Arsenal’s midfield rebuild to continue with Croatia star
Published:
It appears Granit Xhaka isn’t the only Euro 2016 midfield star that could be arriving at Arsenal this summer, as the north Londoners chase Croatia’s Marcelo Brozovic.
The Inter Milan man impressed for his country during the French-held Championships, and has been a target of Arsene Wenger’s for some time.
Italian publication La Gazetta dello Sport suggests the Gunners are ready to offer €30m for Brozovic, just months after paying close to £40m for Switzerland’s Xhaka.
Just like the new Arsenal man, Brozovic enjoyed Euro 2016. He played in three of Croatia’s four games as their participation was ended in the round of 16 by eventual winners Portugal.
In that time the 23-year-old displayed his box-to-box style, making seven successful tackles (the fourth most in the team) and firing in the second-most shots with eight.
Although he didn’t get on the scoresheet with those attempts, the fact that six of them came from inside the area shows he is more of a Frank Lampard-style midfielder than a shoot-on-sight merchant.
Arsenal’s midfield was always going to be a source of recruitment this summer after the club lost Tomas Rosicky, Mathieu Flamini and Mikel Arteta during the off-season.
They acted quickly to buy Xhaka, a tempo-setting passer, from Borussia Monchengladbach, but appear willing to add yet more options to the middle of the park.
Jack Wilshere’s return to fitness is a considerable boon for Wenger, with the Englishman likely to compete with Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla for two of the three midfield options.
Francis Coquelin and Mohamed Elneny provide defensive midfield cover.
With under a month to go before the start of the new Premier League season, Arsenal find themselves as our fourth favourites to land the title at a price of 6/1.
Their campaign begins at break-neck speed, with Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool the visitors to the Emirates on the opening weekend. We make the Gunners 11/10 to start with a win.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
