2. Morgan Schneiderlin
Now I (and many others) have been waxing lyrical about Morgan Schneiderlin for a while now, simply because he seems made for this Arsenal team. He has played largely as a holding midfielder at Southampton, showing off his distinguished defensive abilities as well as his capacity to recycle possession. It is well known that Arsenal need a more defensive minded, perhaps more physically gifted midfielder – we have needed one for years now. Arteta has done the job with aplomb for the last few seasons but his legs are going and he is just not athletic enough against top English and European competition. Schneiderlin would solve these problems.
Transfermarkt.com have his value at around £8m but obviously Southampton have no interest in selling for such a modest figure. It was believed that Arsenal put in a bid of around £15m last January – which was clearly rejected. I would imagine that – having sold Shaw, Lallana and Lambert for a combined £60m – they are in no rush to lose yet another one of their key players. Yet I still think we should put £18-20m on the table and at least give them something to consider.