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When Arsenal signed Jorginho in January, I think Arsenal made the determination that Thomas Partey’s brittleness was such that a different calibre of alternative was required. Albert Sambi Lokonga had not developed as hoped and Mohamed Elneny was injured.
Jorginho was signed to an 18 month contract with the option for an extra year and Chelsea, who were in the middle of a tear it down style rebuild, were happy to take the money and use it for Enzo Fernandez and, later, Moises Caicedo. Jorginho was and is a short-term signing for Arsenal.
Since the disastrous procurement of Willian, Arsenal have tended to avoid short-term signings but that doesn’t mean they can never be valuable. I will admit that I have always liked Jorginho, much as I always thought Arteta and Michael Carrick were undervalued during their playing careers.
I have always been a sucker for a deep lying playmaker type. I also think Jorginho is proving to be an incredibly shrewd sticking plaster for Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal. For a start, the policy of signing lots of players under 25 has been incredibly sensible and well executed but every team still needs some adults in the room.
With Granit Xhaka having departed and Thomas Partey in a seemingly permanent state of injury, Jorginho’s experience has been very valuable in an area of the field where older heads tend to be required. In recent weeks, his prominence has grown in an Arsenal team still searching for its ideal balance.
Therein lies his current value, he is not the long-term solution in midfield but he is allowing Arsenal leeway while they tamper around the edges. For a start, his qualities are really needed during a time when Oleksandr Zinchenko is struggling to match last season’s standards (and I wrote about the disruption in Arsenal’s spine as a partial explanation for that a few weeks ago).
Tomiyasu at left-back makes Arsenal more defensively solid than Zinchenko does and Jorginho is able to replicate the Ukrainian’s more…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2023/11/jorginho-arsenals-scaffolding/
Author : Tim Stillman
Publish date : 2023-11-16 13:00:55
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