Miguel Veloso to Arsenal?

There have been persistent rumours about Miguel Veloso coming to Arsenal for the last 6 months. It all started with stories towards the end of last season about us trailing him, and Joao Moutinho. Then late this summer, there were quotes from his agent about how English clubs were interested. Over the past few days, there have been stories circulating everywhere about how we have come close to matching his £20 million release clause. There are also stories that he had signed a pre-contract agreement to arrive in January 2008, which appeared on his Wikipedia profile (it now says that he is on the verge of signing for a club record fee of £17 million.

I spoke to LaViz, our excellent Portuguese blogger, and she tells me that Veloso currently plays in a style quite reminescent of Fernando Redondo, the Argentine ex-Real and AC Milan holding midfielder who was a brilliant reader of the game, and had incredible technique and vision.

She also describes Veloso as being a bit like Nicolas Burdisso - in that he is very versatile, and can function anywhere across the back line or midfield, or in between. And not only can he play in these positions, he can do so effectively.

Because of the fact that he is athletic, and technically blessed, she feels that the coaches are trying to get him to play a bit like Esteban Cambiasso (she's an Inter fan, so does best with these comparisons); i.e. getting him to contribute more when going forward, and be more dynamic with his movement.

And how would he fit in at the Arsenal? The answer is... well... I have no idea. We signed Lassane Diarra this summer, and his best position is the holding midfield role, as is Gilberto's. However, neither of them have seen much playing time because of Mathieu Flamini's all-conquering, Gattuso-esque displays. Don't forget about Abou Diaby either. However, it's worth noting that Flamini is yet to sign a new deal, and that Gilberto might well be off in January (the Valencia rumours keep persisting, and Juventus haven't gone away either). Even so, with Diarra, Cesc, Diaby and Denilson around, that's quite a congested midfield.

Then again, Arsene Wenger has a habit of signing players and then doing other things with them. He spent £10m on the winger Thierry Henry (remember him?), and made him into a terrific striker. He spent £12m on left-winger Reyes, and made him into a striker (which never really worked out). He spent £11m on Wiltord, and played him at right-wing a lot of the time. Those are the big buys, there's also Van Persie, Ljungberg, Toure, Djourou and Eboue who have all learned new positions.

So where would Veloso fit in? He's played left-back, centre-back, central midfield and left-midfield, so we know he could cover all of those. He's got an excellent left-foot, and we all know that Arsene likes his gifted left-footed midfielders (Petit, Edu, van Bronckhorst, Reyes). The team has no left-footed midfielders at the moment, and is missing a bit of width, so it's quite possible that he might be sizing up Veloso as an option.

There's also the theory that he signed as the ultimate utility player - capable of playing anywhere in defence or midfield, he might hasten the departures of Hoyte, Senderos, Song, Gilberto, and maybe even Gallas, trimming the squad, and reducing the wage bill. However £17 million is quite exorbitant for a utility player, even if the club has cash to spend, and Gilberto's (possible) departure might bring in about £7 million or so.