was already providing value this season at 23.
Either way, I’m ok with a long-term approach. Our short-terminism is kinda why we’re now where we are; spent so much money on an aging and imbalanced squad in desperation to get into the top 4 and we still couldn’t.
How good would it be to get another David O’Leary it Tony Adams into the first team set up?
It would be good to have one less Mustafi in the team
You mustn’t be afraid to dream bigger, Anonymarse – chuck Mesut and Miki in there too.
Now these are the type of signings I’m for!! I’ve watched this guy a few times and he’s got massive potential. Mou was singing his praises not too long ago.
Get him plus another experienced cb (heard we’re linked with Manolas/Hermoso/Umtiti etc) while selling Mustafi and Chambers and it’ll do.
Lots of hidden gems in Ligue un and Ligue 2 at the moment. We should be looking at Sangare and Claude Maurice(Guendouzi’s teammate at Lorient).
Funny thing is Sven recommended this guy back in January.
I’m pretty sure Umtiti, who was France’s first choice centre half with Varane as they won the World Cup, would be just a step or two below the Van Dijk price bracket. Not going to happen.
I think he’s a “we qualified for Champions League” kind of buy
He’s available for around 50m according to reports.
I hope he is the defensive Kylian Mbappe.
At this stage any transfer talk linked to a defender is good news!
Rumoured transfer fee is about £25m though. He’ll have to be good enough to be a starter at that price, no?
“Arsenal linked with young French player that no one has ever heard of” – why does that sentence feel like a warm hug?
Because… Laurent. ?
Next Kurt Zouma.. we need a beast at 6’4″
A direct quote from Mourinho so i dunno why people are thumbing you down. He looks good, also called the new Verane so he must have some pace. I feel we need a very quick athletic CB to compliment our existing and experienced players. Kolo to our etc etc
Zouma is massively overrated. Would cost a fortune. Along with Zaha, he is on my avoid list
Man I hope we win in Baku!
Ha. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Different names but otherwise the headline and most of the story would’ve been equally true in 2009.
When the transfer stories start you can really tell who plays football manager
Everybody’s been linked with this guy, with people claiming he’d cost 25 million. Really can’t see Arsenal singing an 18 year old for 25 million unless we’re convinced he’s the next Tony Adams.
Matthijs de Ligt is 19, this could be a great buy