Why were Arsenal interested in Bournemouth's Zabarnyi?

Why were Arsenal interested in Bournemouth's Zabarnyi?

It has been reported that Arsenal were sniffing around Bournemouth’s 21-year-old centre back Illya Zabarnyi before the Ukrainian signed a new contract with the South Coast club earlier this week. The Gunners were unable to get their man despite sending scouts to watch the youngster at Euro 2024 where he impressed in a rather lacklustre Ukraine team.

Zabarnyi joined the Cherries 18 months ago from Dynamo Kyiv for £24m making him their second most expensive signing at the time. Since then he has played 47 times for Bournemouth including almost every minute of last season’s record breaking campaign for the club.

Another key squad member has put pen to paper ✍️

Five more years of Zaba ❤️ pic.twitter.com/sbdLIZiyEM

— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) July 21, 2024

So what makes him such an exciting prospect? Here are three main attributes that Zabarnyi has, which would have made him an excellent signing for Mikel Arteta.

1-on-1 Defending

Zabarnyi has been applauded for his ability to get the ball off any attacker without over-committing himself or fouling his opponent. There were two games in particular that this was evident last season. The first was against Crystal Palace when the Cherries managed to keep Eberechi Eze quiet thanks to a number of well timed challenges from the Ukrainian.

The other was when Bournemouth played Manchester City at the Vitality Stadium. The game ended 1-0 in favour of the away side, but Zabarnyi managed to get the better of Erling Haaland in that game, something that has proven difficult for most Premier League defenders.

Arsenal were reportedly monitoring Illia Zabarnyi this summer, sent scouts to watch him at Euro 2024 and had been 'hoping' to land a deal for the Ukraine international

But Zabarnyi has signed a new deal with AFC Bournemouth instead.
[@MetroUK 🥈] #AFCB #AFC pic.twitter.com/XyXVjTaMU0

— Talkcherries_afcb (@TalkBournemouth) July 22, 2024

It is important for any defender signed by Arsenal to be good at defending in 1-on-1 situations as the team often pushes high up the pitch, leaving just a few men back. In order to stop a counter attack, Arteta asks his defenders to be perfect in their timings, which Zabarnyi nearly always is.

Passing Range

Andoni Iraola’s style of play means that his team needs to be ready to switch it up and go long at times. This means that his defenders have to be able to play a long ball over the top to either Dominic Solanke or one of the wingers, and Zabarnyi is certainly able to do that as well as play it short, which is Bournemouth’s preferred option.

Last season, Zabarnyi made an average of 48.7 passes per 90, which is significantly less than the likes of William Saliba and Gabriel of Arsenal, but considering that Bournemouth had much less possession than the Gunners, that number is still more than respectable.

Under the radar 👀

Here's the best bits from Illia Zabarnyi's performance against Sheffield United 🎬 pic.twitter.com/S9HKPWyIOo

— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) November 26, 2023

Arsenal are rarely asked to go long by Mikel Arteta, but Zabarnyi would give them that option, as he had more accurate long balls than both Saliba and Gabriel combined, with 131.

Fitness and Injury Record

Despite joining Bournemouth with an injury, Zabarnyi hasn’t really missed many games in his career. During the 2022/23 season, he missed a few in February and March, but since then he has only been unavailable in one game due to an illness. On top of that, of the games that he played, he played the full 90 minutes in all of them.

That level of consistency at such a young age is rarely seen in football, and when it is, it’s usually at Arsenal. Saliba played in every game last season for the Gunners, after his injury the season before that derailed Arsenal’s title charge. Similarly Bukayo Saka had a consecutive run of Premier League appearances that lasted over multiple seasons before it came to an end in the 2023/24 season.

(At the risk of jinxing it) Illia Zabarnyi has played every league minute for Bournemouth so far and could potentially do it for the whole season.

Quite insane for a centre-back, who'll only turn 22 in September.

— Rahul (@exceedingxpuns) April 2, 2024

With how injury prone some of Arsenal’s recent signings have been (in particular, Jurrien Timber, Fabio Vieira and Gabriel Jesus), a player like Zabarnyi would have been a breeze of fresh air for Arteta.