Leroy Sane, Ollie Watkins, and Gabriel Magalhaes (Photo by Maja Hitij, Warren Little, Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Bryan Mbeumo wouldn’t have made sense for Arsenal, but Leroy Sane is a target on a free transfer
There’s been lots of reaction from Arsenal fans to the news that Bryan Mbeumo looks set to join Manchester United at some point this summer, with many believing their club should have been pushing for the Brentford winger.
There was reported interest in Mbeumo from Arsenal, but things never went further than that and I’m not really surprised to be honest.
Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have seen Mbeumo at Arsenal, there is no doubt he would have improved Mikel Arteta’s attacking options.
But let’s face it, he’s predominantly a right winger and strengthening in that position isn’t really the priority for Arsenal this window.
They already have Bukayo Saka, who is going to play more often than not and then they have Ethan Nwaneri, who they have to continue to find meaningful minutes for following his breakthrough campaign in 2024/25.
So as nice as it would have been to see someone like Mbeumo come in, it just wasn’t really realistic in a window when Arsenal are going to have to invest heavily in other areas of the attack.
I do think there is an argument for bringing in another right sided option, but the priority has to be freshening things up on the opposite flank as well as adding that long-awaited new striker.
Those two additions are going to cost big money and when you add in the £51 million fee that has been put aside for Martin Zubimendi that already adds up to significant outlay from Arsenal in the transfer window.
So spending £60m plus on a right winger on top of all that just doesn’t seem realistic, as nice as it would be.
Perhaps that is why exploratory talks have been held with Leroy Sane’s agent, with the German winger set to be available on a free transfer should he fail to agree to an extension with Bayern Munich.
Leroy…..
