Why Arsenal must beat Barcelona to sign Nicolas Otamendi

Nicolas Otamendi made 35 appearances for Manchester City in their record title win last season but the 30-year-old has fallen down the pecking order this season. With manager Pep Guardiola preferring the partnership of Aymeric Laporte and John Stones, the Argentine has managed less than 700 minutes of playing time this season and according to the Sun, the former Valencia man could head back to the La Liga with Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverde keen.

Nicolas Otamendi had a stellar season for the Cityzens last year averaging over 90 passes per game (a staggering 26 better than his previous season), 4.3 long passes and 3.6 clearances per game. The Argentine was a mainstay in Guardiola’s side but things haven’t been as smooth this season.

With only 10 starts in the league, Nicolas Otamendi isn’t content and manager Pep Guardiola was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying,

“He’s not happy. When he plays he’s happy, when he doesn’t play he’s not happy, but not just Otamendi, everybody. All of them. We would like to [keep him], but it depends on the player and the agents.”

Barcelona have a defensive crisis of their own with just Clement Lenglet and Gerard Pique good enough. But Arsenal should rival the Spanish champions in a bid to solve their problems at the back.

With Sokratis Papastathopoulos and skipper Laurent Koscielny both going off injured in the fourth round FA Cup defeat to Manchester United, the Gunners are only left with the unreliable Shkodran Mustafi and young Greek Konstantinos Mavraponos to fill in.

Signing Nicolas Otamendi will give a huge boost to Unai Emery and the Argentine will come in with bags of experience and leadership qualities. With an outstanding passing accuracy of over 90% and incredible success rate of long passes, the likes of Lacazette and Aubameyang could feed off of him.

Arsenal will have to break their bank with the asking price set in the region of £35million, the same amount they paid for the Argentine’s former teammate at Valencia – Shkodran Mustafi.

The Daily Mail also reports that Pep Guardiola is very keen on Ajax prodigy Matthijs de Ligt. Manchester City could be open to move Otamendi on if the Dutch sensation is to arrive at the Etihad. Otamendi is already struggling for game time and a move away from City is his best option to reignite his career.

Read more: Here are 3 ideal destinations for this out of favour PL veteran including Arsenal and Crystal Palace

With the window shutting on Thursday, a deal if it were to happen has to unfold quickly and Arsenal boss Unai Emery needs to make a late push for the Argentine to fix his growing defensive problems.