Nabil Fekir as Ozil/Sanchez replacement?

The Daily Star (grain of salt needed) are reporting that Arsenal are “almost done” with a move for Lyon forward Nabil Fekir.

Fekir has been the star player for Lyon, who are currently in third place in Ligue 1. Fekir is fourth in the league with 11 goals and second in assists with 4. Below are his full stats for the season as seen on my Forward Radar template.

The transfer would reportedly cost Arsenal £60m, and would mitigate the moves away of both Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. The Star also speculate that both would have transfer price tags of £30m.

Replacing Sanchez and Ozil would be quite the burden to put on any new signing, especially one that would also be a new club record signing.

Last season Sanchez and Ozil accounted for 34% of Arsenal’s xG output, and 39% of Arsenal’s xA created. The signing of Alexandre Lacazette would help with some of the scoring burden, but with Arsenal trying to break back into the top four or even better mount a serious title challenge, treading water is simply not good enough.

It is also encouraging that Arsenal, not currently in the Champions League, are still being linked to players of Fekir’s quality (no matter how dubious the source).

With the way that Arsenal have managed their squad building over the last few years, replacing their two stars with younger players of equal potential should be the bare minimum requirement for the next two transfer windows.

This post originally ran on The Short Fuse