Icardi to Chelsea or Arsenal? Forget it – he’s not good enough!
Robin Bairner
- 5 Dec 2021 13:21 GMT
- 3 min read
Mauro Icardi is one of several players put up for sale by Paris Saint-Germain ahead of the January transfer window, with Chelsea and Arsenal both linked with a move for the Argentina international.
PSG have put seven players in the shop window ahead of the transfer period next month, with the hope that they might be able to sell three on.
Icardi is one of that number, with numerous clubs linked with a move for the centre forward in January.
It is natural that Chelsea and Arsenal, with their need to sign more firepower all too apparent, might be linked with a switch for the hitman, but the fact of the matter is that he would not bring enough to either team.
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Icardi’s PSG fall
Icardi enjoyed a relatively bright start to life in Paris, where he moved on loan from Inter in 2019/20. A total of 20 goals in 34 matches during the aborted season were enough to persuade PSG to part with €60 million to sign him on a regular basis. Even at that point, though, it looked an alarmingly steep sum of money.
Icardi’s stock has been high in Italy for years thanks to his performances with Inter, where he scored 20 goals or more in three of his last five seasons – plus 16 and 17 in the campaigns he failed to be so prolific.
That magic has never been recaptured in Paris, though.
Last term, he suffered a downturn in form and this campaign has been made even worse for him by the arrival of Lionel Messi. This has forced Kylian Mbappe into the No.9 role that is the only position Icardi can feasibly play.
Off-field issues have caught the eye, too, with his breakup and subsequent reunion with wife and agent Wanda Nara played out in cringey style on social media.
A car crash away from the park, he has not been much better on it, scoring only three times in 16 outings.
In Saturday’s away fixture against Lens, he was positively invisible, and statistics are regularly churned out in the media about how few times he touches the ball when he is not scoring.
Quite simply, his game is about goals, and if these are not coming, he is a liability. PSG are finding that to their cost at present.
A move to Arsenal or Chelsea, therefore, seems unlikely. Top clubs demand even their centre forwards contribute beyond scoring in the modern era, and Icardi simply does not.
