Reported Arsenal target and Marseille defender Nicolas N’Koulou has played down talks of him joining the Gunners this summer. But do we really need him?
The 22-year-old was quoted on SkySports.com saying:
‘I remain a Marseille player.
‘A lot of things can still happen before the end of the season but I won’t get concerned with that yet.’
The Cameroon international has been in impressive form for Didier Deschamps’ side since his summer move from Monaco last year, with many European clubs said to be monitoring the centre-back’s progress.
Now apparently Arsenal leads this pack, and I don’t see why to be honest.
I don’t necessarily believe we need another centre-back coming in, unless one departs, which is highly unlikely in my opinion.
Johan Djouoru recently signed a new deal with the club, as did Thomas Vermaelen, while Laurent Koscielny is arguably our best defender and Per Mertesacker only arrived at the start of the season. We also have Alex Song who can fill in if required. So ultimately there will be no room for N’Koulou.
Now unless one of the four defenders mentioned above decide to call it quits and depart this summer, there is no real need for us to splash out on another centre-back. This money can be used on other areas of the team which need addressing.
However, N’Koulou is a talented player, one which we should keep tabs on. Possibly in the future we should make a move for him, but, for the time being at least, I don’t believe we are in dire need of his services.
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Have you seen him play? He is outstanding and would easily compete with Verm and Koz.
Utd have vidic, rio, evans, smalling, Jones
We have three that are fit for purpose , Koz, Verm + Mert.
I’d take this guy in a heartbeat.
I highly rae this guy, but as I stated in the end part of the article, I dont think it is the right time for him to come to Arsenal, perhaps in the near future but not now.
Djourou can’t defend to save his life, he has single handedly lost us many important matches including in my view the Wigan game. We can not compete with the best if we have one good partnership kocialny and tv5 we need another top defender, vertonghen has been named but I don’t think we need him as we are going for m’villa and we have vermalean so he won’t be getting many games as they are both left footed and aren’t very strong on their right so we can’t pair them. Kocialny is good on his left so if vermalean were to get injured then he can step in or miquel. I think we should be going for a top notch cb and in my opinion Adil rami is in that calibre but may cost upwards of 15mil so nkoulou could be an option or mats hummels
So if lionel messi is available we wouldnt be interested as we have rvp chamakh park vela bendtner arshqvin walcott gervimho chamberlain miyaichi…….what crap if a centre back is available and is better than one of ours we should try and improve the squad not just the team. if subotic hummels and vertonghen were available i would go for all 3 as all 3 are better than our best 3. this season we have used mertesacker koscielny squillaci vermaelen djourou miquel song and boateng at centre back. that is 8 players last season if i remember correctly we used a similar amount and the season before we used 10 players at centre back. im happy enough with kos per tv and jd but if anyone better is available we must improve.
Yeah and you’d also be in debt with the wages you would have to pay for all three defenders you mentioned mate. I’m not saying we shouldn’t go for him, i just don’t think the time is right. We already have Kos and Verm, plus Per and Djourou, where and when would N’Koulou play? Would the other defenders be happy to see him come in, probably in terms of squad depth. But I’m sure they would worry about their positions within the squad. No need for him yet. Need to focus on other areas of the squad, like our attack and midfield. Thanks for the comment though.