According to ESPN, Arsenal have lined up Southampton defender Jose Fonte as an alternative to Shkodran Mustafi should they fail to sign the German international from Valencia.
Fonte is the third centre-back to be linked with the Gunners in the last 24 hours. Yesterday evening the BBC claimed Bayer Leverkusen’s Omer Toprak and Fenerbahce’s Simon Kjaer are also on Arsene Wenger’s radar.
Fonte was on the bench for Saints’ opening game of the season – the 1-1 draw at St Mary’s with Watford – after excelling at the back for Portugal as they won Euro 2016 in France.
The 32-year-old has played in England since 2007 when he joined Crystal Palace on loan from Benfica. He signed permanently at Selhurst Park the following year and spent two years with the Eagles before moving to Southampton, then in League One, in 2010. The Portuguese has been a regular ever since, helping the Saints reestablish themselves as Premier League stalwarts.
According to ESPN, Fonte is also wanted by Jose Mourinho at Manchester United who are likely to have the advantage given Jorge Mendes’ is the player’s agent.
Aside from us being desperate for literally any defender, we’re not sure there’s much to this. That said, he could be useful if we continue with our ‘you can only score for Arsenal if you’ve played for Southampton’ policy.
If we don’t sign a quality long term option (which it seems like Mustafi might be, I have absolutely no clue about him tbh) and go for something of a reactionary stop-gap signing, I feel like we could do a lot worse than Fonte.
If true that we’ve shifted from primary target Mustafi to this guy, no matter how suitable, simply to save cash for a striker, then it’s proof that we don’t have the ambition to win a league. A player like Fonte could have been isolated and signed months ago, or anyone else fairly competent to plug a hole - why not Ashley Williams for example? Is it too much to ask that we know who we want and just buy them, even if we don’t quite go into the realm of United style excess?
Both Per and Kosh are/will be seeing their twilight years now and I from what little evidence I have of Mustafi, we really should be pursuing that line rather than a signing such as this to fill a position because we’re short. As a side, I think Fonte is quite underrated to be fair, he’s been great for the Saints since being established in the PL.
I just feel like Mustafi is great buy all round and that Fonte, Topshelf and Kjaer are merely names being thrown into the transfer cauldron that we’re cooking in. Slow cook beef stew it seems!
Kos will be 31 this year and Per is done IMO, shouldn’t be near the starting XI if everyone is fit.
We should be looking towards the future and although Fonte is a very good player and I’d say underrated we should be looking at a younger player with quality now and room to grow rather than one that’s older than Kos.
All that will happen if he comes in is that by the time he’s served his time here the prices for younger quality defenders would have spiked even higher and the club will use that as an excuse to buy from the average pool and round and round it goes.
