Nuri Sahin: Should Arsenal regret missing out on this slick passer?

Nuri Sahin admitted that he nearly joined Arsenal on three separate occasions in the past, but should Arsenal regret missing out on the Turkish international who bossed the Gunners alongside Sven Bender?

His Performance Score of 257 from nine Bundesliga matches is the third best in the current Dortmund squad. It is also higher than all but one of Arsenal’s midfielders, Aaron Ramsey who scores 434. Mezut Ozil has a score of 224, less than Sahin, but he has the hindrance of only playing five league matches.

Sahin is known best for his passing and has a respectable if unspectacular 81% success rate. The only Gunners’ midfielders with a lower success rate have not played much this season due to injury, Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. In the Champions League, over the three group games so far, his pass accuracy drops as low as 76%.

What is impressive is his tackle success. In 38 attempted tackles he has won 34, with an impressive 89% tackle success. This is far better than Mathieu Flamini, arguably his direct competition for a place, who wins around 55% of his tackles. He has also made 19 interceptions in nine matches, slightly better than two per game.

His shooting is also a slight concern. He has had 16 efforts in nine games, and a pretty poor 25% have hit the target with none hitting the back of the net. Goals from midfield are pretty important for Arsenal with most of their regular midfielders getting themselves on the score sheet this term.

With the exception of his strong tackling, an attribute that Arsenal have been accused of lacking in recent seasons, Sahin falls short of his potential team-mates statistically across the board. Signing him would be a case of balancing this against his qualities and his experience, indeed he has won league titles in both Spain and Germany.

So it seems that while Sahin is a solid central midfielder with respectable all round data and some good performances he would not really improve the Arsenal side.

He would definitely fit in to the way the team play, would add experience and talent to the squad but he is not going to necessarily improve the ranks a great deal.

Yes he would be a valuable member of the squad but the way things are going Arsene Wenger should not have any regrets about missing out on the player on three occasions.