Edinson Cavani has been linked with a potential move this summer to a few different English clubs, particularly Arsenal. According to The Mirror the Paris St Germain striker could be available for the Gunners at a mere £22m.

Manager Laurent Blanc prefers 34-year-old Zlatan Ibrahimovic as his main striker and Cavani has grudgingly had to play second fiddle. The forward had great success at Napoli for three seasons but since joining the French titans he has failed to recreate the same buzz that brought him to the club. Cavani only has eight league goals for PSG this season so do Arsenal really need him?

Arsenal already have Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud successfully leading their attack. Both currently have amassed 13 league goals a piece and Arsenal look set to once again be playing in the Champions League next season.

With players like Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott finding it difficult to get time in the strikers role then surely Cavani would struggle also. If Cavani wants regular football then he’d have to challenge either Sanchez or Giroud and with both on manager Arsene Wenger’s good list this season it seems that Cavani would have the same problem in North London as he does in Paris.

Arsenal don’t particularly need the Uruguayan but a team like Manchester United perhaps could use him as once Radamel Falcao’s year long loan deal is up then the Red Devils will have only Wayne Rooney as their out and out striker. Robin van Persie, who has netted 10 league goals this season, may not be at Old Trafford come September and even if he does stay he isn’t sharp enough to rely on.

Other big clubs such as Liverpool, Juventus and Atletico Madrid are said to be willing to help Cavani find a way out of PSG so the Uruguayan is not lacking in options. Liverpool in particular would be a good fit as they failed to replace Luis Suarez last summer and have missed his goals. Cavani is blessed with being strong, quick and good in the air not to mention the obvious requirement of having a keen eye for goal which are all qualities that the Reds will need if they want to challenge for the title next season.

Choosing Arsenal, where he’ll surely have to fight for a starting place, is not the right move if he wants to take his career in the right direction. The competition is too fierce and there’s every chance that he’ll just end up playing a bit role.

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Cavani is a talented and at times prolific forward who has experience for both club and country and it’d be exciting to see what impact he would have on the Premier League. If he can regain his form from his Napoli days then the big English clubs will keep calling for him but at this time Arsenal shouldn’t be one of them.

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According to reports in The Mirror, Everton manager Sam Allardyce is looking to offer Theo Walcott an Arsenal escape route as he continues to struggle for Premier League game time.

What’s the word, then?

Well, The Mirror says that Walcott has fallen down the pecking order with the Gunners this season despite scoring 19 goals in 37 appearances in all competitions last term, and with 18 months left on his £140,000-a-week contract  and no talks over a new deal his future is certainly in doubt.

The Mirror says that Allardyce will be given significant funds to spend during the January transfer window and he wants to hand the Arsenal forward a fresh start at Goodison Park.

The report adds that the former England boss has already enquired about the 28-year-old, who he believes can offer the Merseyside outfit the goal threat they have often lacked after failing to replace Romelu Lukaku in the summer.

How has Walcott done this season?

As we mentioned previously, the wide-man has barely featured in the Premier League this term – he has played for just 46 minutes across three substitute appearances and has not made the squad at all in their last seven top flight fixtures – but he has been more of a regular in the Europa League and the EFL Cup.

According to Transfermarkt, the 28-year-old has scored three goals and provided a further five assists in five European outings, while he captained the Gunners in the EFL Cup against West Ham on Tuesday night and missed a glorious chance to score from a header.

Would he be a good signing for Everton?

He certainly would be.

While he hasn’t been given as many opportunities as he would have liked this season with the World Cup just six months away, Walcott has proven with 65 goals and 49 assists in 267 Premier League games for Arsenal the impact he can make at this level.

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The 28-year-old would add some much-needed pace and experience to the Merseyside outfit’s frontline, and he would have a big point to prove to both current manager Arsene Wenger and Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate as he looks to win back his spot in the England squad before Russia next summer.

According to reports in the Daily Mail, West Ham United are willing to pay £15m to sign Stoke City midfielder Joe Allen, but the struggling Potters have insisted that the Wales international is not for sale.

What’s the word, then?

Well, the Daily Mail says that Irons boss David Moyes is desperate to strengthen in central midfield during the January transfer window – Pedro Obiang and Cheikhou Kouyate were disappointing in there once again during the vital 2-1 win against West Bromwich Albion at the London Stadium on Tuesday night – and he wants Allen.

The Daily Mail says that Moyes is looking for one or two players with Premier League experience, and he is willing to pay £15m to bring the Welshman to the capital.

However, the report adds that the 18th-placed Stoke have responded to an initial enquiry by saying the 27-year-old is not for sale this month at any price.

How has Allen done this season?

