Is Arsenal’s Ezri Konsa Signing a Game-Changer or Just a Risky Gamble?

None of this is unusual. Arsenal didn’t exactly need another right-back when Ben White was in his pomp, but signed Timber anyway; likewise, Kieran Tierney was one of the club’s more important players when Oleksandr Zinchenko replaced him. While we speak of football clubs having first XIs and back-ups, it’s never really like that: injuries play their part, of course, and managers will always claim that they want two competing players in every position. Even in Arsenal’s last great era, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry were the gold standard, but Sylvain Wiltord and Nwankwo Kanu won the league at Old Trafford. All four were established internationals.

But even from then, it feels like we’ve shifted to super squads now. More than ever, it feels like players are happier to play 70 per cent of fixtures and have elite competition, simply because of how much football there is. Liverpool went out and signed Luis Diaz in a January window to compete with Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Diogo Jota. And that’s really normal these days. They signed Alexander Isak when they already had Hugo Ekitike.

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