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Danny Welbeck’s injury and Aaron Ramsey’s contract situation makes it inevitable that Arsenal might sign some players in January. Though the Arsenal board and also Arsene Wenger were not the fans of the Winter Transfer window, Unai Emery might have a different take as he takes the Europa League seriously too, and in order to finish in top 4 and also try and win the Europa League, he would require a big and quality squad.
The good thing for Unai is that there are replacements available in-house too. He can give more playing time to Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Eddie Nketiah can be an option up front and also the form of Reiss Nelson gives Emery some options to try. Nelson has been banging in goals for Hoffenheim and there are chances his loan deal might be scrapped and he would be recalled to the Unai Emery set-up come January.
We look at three players Unai Emery could sign in January.
#3 Emerson
Big clubs like Arsenal, PSG and Manchester City are pursuing the Atletico Mineiro right-back Emerson who has all the qualities to be the next Daniel Alves. Emerson moved to Atletico Mineiro only back in April and he is having a breakthrough season. He has been called up to the Brazilian U20 team and that shows the progress he has made in quick time.
His pace, positional sense and aerial ability are talked about a lot in Brazil and he could be one for the future for the Gunners. Stephan Lichtsteiner only signed a year-long deal with Arsenal and there are chances the deal might not be extended beyond the actual one. It makes sense to target someone who can be an understudy as well as a competition for Hector Bellerin.
Emerson likes to play short passes which suits Unai Emery’s style of building play from the back and Emerson can start attacks from the back.
#2 Nicolas Pepe
Pepe’s name was doing the rounds even in the summer transfer window. He currently plays for Lille in France. The winger has scored eight goals and provided six assists to justify the speculation of him joining a big European club. Danny Welbeck’s role of playing in all three positions across the front three due to his work ethic can be very well replicated by Pepe.
Lille president Gerard Lopez and vice-president Marc Ingla have been very vocal about the fact that selling Pepe in the winter is not in their plans and they might as well wait for the Summer to take a call on offers.
Arsenal needs a traditional pacy winger as most of its front three lack pace and are not as young as some of the talked about wingers in the premier league like Sterling, Zaha, and Mane.
Even Pepe himself had admitted in recent times that it is good to be linked with clubs like Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, and Bayern.
#1 Ousmane Dembele
Out of the three options, this one is the one that is making the fans go crazy. Dembele links to Arsenal are nothing to be surprised about as the Gunners picked up Sven Mislintat, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrik Mkhitaryan and Sokratis Papastathopoulos from the German club from where Dembele moved to Barca.
The French youngster was scouted by Mislintat during his time at Dortmund and he still has the confidence in his talent, though his attitude has been a problem for Barcelona. Dembele and Arsenal could be a match made in heaven and he would have surely seen the list of how some French players who became great after joining Arsenal.
The fact that Dembele can never be a regular starter for Barcelona has added more speculation of him leaving in January. There are claims that Arsenal offered €10m to Barcelona as a loan fee for the year, plus another €90m to make the transfer permanent at the end of the season but that has proved to be a false news. But come January, Arsenal could get him for much less than the claimed transfer fee in summer.
