I’ve always thought the options at LW broke down relatively simply from a risk/reward perspective.
Rogers was the safe pick. A player who is adjusted to the PL, has shown he can deal with the league and has put up good numbers. His floor is much higher than both Barcola and Diomande. But there are also very valid questions with him in terms of fit as he’s not an out and out LW, has a lot of overlap with Eze, is not an upgrade technically and while his shooting is awesome - he’s also an outlier in terms of outperforming xG. The other unknown is how effective he will be against consistent low blocks since Villa doesn’t face anywhere near as low a line as we do game to game. I don’t think he would’ve been a bad signing but the opportunity cost of signing him could’ve been large in terms of missing out on a ceiling raising LW.
Barcola and Diomande both represent much higher risk with the potential for a huge reward. They have much lower floors than Rogers as we don’t know how they’ll adjust to a better league, much lower defensive heights and playing under Arteta. But in my opinion they have higher ceilings (or could add up to a higher ceiling for Arsenal) than Rogers with their explosive pace, better fit as out and out wingers and the glimpses they’ve shown to be truly game breaking talents.
Barcola looked incredible in the first half of last year when he was getting consistent first team minutes and operating as more of a focal point for PSG’s attack. But his end product can be very Noni-esque and while I like his 1v1 ability and willingness to take players on, he does have the tendency to take big touches and get himself into trouble. He’s also shown great finishing at points (his finish yesterday was superb) and you can see the potential of him becoming a big goal threat from the wing if he can just gain consistency.
Diomande is the one who really intrigues me. The 1v1 ability from a standstill is Doku esque and I haven’t seen someone make Hincapie look worse than he did in the first World Cup match. But he’s so young and inexperienced, which shows up. Personally I’d bet on his talent but you could also see a scenario where he doesn’t improve the elements of his game that need attention (decision making, finishing, team play and associative play).
I think the issue is that in past summers, these riskier bets would have lower price tags than the high floor signing so you could make a bet but not have to risk as much. Thats not the case anymore as we’d have to pay as much if not more than Chelsea did for Rogers. However, I think we are in the spot where we can take a risk as the floor of our squad is so high. Chelsea signing rogers makes sense as their entire model is filled with risk and they need some stability. We’re in the opposite situation. I’d love to roll the dice with Diomande first and foremost, but also wouldn’t hate it if we went for Barcola.
