Arsène Wenger continues to paint the world a shade of attacking midfielder | Barney Ronay
Arsène Wenger has a plan for Arsenal and he will not be swayed by the perceived need for a striker Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images
As an Englishman currently hoofing it around Australia – land of beachwear, cardboard skyscrapers and vast untapped underground reserves of high-end fusion cuisine – there was something comforting this week in the news that Arsenal may or may not be about to sign Julian Draxler from Schalke. This seems to be the plan for Arsène Wenger. Not a centre-forward, or a poacher or some seasoned gun for hire. But Julian Draxler of Schalke: subtle, languid and – as it turns out – now also injured for the next three just the idea that Wenger has thought about this long and hard, listened to the arguments on all sides, and decided yes what we really need here is someone to play between the lines of the spaces between the lines, was enough to make the heart swell with a sense of all being right with the world, like hearing distant news of cancelled trains or snow chaos on the A40. It really doesn’t matter if Arsenal have any chance of signing Draxler or not. What matters is that life keeps rolling along, there is indeed still honey for tea, and Wenger’s own desire to paint the world a shade of attacking midfielder continues to rage on there is, in fairness, some variation here. Arsenal have tended to go for short, bouncy attacking midfielders. Whereas Draxler is something different, a tall, gangly attacking midfielder. Plus he would be a great addition to the Premier League, a languid and incisive creator in the first bloom of a precocious talent with an excellent name, which makes him sound like a glazed high society drug dealer in a Bret Easton Ellis novel. And he is just a lovely player to watch, with a habit of appearing in the right place without ever seeming to be in heading off anywhere in a particular hurry, like a footballing version of the ideal country house Butler, always popping up behind you with an umbrella, a pot of marmalade, the perfectly cushioned nudge-volley not that this is the big thing about Draxler to Arsenal. The real point is that he isn’t a striker. Such has been the chorus of complaint, the barking sense of absolute conviction that Wenger must, must buy a striker that, as the transfer window flutters by, one thing above all seems patently clear. He isn’t going to buy a striker. It is best just get used to this fact, to acknowledge that this is a man who would rather die
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