Houssem Aouar's best role is revealed and it may force Arsenal into U-turn over £12.6m transfer

Arsenal's hot pursuit of a central midfielder in the summer transfer window has seen links to several candidates such as Frenkie de Jong and Houssem Aouar emerge.

Whilst bringing in a new forward amid interest in Manchester City's Gabriel Jesus and securing an £18million deal for Bologna full-back Aaron Hickey to cover for Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu next season is a top priority for the Gunners, so is strengthening in the middle of the park so Mikel Arteta can complete an 18-month mission.

Back in December 2020, the Arsenal manager revealed his long-term plan was to transition into a 4-3-3 formation having favoured a 4-2-3-1 system at the beginning of his tenure: "We want to move to a 4-3-3," he said. "But for that, you need a lot of specificity in every position but now in five or six positions, we don’t have it."

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This changed during the 2021/22 campaign. Arsenal's most consistent run of form since Arteta took charge was over the festive period and it coincided with a subtle change of formation with Thomas Partey operating at the base of a midfield trio and Martin Odegaard slotting in perfectly as a right-sided No.8 where he was able to combine effectively with Bukayo Saka.

Though the popular opinion is that there is still one position up for grabs - and it's on the left-side of the midfield three where, to his credit, Granit Xhaka did impress at times, but the reality is that the Switzerland midfielder is not quite regarded as a long-term solution for the role.

Therefore, as reported by , Arsenal's preferred midfield target is Youri Tielemans and there's talk of a £25million move to the Emirates Stadium this