Ryan Fraser is surely not one of the most exciting names that Arsenal fans may want to hear this summer. Though he has been linked with them for some time now and it’s only justified to analysis how would the Scottish international fit in at Arsenal.
Ryan Fraser at Arsenal paints like an image of a utility player at best. If anyone expects him to be a superstar signing then you would probably be disappointed.
The Bournemouth man has scored just 1 goal and registered 4 assists this season. While his tally for last season is rather impressive with 7 goals and 14 assists. His numbers for the last season might make him look a front-line attacking option, but those are arguably disguised, to say the least. As his best tally other than last season has been a mere 8 goal contributions including 3 goals and 5 assists.
This only establishes the fact that he would at best be a utility player at Emirates amongst a team with Champions League football ambitions. So is he a big signing then? Absolutely not.
There a few major reasons why Arsenal should be snapping him up:
In the current scenario, almost every football club in the world has its finances jeopardized by the pandemic and hence the Gunners are no different. Hence it would only be smart of them to be signing a player who’s available for free and at the age of 26 still has his best years ahead of him and even had his best transfer value ahead of him.
Liverpool has Xherdan Shaqiri, Manchester City had Jesus Navas, Manchester United had Javier Hernandez, Chelsea had Victor Moses but who does Arsenal have as their utility player, right now? None. Except for their first team, most of the attacking burden is lying on the shoulders of young Reiss Nelson, Gabriel Martinelli and Joe Willock. All of these are top class talents but still unproven and inexperienced at this stage. In such a scenario, if a player of Ryan Fraser’s experience is available for free then Arsenal could not go wrong with this investment.
All in all, Ryan Fraser is a fantastic signing for the Gunners given the current scenario, market complications and their squad’s situation.
