Arsenal Opinion: Gunners moving for Eric Bailly will be a complete disaster

According to a recent report by The Sun, Arsenal manager Unai Emery is said to be a huge admirer of Manchester United defender Eric Bailly. It has been suggested that the Gunners could be pondering over the possibility of bringing the Ivorian to the Emirates in an attempt to plug their rather leaky defence line.

The 25-year-old centre-half’s last action in a United shirt came against Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League – a game during which he was substituted at half-time.

Since then, he hasn’t even come off the bench for United which makes his situation at the club a lot worse. Despite being signed for around £30m, United must now be prepared to satisfy themselves with a net loss. 

Since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has apparently begun his internal rebuild of this Manchester United squad, players like Fred, Scott McTominay and Andreas Pereira have begun to step up to the plate at Old Trafford but the negative aspect of this revamp is that certain players seem to have been frozen out almost completely. 

A product of the La Liga side Espanyol’s youth academy, it was at Villarreal that Bailly really made a name for himself. Having developed into a strong and physically dominant centre-half, he was identified by many of Europe’s biggest clubs as a huge talent but it was Manchester United who able to convince the youngster to join. 

Since making the switch across the English Channel to move to Old Trafford, his time has been filled with unfortunate incidents that have put a massive dent on the amount of playing time he’s received. A player who was often considered to be a part of the long-term future of this club, has been left out of so many important fixtures. 

Even after Ole’s takeover of the reigns at Manchester United, Bailly has struggled to make any sort of impact on the first team picture and this has certainly affected his performance and confidence levels as well. This season, the Ivorian has featured in just 11 league games all campaign with a majority of those appearances coming off the bench. 

Having even notched up a red card in the early stages of the season, Bailly certainly didn’t help himself with the displays he put in whenever he was granted the opportunity. His positioning has been extremely poor for a while now and he seems to have forgotten how to tackle. 

Despite having decent pace, Bailly struggles to defend against average runners purely because of the lack of intelligence he displays. Passing isn’t his greatest strength either and it would take a long time for him to settle into another club, especially considering how he never really settled at United. 

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While it’s true that Arsenal are in desperate need of a centre-half, throwing money away on ineffective players has become a trend at the Emirates over the years. The Gunners will do well to look elsewhere and hence, avoid signing the Manchester United flop in the upcoming transfer window.