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“For your Lacazette point,” says Matthew DeMaio, “I think you are more or less right about Laca as a player who is aging rapidly and losing value and that this is a sign of the problems Arsenal face. I also think he’s as good a bet as any of our forwards to score this season. Auba is struggling and I am not convinced by Nketiah.
It also appears that Arteta has not represented a clear break from the past of spending a lot of money or handing out big contracts to older players. Willian is the obvious example, but Partey, while he might represent what we need right now, is not a spring chicken. Years 1, 2 and 3 of the deal may make sense, but in 2024 and he’s 31 years old with a year left on his contract, he could start to look a lot like the other aging players we’ve been dragging along.
Until that point, when the clock strikes the start of the 2022 season, we will have:
Partey, 29 years old, with 3 years to go:
Soares, 31, with 2 years to go
Mari, 29 years old, with 2 years to go
Willian, 34 years old, 1 year from the end
Auba, 33 years old, with 1 year to go
Leno, 30 years old, with 1 year to go
There are also a lot of players that will finish that year in their late 20s (Pepe, Bellerin, Holding) who, in the form of Arsenal, will probably get big contracts between now and then that will lead to 30. I feel like Arsene never I used to give anyone contracts of more than 1 year when they reached 30. It would be wise to go back to that mantra. “
In Partey, if Arsenal take off three great years, it will be a great purchase. I agree that Willian made little sense, so one wonders how that could have happened, without really wondering at all. But I think Nketiah will be a really good substitute, worst case scenario – he knows how to score, a pretty useful skill overall.
