Arsenal have recently been linked with a 19 year old striker showing his strengths in the Belgian Juplier League, playing his trade for KAS Eupen.
Henry Onyekuru, who is currently training with the Nigerian national side, is understood to have been made aware of Arsenal’s interest in him, ahead of a potential move. Onyekuru finished as the league’s joint top scorer at the end of the season and has as a result, attracted plenty of interest across Europe.
The fee being suggested is around the £6.8 million mark, an absolute steal in today’s market. However in my opinion there’s a reason why the player is valued so low, because he apparently isn’t as impressive as his stats suggest!
We are talking about a player here who according to Sky Sports, is also attracting interest from the likes of Everton, Southampton, West Brom and Crystal Palace. I’ve even seen that relegated side Middlesborough are interested in the striker. Now Arsenal blow those teams out of the water when it comes to who he would want to sign for, that’s without considering the fact he’s supposedly an Arsenal fan. However the fact that the Gunners are even being linked with a player that is being targeted by a Championship side, let alone considering talks with him, just shows in my opinion, how far the club has fallen on its transfer policy.
The transfer policy at Arsenal does unearth a few gems of the future, most notably Hector Bellerin and seemingly Alex Oxlade Chamberlain. It’s also good at recruiting talent such as Ozil and Alexis. However for every one or two signings who go on to work well for the Gunners, we have four or five signings who just shouldn’t be playing for the likes of Arsenal. I’m talking about Andre Santos, Park Chu Young and Kim Kallstrom. I’m thinking about Yaya Sanogo, Gervinho and Sebastian Squillaci. The fact that any of these players were recruited by Arsenal is worrying, but I cannot help but fear that Arsene Wenger is once again setting his hopes upon one man who is unfortunately most likely to flop.
If Onyekuru was to sign for the Gunners, then we should of course give the player a chance to show us what he’s got. I am not usually one to judge and he may surprise us all. However I think the fact that Arsenal aren’t battling the likes of Madrid, Barcelona and City for his signature, but instead challenging Palace and West Brom, just goes to show what quality of player we have here.
At £6.8 million and just 19 years old, he could turn out to be a bargain for the Gunners. However for me I’m just not convinced and sadly I think Wenger’s approach in the transfer market is really being shown up here.
By AH
Jesus Christ, the kid is only 19 years old, give him a chance.
I don’t just want to bash your article. Cause you have put in loads of time and efforts. Sometimes young players are signed for cheap and they make it big. That kid scored 20 goals in the Belgian league. This is good level football.
Last year no body knew Mbappe, can u imagined what the so call football specialist would have said if Wenger signed him? Wenger would have received loads of insults aand criticism.
The fact that small clubs like Southampton or everton are interested doesn’t make the player bad. players like Wanyama van Dyke, Mahrez , Dele Ali , Bale, kante ,Sanchez, Suarez all played for the so call small clubs before they went to big clubs.
Its all about performance , not price tag. Is Mustafi really £33million better than Rob Holding?
Well signing this kid is only bad if we don’t sign another striker. I we sign a striker, then we sign this kid as our future prospect , then theres nothing wrong with this signing.
Sometimes we need to sign this kids before they explode. Dortmond is doing it, Monaco is doing it. Even juventus are doing it. We need to join the party.
Juventus want to sign Patrick Schick. They have Higuain Dybala and manzuki. But they are signing him because they beileve he would be the next big thing to explode on the market. If you can’t beat them, you join them.
i wanted to reply him in this ur form, hence u have said it all let me just add that most of those superstars today were ones scoutted or identified by wenger . players like Ronaldo,Yaya.ibamovic and so many others, some times we blamed him for not signing those players bc they have come to be supperstars, Onyekuru can be one on them. sometimes he needs to take the risk.
The article is valid. mbappe plays in French Ligue and it is the four strongest league in europe and you compare the belgium league which is lower in quality than the dutch or swiss league. Come on man, we are talking about marquee signs not cheappy – chappies. Lucas cost us 17 millions from La Liga and where is he? benched and ready to move away from us.Let’s play next tyear with this wizzkid – Og and wellbeck up front. what striking threat LoL. City today removed from the list of deadwood Caballero, Sagna, clichy and Navas ( four in one go ) . we will start next season with the same average bunch and you want to add more? COME ON! Are you real fan? This kind of signings will make Alexis and Ozil to see how strong we will be start the season? Arsenal FC RIP under Wenger next 2 years.
