We screwed up selling Kieran Trippier and not replacing him last summer, but I don’t think we’ll make the same mistake again. We’ve already offloaded Kyle Walker-Peters to Southampton and are trying to sell Serge Aurier to AC Milan, but it does appear we’re on the hunt for replacements at right-back.
Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles, LOSC Lille’s Zeki Celik, OGC Nice’s Youcef Atal and Real Madrid’s Achraf Hakimi of Real Madrid are believed to be on our radar, but I think we should pull out all the stops to sign Norwich City’s Max Aarons if we can’t get Leicester City’s Ricardo Pereira.
A stark improvement on our squad
Aarons is only 20 years of age, but he’s already made 83 appearances in all competitions, scoring three goals with eight assists. The England U21 international has been a regular at Carrow Road since rising through the youth ranks to the first-team in 2018 and he’s already outperforming our defenders.
Last season, Aarons made 36 Premier League appearances, created 23 chances, completed 78.9% of his 1339 passes, won 22/72 aerial duels, whipped in 73 crosses with 22% finding a teammate, made 48/99 sucessful dribbles, had 14 shots with 28.5% hitting the target, blocked 70 crosses/passes/shots, made 73 clearances and won 49 free-kicks, as per WhoScored.
The 20-year-old gave away one foul every 112 minutes on average, was only dribbled past once every 180 minutes and averaged a tackle (48) or interception (37) every 38 minutes. He’s made more tackles than Davinson Sanchez (44) and Toby Alderweireld (40) and has been beaten one-on-one fewer times than Sanchez (22) and Aurier (30). Aarons would greatly improve our squad.
What would he cost?
Transfermarkt say Aarons’ market value is £18m, Transferzone believe him to be worth €31.5m and the Mirror said in June that Norwich are looking for £30m for the right-back. City tied Aarons down until 2024, so they’re in no rush to cash in. Their most expensive departure was James Maddison (£22.5m to Leicester City in 2018). Aarons will likely go for more money this summer.
We aren’t blessed with much of a transfer kitty and need to sell expendable players to generate funds (Danny Rose, Aurier, Juan Foyth, Cameron Carter-Vickers), so it remains to be seen if we can raise enough to lure Aarons away. The 20-year-old is a player that we like, but is he attainable?
In other news, who’s the €20m Moron Tottenham are trying to sign?