The season-opening loss has shown how bad things are at Arsenal right now, with or without the plague of injuries sweeping through the squad. Their defensive midfield seems to be in the worst of conditions, which might turn them once again to Leverkusen and Lars Bender, hopefully doing better this time around.
According to the the Sunday Mirror, it wouldn’t be wise to believe Arsene Wenger when he says he has no one to buy. All the criticism on his team and himself and their failures in the transfer market are getting to him, as they did in the beginning of the 2011-2012 season, resulting in some panic buys, with Mikel Arteta being the only one of them to work out.
Lars Bender of Leverkusen was already a target of a previous bid, allegedly for £19 million, but with Arsenal already improvising by using Mikel Arteta at defensive midfielder and now the Spanish midfielder is out and injured, there’s a greater need than ever before to add a quality player to the mix.
The combination of Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey in the defensive midfield from the 1-3 loss to Aston Villa didn’t work, and it’s not likely to be something we’ll see quite often from the Gunners. A new player has to be added, unless Wenger wants to keep on experimenting, bringing on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to be the defensive midfielder like he did a couple of time during the preseason.
Bender, like his team, Bayer Leverkusen, has gotten off to quite a decent start in the Bundesliga this season, playing in three matches (two league, one Cup), scoring one goal. He’s also put himself on the scoresheet for the national team in their friendly draw with Paraguay last week.
Leverkusen have already sold one player this summer (Andre Schurrle) to a Premier League club, and last season taught us that big amounts of money do not blind them into selling their best players with so little time left for them to try and find a suitable replacement. Arsenal have plenty of money to spend, and they need to hope that whatever it is they throw at Leverkusen is going to be enough in order to convince them and release the German international, although it doesn’t seem likely at the moment.