This week – the sixth installment of Transfer Tip Tuesday – we’re looking at Real Madrid midfielder Asier Illarramendi. The Basque-born player has spent the last two years at Real, after moving in the summer of 2013 from boyhood club Real Sociedad for 32 and a half million euros – the most Los Blancos have ever paid for a Spanish player.
During his time in the Spanish capital, “Illarra” has the UEFA Champions League, Copa del Rey and FIFA Club World Cup medals to his name. He has international caps for the Spanish youth team, all the way up to U23 level, but is yet to appear for the senior side – a testament to the quality La Roja possess in the middle of the park.
Illarramendi isn’t like a Francis Coquelin or Mathieu Flamini in terms of his style as a defensive midfielder. Rather than throwing himself around and committing his life and family into a two-footed tackle, a satisfying crunch and following shout of pain from the victim, he chooses to adopt more of an elegant approach.
Instead, the 25-year old is a great passer of the ball – he averaged a 91.4% pass completion rate last season- and fit in well with the level of great football Carlo Ancelotti coached at Real Madrid. This passing ability is essential in building the team’s attack in the first phase, which at such a high level of football, is a needed quality for a defensive midfielder, for example, so that other midfield spots can be used for other roles instead of building up the attack. Still a good tackler and good on a tactical level, however, so in many respects he’s found a great balance of the different aspects a successful defensive midfielder should possess.
But why should a player like Illarramendi be prioritised over defensive midfielders of the destroyer type, for example Grzegorz Krychowiak? Strangely enough, the answer comes from the first half of the 2013/14 season. The Arteta-Ramsey pivot took the league by storm then, as they held pole position. With Mikel Arteta’s elegance and tactical nous, and Ramsey’s driving runs into the box as a box-to-box midfielder, it was a near-perfect partnership. However, as age catches up with the Spaniard, he can no longer hold a first-team role for an entire campaign. Illarramendi embodies a similar playstyle to Arteta – both good passers, and players who can start-up an attack and have strong spatial awareness. Illarramendi is eight years younger than Arteta, and partnering him up with Aaron Ramsey in the middle of the park could produce similar effects to the 13/14 season, in both the short-term and the long-term.
A Cazorla-Coquelin duo has experienced some success but at times it has been exposed for how the balance between the two is easily jeopardised, and for example how one-dimensional each player is e.g. Francis Coquelin isn’t skilled in the attacking department and Santi Cazorla isn’t too good in his defensive duties. Instead, Illaramendi and Ramsey are apt at all fields of a player in the middle of the park, which leads to a successful partnership.
He’d definitely join Arsenal as well. An ambitious project is going on at N5, this is a squad that with a few adjustments, can be strong league title contenders. Having a first-team role in that – because face it, he would become the club’s best defensive midfielder upon joining – in both the short-term and long-term would be satisfying, especially when being such a key part of a team’s spine. Also, Real Madrid have confirmed the signing of highly-rated Croatian starlet Mateo Kovacic. This, unfortunately, shoves the former Real Sociedad player further down the pecking order, but also makes it easier for Arsenal to make a bid. The time is right – it’s time for Arsène Wenger to act and solve one of the niggling problems that have hindered the north London side for the past few years.
Illarramendi and his play style embodies and matches the possession-based and passing play Arsenal have strived to achieve and become known for. He is young, available and is well talented at what Arsenal need in a defensive midfielder – so it’s time for the club to take that step forward and make a signing as useful and as necessary as Asier Illarramendi.