He has done well, even though Stoke have spent much of the campaign struggling down the wrong end of the Premier League table.

The Wales international is one of the club’s most consistent performers, and he has scored one goal and provided a further four assists after featuring in both a central attacking midfield position as well as deeper role in the centre of the park this term.

Comfortable on the ball, good at passing and with that creative ability, he is a sometimes underrated player at this level.

Would he be a good signing for West Ham?

He certainly would be.

Having played 183 Premier League games in his career for Swansea, Liverpool and now Stoke he has that top flight experience that Moyes is looking for, while he can make a difference for the Irons with his ability on the ball and his work rate.

As we mentioned previously, the likes of Obiang, Kouyate and Mark Noble have often struggled in the middle of the park this term, and Allen would provide some much-needed quality and competition for places.

Will they get him this month?

It’s difficult to say.

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Considering Stoke are 18th they are unlikely to sell one of their best players for £15m when they are battling the drop, and it would take a considerably bigger offer to convince them to cash in on the 27-year-old.

A move looks unlikely in that sense, but with Mark Hughes’ future in doubt and the potential that Allen could ask for a move away considering the Potters’ troubles, you can never say never.

There was a telling moment in a recent Swansea City game when one of the touchline microphones got a little too close to the action. Defending a corner, Alfie Mawson audibly yelled at his team-mates ‘let’s make this effing solid’.

Lewd language doesn’t make a footballer and having a loud voice doesn’t make a centre-back, or for that matter compensate for conceding 34 goals, the fifth-most of any Premier League side, as Swansea have done this season. But this is a 23-year-old with just one-and-a-half seasons of Premier League football under his belt emerging as the loudest and most vocal presence in a down-and-out side marooned at the bottom of the table.

That tells us something about Mawson’s character, about his willingness to take responsibility, despite being the youngest member of Swansea’s first-choice back five. He, more than any Swansea defender, has a right to shy away and let others take the lead in a period of sustained crisis, but it’s Mawson trying to organise, trying to make a difference and trying to set the example to follow.

And in one way or another, that’s been a recurring theme throughout Mawson’s career. Albeit remaining on the books of parent club Brentford for much of that time, Mawson’s had to fight his way up from the depths of non-league while on loan with the likes of Maidenhead, Welling and Luton to get his chance in the top flight.

In fact, excepting the Championship, he’s featured in every tier from the Conference South to the Premier League – and that ascendance owes much to the willingness and desire to score important goals; ten of the 23 he’s scored to date at senior level have decided the result and a run of five from March onward in 2014/15 sealed Wycombe Wanderers a place in the League Two playoffs.

That rise is another indicator of Mawson’s drive and desire; three years after going out on loan in the Conference South and one year after being sold to Barnsley in League One, he earned a move to the Premier League and his first call-up to England’s U21 squad; but has also gained him significant experience for such a young player, with 166 senior appearances under his belt already.

While it would be superficial to make a direct comparison, we’ve seen the positive impact such first-team exposure can have – even at Football League level – in Tottenham’s Dele Alli, who made 88 appearances in League One for MK Dons before jumping up to the Premier League with immaculate ease.

This season, it’s been difficult for Mawson to stand out. If last season was a slog for a largely unspectacular Swansea team that went through three different managers, including the calamitous Bob Bradley, they’re now being asked to conquer the same challenge again – already two gaffers down – without talismanic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and World Cup-winning striker Fernando Llorente.

Inevitably, Mawson’s been up against it since the first ball was kicked in August, but he’s also been the most consistent line of resistance at the Liberty Stadium as more senior team-mates have struggled to show commitment and form.

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Perhaps that’s why West Ham have taken an interest in the west London-born defender. While some may question Mawson’s quality and further potential, which has been difficult to make a true judgement on due to Swansea’s perennial woes, his character undoubtedly stands out.

And after a summer in which West Ham brought four well-established international players to the club on big wages, only for three of them to struggle to hold down a place in the first team at varying times, it’s clear this Irons team needs more characters, more leadership and more players prepared to take responsibility.

A young centre-back who isn’t still earning the ropes like Declan Rice would balance out West Ham’s aged defensive ranks too, but the real problem is how much it would cost to acquire Mawson as the Swans look to claw their way to safety. Transfermarkt value the 6 foot 2 defender at just £10.8million – but The Sun claim his price-tag is now a whopping £40million if the Irons hope to complete a deal before the January transfer window slams shut.

Arsenal legend Ian Wright has weighed into the debate surrounding Alexis Sanchez’s future by suggesting that Leicester City winger Riyad Mahrez should replace the Chilean.

Manchester City and now Manchester United have emerged as rumoured suitors for Sanchez, who comes to the end of his contract this summer.

