Arsenal are the latest club to be linked with Benfica’s superb Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matic, after talkSPORT exclusively reported it yesterday.
The 25-year-old has also drawn interest from Chelsea (a club he used to play for), Liverpool, Napoli and Real Madrid, but Arsenal have contacted the player’s agent Dejan Mitrovic to discuss a potential deal, the radio station understands…
Matic has a reported £40m release clause, So let’s take a look at what the stocky midfielder could bring to the Premier League title hopefuls…
Matic’s strengths, position and attributes:
At 6 ft. 4″, Matic is a real footballing powerhouse. He’s broad too, but his immense stature doesn’t mean he is immobile. Matic is capable of getting up and down the pitch for an entire 90 minutes, and these physical attributes would seemingly suit the Premier League perfectly.
He prefers to play as a holding player, but is equally capable of being deployed as a box-to-box midfielder. In this respect he can be compared to Chelsea’s Ramires, although Matic is more comfortable and relaxed in possession. Matic’s best attributes are his ability to break up opposition attacks, but he is a strong passer of the ball also. In Portugal, he has far more time on the ball than he would in the Premier League, so his ability to pick up possession in the middle and spray clever passes around might be tested at first.
At 25-years-old however, the Serbian is without doubt entering his peak years as a midfielder, so would have time to re-adapt to the league he left back in 2011.
Where would he fit in Arsenal’s current, injury ridden lineup?
