Transfer Rumours - Micah Richards

Micah Richards is an absolute must buy for Arsenal Football Club.

Arsenal have Toure, Gallas, Senderos and Djourou in the middle of the defence. Internationals all. With an average age of 23. And there are also several interesting centre half prospects on the way in the youth system.

At right fullback, the club have Eboue, Lauren, Hoyte and Gilbert. Compare this group to Manchester United's *depth at right fullback and you get a true sense of how strong Arsenal are at the two main positions Micah Richards has played in the Premiership.

But this boy is simply the best defensive prospect I have ever seen in all of football. Chivi, Rio, Kompany, Cashley, Terry... Richards can be better... MUCH better than any of them. In Arsenal terms he is the one player who could be on par with Kolo Toure for pure athletic ability. But even Toure doesn't win 99% of his headers. The performance yesterday against Newcastle was startling. Micah Richards won absolutely ever header and in fact set up a goal with a header onto Samaras that Graeme Poll disallowed.

I've talked about Micah Richards before and have followed his career closely since his promotion to the Manchester City first team and debut against Arsenal last October when only 17.

Taking to Four Four Two magazine, Richards notes Nicolas Anelka and Shawn Wright Philips as the two best players he's played with. Hmmmm. He also believes that he plays a bit like Sol Campbell with perhaps some Patrick Vieira thrown it. Hmmmm. His heroes are Ian Wright, Theirry Henry and Patrick Vieira. Um. Sense a trend here?

At the moment Richards is very much more a Sol than a Rio in terms of bringing the ball out of the defence. He's more apt to make a 15 yard pass out of the back then to carry the ball into the midfield. But he knows this and is working in improving this part of his game.

This is not to say that Richards doesn't have good technique. In fact, he drips class on the ball. A graduate of the Brazilian Soccer School, he is well versed in Futebol de Salão and his training was based on having the ball at his feet to develop quick feet, close dribbling and passing skills.

Now with Gary Neville injured for the Holland match this week, Richards has every chance of getting capped for his country at 18 years old. The predictable hype around the player will only shyrocket his value but Wenger has proven with Theo Walcott that he will spend the necesarry money to secure the right player. If it takes more than the £10m that Arsenal thought was over the odds for Curtis Davies then fine. Spend it. We must move mountains to sign this player.