Official: Sokratis Papastathopoulos Completes €20m Move To Arsenal (Photo & Video)

Chris Wright

2nd, July 2018

3 Comments

Photo: @Arsenal/Twitter

Arsenal have completed the signing of Sokratis Papastathopoulos, who has joined the club from Borussia Dortmund.

The Greek international defender, 30, moves for a reported fee of £17.6million (€20million), has agreed a “long-term contract” at the Emirates, and will wear the No.5 shirt vacated by Per Mertesacker.

Somewhat oddly, the Gunners decided to unveil their new man like they might a professional wrestler or a new Game of Thrones character…

Finally, an actual resilient, tough-tackling adult with functioning limbs will be playing at centre-half for Arsenal.

Could prove to be a bit of an inspired signing, this.

Posted in Arsenal, Bundesliga, Transfers & Rumours

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3 Comments

  1. jackie wilshere says:

    theyll probably liken sokratis’ unveiling to the way herb chapman and co. used to do it in the 1930’s, or some such drivel. jokes aside, am happy about this signing. like you said, Finally, an actual resilient, tough-tackling adult with functioning limbs will be playing at centre-half for Arsenal. however, cant help but wonder if its too soon to sack emery and go for Zizou

  2. Tom says:

    I wonder how much you’ve actually seen of Sokratis to make the statement that he’s a decent defender.

    From what I’ve see he’s actually a bit of a lump, just as likely to make a foul as he is to make a tackle. He’s actually pretty average, no better than Koscielny or Mustafi, and not the player that is gonna get Arsenal back to where they wanna be.

    That is the feeling I get with a lot of the signings Arsenal have made this recently. With the exception of Aubemayang, they’ve signed middling players good enough to keep them 5th or 6th but no one that is gonna push them on, and too old to ever really improve. You wouldn’t see the likes of City, United or even Liverpool these days signing the players Arsenal have.

    Lucas Torreira looks decent and will probably improve them, but with Sokratis I wouldn’t hold my breath.

    • Chris Wright says:

      He does proper tackles, blocks and headers and has good positional instincts, which puts him in a league above Mustafi from the start.

      Koscielny was definitely a great centre-half (possibly among Top 5 in world) at one point, but that was about five seasons and three snapped Achilles ago.

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