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Alla Zakarian

26-06-2019 | 19:33 Football
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Arsenal legend tells Unai Emery the two transfer he must make “immediately”

Former Arsenal striker Charlie Nicholas has urged the club to sign two new centre-backs in a bid to improve the defence. Arsenal are reportedly in talks to sign talented centre-back William Saliba from Saint-Etienne. The Gunners also have had a bid of £15m rejected for Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney. Unai Emery has a starting budget of just £40-45 million to spend on new faces this summer. When asked which areas Emery should address first, Nicholas told Sky Sports' Transfer Talk podcast: "Immediately two centre-backs. They need a bit of pace, they’ve never really had the pace. The guy who had pace was [Laurent] Koscielny, but he kind of lost his pace two, three seasons ago under Arsene Wenger. It was through the injuries, it wasn’t the lad’s fault, but it was the reality of the injuries has caught up with him. "Then after that we had to go round about the houses to accept that [Shkodran] Mustafi didn’t fit in. Sokratis, in my opinion, is a strong defender, but he plays solo. And Arsenal under Unai Emery have to be a unit, they have to get the defensive structure right. [Nacho] Monreal has actually done okay for Arsenal considering what his limitations were," the former Scotland international added. He was a left-back, he was never a centre-back but he had to play there. "That always told me the reality was that Arsenal’s big, big problems is centre-backs and they need two centre-backs in my opinion. A left-back like [Kieran] Tierney would be absolutely welcome, [Hector] Bellerin is probably still a bit away from fitness, we don’t have enough cover in there."

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