Good analysis, but do you know Wenger when he says 1 or 2 signings he seriously do mean that? If one is a prospect and the second one is someone like Perez, what will actually happen in the next season? Our rivals are getting rid of average players and buying finished products, and we are busy buying prospects who can be eligible for the first team in 3 years, haven’t we finished 5th? Is our squad better than the 4 teams above us? Why is this movie repeating and some Wenger fans can’t realize it?
Why do you always sound negative, the player is not even sign and you are condemning him
Take a chill pill.
Who would have thought Kante would have done so well coming from Caen?
Who would have thought Kolo Toure would have been part of 2 teams to have gone unbeaten for a whole season when Arsenal signed him from ASEC Mimosas?
As for some of the bad signings, every manager (including Wenger) makes the occasional bad buy.
I want to ask every Arsenal supporter something now.
If we bought MBappe when Wenger went to visit him and before he had this good season, would you lot have moaned about Wenger going after some unknown?
If we bought MBappe now then I bet most of you would be happy.
I was happy when Anelka performed… I was disappointed when Yaya became SoNoGoals.
Some make it.
Some do not.
I will be happy for Wenger to have a £7mil gamble.
If you want good prospects then you have to pay or get them from an unknown league….
This guy might flop, he might make it, if we sign him then I will do my best to hold back judgement till I have seen what he can do in the red and white of Arsenal.
Sorry mate I agree with most of what you just said..till you mention Yaya sanogo…This kid appears to have some talent there’s no doubt..I am not an expert at talent but I did wonder why on earth Wenger wanted to sign Yaya sanogo and worse still Charmack he must have seen something I am not seeing..lol…..when I saw them play there was nothing that said special or potential…this guy has potential although potential does not often equal realising it..but if you don’t buy a ticket you will never win the lottery…
I think some players never get used to the work rate of a top side. Because as long as they play in any televised side, they obviously have talent.
Players like Ronaldo and Sanchez don’t thrive on their incredible talent, they thrive on their work rate. Maybe Chamak was more talented than either of them, but had a minute work rate, therefore flopped terribly.
Thank you very much for your comment.some people are just hypocrites and not true gunners
If we had to battle the likes of Madrid and Barcelona for his signature we wouldn’t sign up…duh!
Excellent prospect, as the saying goes, ‘ stats don’t lie’ go get him ASAP and offload SANOGO
Onyekuru any time!!
Nigeria can bring through very good players from time. And that Belgian league seems to be producing allot of good players. 6 mil for a 19 year old from that league is allot of money. Bielik Holding we only paid two mil each or there abouts. I think it’s better we pay more for the one’s closer to the cusp rather than when they are between 13 and 16/17 years of age, and not knowing if we’ll ever see them again. Next we need to start getting those young south American players, bid big like city Barca and now Real are doing.
Whats really wrong with arsenal is we dont give our existing youngsters a chance ! We may already have the next kane or mbappe already in our squads..unless we give the likes of willock, malen and nelson a chance we will never find out…until its too late and we let them go like gnarby.
Plus what do you think it does to our kids confidence to see the club now looking to buy youngsters like onyekuro.
Incidentally, whats happened to that kid brammall who arrived in a blaze of publicity from non league football at the start of the season ?
Wenger has lost it. He signs Lucas Perez and doesn’t even play him regularly despite the fact he was scoring and creating when given chance. He played Theo upfront in first 3 months, then picked Giroud and Welbeck upfront in the last 4 months despite them not scoring during those periods. Wenger’s obsession with players like Giroud, Ramsey and Theo has destroyed our any hopes of winning the league. Any top and ambitious manager would sell them and buy top players but Wenger keeps giving them new contracts to Theo and Giroud with Ozil and Alexis salary.
Mavididi is IMO the brightest prospect we have upfront, he has scored bags of goals as a kid and while progressing, he went out on loan and made a massive impact before being injured which ruined his season.
We do have some bright prospects but we could loan them out and see if they can make that step up and if they can then it is less risk for AFC to take and if not then AFC haven’t taken the risk of playing him ourselves.
Could be good for us using other clubs as a development stage for our kids to gain experience and now we have cash to buy players then IMO we should be making more out of the loan moves.
Manutd looking grizman,,mancity have aguero & jesus,, chelsea have diego looking monaco striker,, All top clubs looking top strikers…..
Arsenal looking always teenage strikers and fail for everthing i dont understand we need change….
If we haven’t brought in a top striker for the last two seasons, what makes you think we’ll bring one now that we don’t even have the UCL to attract a top player.
Be happy if we sign a half-decent replacement for Sanchez.
