Alexis Claude-Maurice

Gunner89

@MohamedTERParis , who 1st broke Matteo Guendouzi to Arsenal last summer, tells Get French Football News that the Gunners have had a bid rejected for Alexis Claude-Maurice already, but they will go in with a 2nd offer.

FC Lorient have received offers from Arsenal & West Ham United for 20-year-old attacker Alexis Claude-Maurice, according to @EuroUnited6 - let's wait & see if other French outlets confirm.

lorddulaarsenal

Was it London hanging out with Matty G

Claudius

Very enjoyable highlight reel. This guy would go straight into first team and play a part. He will need to bulk up, but the footwork, acceleration and boldness to take men on is worth investing in. Too early to say what he will become, but hugely exciting

Video is also worth watching for the lesser-spotted Guendouzi assist around 9:50

lorddulaarsenal

Yep he’s on the want list

Clrnc

More of these please. Lets stockpile 20years old and below talent at affordable prices

Jed

This much more like it. Exciting.

The last Alexis we had didn't too badly for us.

Gazza M

Already in london according to guendos account. For anything under 10m this would be worth a punt

goon

Looks exciting. What position does he play exactly.

Claudius

He’s a 10. He started deeper earlier on in his career, and then moved further forward. He’s primarily played in the centre but can come in from either wing. Has a decent goal return of about 0,4 goals per game in a new role, and has also gotten a few assists. Initially for us, I’d imagine him coming in from wide in a 433 but might develop into a centre man in a 4231 as well. Very skilled and flexible

I would really rather spend our cash on this guy than Fraser. The profile of clubs scouting him (Frankfurt, Lille, Monaco) are the money doublers we should be looking to bypass going forward.

QuincyAbeyie

Looks good, but if this guy, who's a year and a half older than Nelson and still playing on a much lower level, is ready to play for us, then surely Nelson is even more deserving of those minutes.

Gazza M

With welbeck leaving, it really leaves auba and iwobi as our only senior wide players. Plus we're trying to offload mkhi. There's space for nelson if we decide to bring him back, although i think he could use another 12 months on loan

QuincyAbeyie

Gazza M wrote:
There's space for nelson if we decide to bring him back, although i think he could use another 12 months on loan

I think he could use that too, which is why I'm unsure of what this guy who seems to be further behind in his development could do for us this season. Then again, Guendouzi surprised me. Weirder things has happened.

Ricky1985

The club can't keep extolling the qualities of the young players in the squad and then sign players like this to put in front of them.

He looks a good prospect, nothing special to my eyes, but I really think with Saka, Smith Rowe, Amaechi and Nelson playing in a similar position/style it should be a case of signing someone truly excpetional, or perhaps just ready to contribute with goals and assists from the first kick of next season.

Ray

This guy is quite young too. Let them compete to get into the starting 11, the squad needs depth too.

Ricky1985

Competitiveness comes from getting the balance correct.

We have already signed Gabriel Martinelli: An 18 year old considered talented enough to be invited to train with the Brazilian national team pre-Copa America.

We have room for a Pepe because he'd be a game-changer, but having six 17-20 year olds competing for two spots in which we already have Iwobi and Mkhitaryan, is not the right balance.

Spend the money on making other positions more competitive.

Ray

I think Mkhi will be on his way, for the wide position that leaves Alexis, Nelson, Iwobi, Martinelli and Ozil for 2 more years. With Saka, Amaechi getting loans.

QuincyAbeyie

Unbelievably underwhelming options for now.

Claudius

I support growing the pipeline.
None of these young options are likely to make a significant impact this season. We will still need to buy a senior attacking midfielder (at the very least to replace Mkhitaryan). But we give ourselves options. Nothing is certain with Nelson or Martinelli. Hopefully, 1 or 2 of these guys gets and takes chances in the next 2-3 years and develops into a regular for us. The others can then be squad options or transfer-listed. I’m less optimistic about the prospects of any single 20 year old, but quite excited that having a clutch of high quality youths will help raise competition and increase our chances that with the extra numbers st least one breaks through.

Bold Tone

I think the point the others are making is we don't want to stockpile similar players which reduces development opportunities (see chelsea and man city). If this guy is better than Martinelli, get him instead as they will be competing for game time with Mkhi, Iwobi and the youth players already here (Nketiah, Nelson, Saka, etc).

Claudius

I understand what they are saying, Bold Tone. But I also saw a team that was desperately short for attacking mid talent, and none of these are a sure thing. We will only know once they start playing more here or at their loan clubs what they will yield.
And optionality means we do not even have to have them on board. We could, for example, take someone like Claude-Maurice and send him to Lille or similar for the next year to ensure he gets Ligue 1 game time but as our player.

My belief really comes from the need to go after two types of players primarily

the most affordable 'stars' we can get our hands on. If we can afford a Pepe, we should buy him.
cheap high potential players like Guendouzis. Again, if you can get them at 5m before they are worth 30 or 40m in 3 years time, buy them. You have to accept that some of these will flop, but hopefully you're strike rate is good enough to make this more advantageous than buying fully-formed players