Given that the 29-year-old has not signed a new deal at the Emirates, it has been widely suggested that he will leave either this month or at the end of the season.

The attacker’s teammate Mesut Ozil is in the same situation, so theoretically, Arsenal could lose both first-team stars in a matter of weeks.

Wright, who played for the Gunners between 1991 and 1998, believes that someone like Mahrez, who helped Leicester win the league title in the 2015-16 season, would have a big job on their hands in order to turn Arsenal’s fortunes around.

While speaking on Sky Sports’ The Debate show, the 54-year-old discussed how the club move on if Sanchez and Ozil leave.

“Arsenal are in a position now where someone like [Riyad] Mahrez has to go there and really pull up trees to get them back to a position where they should be. What help would Mahrez have? They’re looking at two unbelievable players who might walk out of the club.”

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Southampton may have entered the weekend 17th in the Premier League table but Tottenham will know their visit to St. Mary’s this Sunday won’t be an easy ride. Saints will be desperate to turn their campaign around with a positive performance against a side they’ve beaten just once since returning to the Premier League in 2012.

And with Southampton’s strike-force struggling for goals this season, the midfield battle could be crucial in the 4pm kickoff. Tottenham will need to keep creative threats like Sofiane Boufal, Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse at bay if they’re to continue their run of eight wins in their last ten games – and that task will predominantly fall to the man anchoring the engine room.

England international Eric Dier has performed that role in recent weeks, including last time out against Everton, but after regaining his fitness with a succession of substitute appearances, former Southampton star Victor Wanyama is available too. So we asked Tottenham supporters earlier this week to vote for which midfielder they’d prefer to start on Sunday and it was the 49-cap Kenyan who won our poll with 71% of the vote.

How would you line up the Lilywhites at St. Mary’s? Let us know by commenting below…

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While Manchester United’s swoop for Alexis Sanchez remains the Premier League’s biggest deal of the January transfer window, it’s not without its problems for manager Jose Mourinho.

On the one hand, he now has one of the deadliest forwards in Europe at his disposal. On the other, he must make room for him in a starting XI that is already filled with expensively-assembled talents.

With that in mind, we asked Manchester United fans earlier this week which player should come out of United’s usual XI to accommodate the Chile international from Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard, Anthony Martial and Romelu Lukaku.

And according to our poll, the vast majority of United fans believe the 5 foot 7 Spaniard should be sacrificed, suggesting they see Sanchez’s immediate future in the Red Devils’ first team on the right-hand side of the attack.

The statistics probably justify the thinking of the United faithful; while Mata is clearly a talented player, he’s found just three goals and three assists in the top flight so far this season.

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As reported by Italian outlet CalcioMercato.it, Arsenal are tracking the progress of Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly ahead of the summer transfer window.

What’s the story?

With Arsenal’s English Premier League campaign going off the rails for a second season in a row, manager Arsene Wenger is again facing pressure to ring the changes to his first team squad when the transfer window re-opens this summer.

Having paid big money to bring the likes of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the club over the last 12 months, fans are hoping the Gunners can now focus on their defence.

One man that could be arriving at the Emirates is Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly.

CalcioMercato.it report that Arsenal sent scouts to watch the 6ft 5in defender during the club’s clash with RB Leipzig in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday.

Rated at £36m by Transfermarkt, is the Senegal international set for a big move to the English Premier League?

A good buy?

Koulibaly is regarded as one of best defensive players in Italian football, impressing for Napoli ever since joining from Belgian side Genk in 2014.

With a strong, athletic physical presence, he would be an imposing figure in Arsenal’s defensive line, perhaps the dominating defender they’re lacking in their current set-up.

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He isn’t just a spoiler though. As shown by WhoScored, the player has over a 91% pass success rate in Serie A this season, demonstrating he has the ball playing chops to fit into Arsene Wenger’s system.

So far this season he’s helped Napoli keep 14 clean sheets in Italian football, with the side currently on an nine game winning streak in the top-flight, form that has seen them climb to the top of the table ahead of Juventus.

That’s the kind of defensive foundation that could bring success to Arsenal next season should they follow up their reported interest. Given they have conceded more goals than anyone in the top seven of the English Premier League, it’s certainly an area they need to address.

When people wonder why English football no longer creates top-class managers, they’re asking the wrong question. The right one is far more pragmatic but also far simpler; what English player would want to put themselves through that ordeal?

Football has somehow reached a point where the job security of players is exponentially greater than those who bark instructions at them and this season alone, there have been 31 sackings in the top four divisions of English football. That’s almost as many sackings as Championship matchdays and equates to almost exactly one sacking per three Football League or Premier League clubs.

