Is Arsenal progress for Calafiori’s career or a step backwards? | OneFootball

If Riccardo Calafiori is on the verge of joining Arsenal, would it be the best thing for his career development and indeed for the Gunners if the Italy international will be moved to left-back?

Multiple sources seem confident now that the Premier League side is on the verge of agreeing a fee of circa €50m with Bologna.

There are also suggestions he was won over by the project presented to him, rather than the uncertainty at Chelsea.

Calafiori had been linked with Juventus for many months, especially with coach Thiago Motta moving from Bologna to Turin, but his club would prefer to sell abroad.

In theory, Juventus would’ve been the ideal solution, as he could continue his progress with a coach who already knows him well and remain in that centre-back role.

Calafiori must command a central role

When he was at Roma and then FC Basel, he played largely as a left-back or in a more advanced role as a left-sided midfielder.

It was only once he moved to Bologna for €4m – plus a 40 per cent cut of the future transfer fee – that Thiago Motta transformed him into a central defender.

That role allowed him to surge forward from deep and help the attacking moves, which is why he managed five assists in Serie A this season, along with the assist for Mattia Zaccagni in Italy’s EURO 2024 draw against Croatia.

Arsenal already have a rock-solid central defensive partnership of William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, so would Calafiori be going to London in order to be an alternative to them or switch to left-back where he was merely decent?

Either of those solutions sounds like a step backwards in his career development, and therefore damaging for the Italy team too.

He has to think very carefully about his next move, because Calafiori was only in the Italy starting XI in the Euros thanks to injuries for Giorgio Scalvini and Francesco Acerbi, otherwise he might not even have been in the squad.