Once again, this might not be the name Arsenal are expecting to bring over, but a signing is still something, as reports in Italy suggest that goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano of Palermo might be arriving at the North London club just before the end of the transfer window.
According to Sky Italia, the 27-year old goalkeeper is on his way to the Emirates to undergo a medical. Viviano seems to be the last in a long line of goalkeepers Arsenal have been linked with this summer, with Julio Cesar (who Wenger declined because of his wage demands) and Vicente Guaita of Valencia (turned down because of the fee his club was asking for) being the more prominent of them.
Viviano isn’t the kind of goalkeeper that automatically makes you think of a first-choice kind of player. He was loaned out to Fiorentina last season fromPalermo, enjoying what was probably his best season in the Serie A, conceding 34 goals in 32 matches, finishing 12 matches with a clean sheet. He’s also been capped six times by the national team, but no one ever thinks of him as the first choice for the Italian side.
Is this what will please Arsenal fans? Probably not. Viviano might be better than Wojciech Szczesny, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of deal that will push the Polish goalkeeper out of the lineup automatically.
When you look deeper into the deal, this seems like one of the transfers that’s mostly about price, and hopefully about value, and not of someone that seems like an outright upgrade to a quality squad, but a team that obviously needs more quality in it to reach the heights that are more than the round of 16 in the Champions League and being a borderline 4th place team in the Premier League.