Compare that to the world of punditry, where some – Mark Lawrenson, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness, for example – have held down jobs for decades, where their lives aren’t dominated by the ecstasy of victory and despair of defeat, where rainy, ill-fated nights on the touchline are traded for plush sofas and debonair suits, where you get paid to criticise rather than be criticised. If you’re an England great coming to the end of your career, the next step is an incredibly easy choice to make. The uneasiest part of a pundit’s job is trawling through the barrage of abuse they might get on Twitter, which is a voluntary form of torture anyway, and there are now more pundits on our screens than ever – the opportunities in that field are only getting larger.

That’s precisely the point Gary Neville made, albeit in less words, when discussing the state of Premier League management upon David Moyes’ dismissal in 2014 after just nine hellish months at Manchester United. Few would argue it was a mistake to sack Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor, appointed by the great Scot himself, but if a manager who consistently proved his qualities during a decade with Everton couldn’t even earn a full season at Old Trafford, what chance would someone like Neville with virtually no managerial experience whatsoever have? Three or four games in and they could be gone already.

Of course, that’s almost exactly what happened when Neville was put in temporary charge of Valencia, a dream job that was thwart with obstacles. He endured a disappointing spell of just ten wins in 28 games, including a nine-game winless run in La Liga, and relentless wrath from embittered fans before parting company and returning to the safe, comfortable, criticism-free realm of the Sky Sports studio. He claimed he wouldn’t be taken seriously as a pundit if he’d turned the job down, but the consequential concern is how seriously he can now be taken as a manager such is the hyperbolic stasis of the trade.

And yet, there is little questioning Neville’s talents and suitability to the job. The Manchester United legend is living proof that you can still become a top-class player without an abundance of natural talent if you’re smart enough and work hard enough, and that is what shines through during every whiteboard session on Sky Sports – the level of intelligence but also industriousness that goes into his analyses. It’s a phenomenal skill to not only understand football at that level and be so informative, but also to communicate his knowledge in such a concise and perspicuous way. It’s not hard to imagine Neville delivering the same lessons in the same way to a whole squad of players on Monday morning, reflecting upon the weekend’s performance.

In fact, Neville has all the makings of being one of the the saviours of English management, if not the experience. That’s no disrespect to the likes of Sean Dyche and Eddie Howe, who have done things the hard way, but Neville is such a delicate combination of achievement at the highest level and understanding of life at a major club, but also the knowledge and working appetite gained from not being the most talented member of the team. World-class players often struggle to accept standards lower than theirs when they become managers, but Neville has seen both sides of the coin – the gifted personalities you need to control, and the players you can develop into something more. He’s worked under one of the greatest managers of all time too, and has endured as much success with United as failure with England.

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While Neville would be a great loss to punditry, he’d be an even greater loss to English football if one ill-fated spell at Valencia, complicated by a language barrier and a misshapen squad, and the comforts of the studio deterred him from re-entering the management realm. That doesn’t just apply to Neville either; Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Neville’s partner in crime Jamie Carragher all have fantastic footballing minds, but thus far they’ve only been dedicated to the world of analysis.

Yet, the only reason for that situation to change is one of the aforementioned names deciding they don’t want the easy life – they want to be a part of the relentless, hyperbolic turmoil the beautiful game eternally provides and on top of that, they want the pressure of being the scapegoat whenever things start to go wrong. Perhaps in a few years, when they rediscover their lust for competitiveness, we will see them turn their hands to management. Right now though, as punditry becomes the most obvious route for retiring greats, that scenario is becoming harder and harder to conceive.

There’s a saying – in life as in football – that if something isn’t broke then don’t fix it.

It beggars belief, then, that Arsene Wenger chose to abandon the four-man defence, that had limited both Everton and Spurs to a goal each in their last two Premier League encounters, in favour of the 3-4-2-1 formation Wenger has played for the majority of the season.

With a three-man back line flanked by Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac acting as wingbacks being Wenger’s modus operandus in 2017/18, Arsenal have conceded more goals in the league than any other team in the top seven.

Against Spurs and Everton, however, the defence stood taller with Bellerin and Nacho Monreal sitting back – giving Arsenal’s highly-valued attacking players the assurance that they could get forward without leaving themselves exposed at the back.

When coming up against Man City, however, Arsenal’s back three were exposed as Shkodran Mustafi found himself unable to deal with a long ball over the top for City’s first goal, and Callum Chambers was too easily outflanked by David Silva for the Citizens’ third goal.

With a chance for Arsenal to get revenge for their cup final defeat on Thursday night when they host City at the Emirates, should Arsene Wenger revert to the four man defence from recent Premier League fixtures or stick with the three-at-the back formation from Sunday?

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We’ll let Arsenal fans decide…