You know what, the fact that we’re fifth is actually completely fair. The way we played the UCL for the past five+ years was shambolic, so I’m actually glad we’re out of a competition that serves as a humiliation tool and costs us points in the league, due to morals being shattered by bad results against top sides.
With respect this is a dreadful appraisal. When we were signing young players for the lamentable project youth, they were, with the exception of anelka, cesc and bellerin, generally relative nobodies with fewprofessional games under their belts, little in the way of youth achievement that could be demonstrated, and having achieved nothing as pros. In short it was just on perceived potential at best, a desperate punt having watched Chelsea pilfer the real young takent at worst. This boy is a completely diffrrent case. Onyeruku has lit up the top flight of a league that while not the strongest, certainly isnt the weakest either. For example. Some of us watched lukaku for years and knew 100% he would be a pl superstar bases entirely on his Belgian league performer. Now I’m not saying he’s lukaku(few are) but arsenal actually being at the front of the queue when a top young tent is available is new, potentially significant and to be welcomed. This isn’t a youth team player, or even a nobody from the lower league like holding. If this lad retired tomorrow he’s done more in the game than a lot of players, including quite a few if our first team squad! Now obviously we hope this is not an Alexis replacement, but parking that surely absurd eventuality, on every level this is exciting. Get in, get it done and make him an arsenal player. There is no downside to this and while I’ve only based this on stats, and watched him on YouTube (usual caveats but in a word…wow!) , this is a young player to get very excited about. This is not asano sanogo Bartley denilson brammal or the usual hit and miss dross of our youth policy. This is a genuine talent, not just one imagined by m Wenger. In fact so excited am I (a first for a youth signing) I’m fearful of being gazumped by more ambitious better managed rivals. I’ll put it this way, there’s a hell of a bigger upside to this than signing a 17m journeyman like Lucas, no harm to the guy. He was never going to be a star, no more than the project youth deadwood. Everything onyeruku has done suggests he might be.
I have seen this guy on youtube and he seems to be very greedy player and tries to score by himself instead of passing. His finishing is very poor even tho he has scored plenty. It would be much better if we sign Kasper Dolberg from Ajax. He is also 19 but has played at higher level.
I have seen this guy on youtube and he seems to be very greedy player and tries to score by himself instead of passing. His finishing is very poor even tho he has scored plenty. It would be much better if we sign Kasper Dolberg from Ajax. He is also 19 but has played at higher level.
Kasper Dolberg would be more of a AM than a CF or winger, ideal in our new formation though, he does look a real talent and could be a real bargain.
More likely he will end up like Sanogo. Young players need to be around winners like Hazard, Costa, Matic, Aguero, Yaya. Even if he does turn out good, he will just use us as a stepping stone to go to a better club, because Arsenal refuses to compete with the elite of football and prefer to remain stagnant. Arsenal quickly turning into Liverpool
If he would be any good, we would have not got him that easy
Like the foxes got Kante?
Kante is like an football accident and u guys will never shut up bec of him now
For every Kante there 100 Sonogos now pray to got that somehow we are being lucky
as if
God* aka old fart
Signing young players is fine if its building for the future.
But if this signing (if it happens) is to be the striker to reverse our fortunes then it most certainly not fine.
Even the manager could not be that stupid…
Arsenal used to sign young talented strikers like Henry and Van Perise but in Kroenke era we sign flops like Sanogo, Takuma Asano and this Nigerian guy lol. We will be a mid table team in the next 2 years if nothing changes at this club. Chelsea, City, Man Utd, Liverpool and Spurs are miles ahead of us.
thanks for reminding me Asano existed. Completely forgot we signed him
Wenger wants new Sanogo type players every season lol
Lucas Perez will definately leave either on loan or permanently. I can’t see any team wanting to sign Theo and pay his wages. Lord Sanogo contract will expire and leave. Welbeck will be given chance again next year and Giroud won’t be sold because he is the only striker capable of scoring 15 every season. Get ready for another disappointing season. #WengerOut #KroenkeOut
I agree with all the comments that all stars were cheap or a bargain signing before. But lets not forget our previous record of signing young players has been awfull just recalling yaya sanogo. I agree with the arttcle also but we will wait and see if arsenal really splash the cash and sign that wc striker that we need. If we dont end up signing one and i hope we do but i i will not be surprised if we dont then as the article says this signing just goes to show what is wrong with arsenal
It will be hard to see a team pay Theo wages but he may be up for a paycut if he can get more of a guaranteed spot to play regularly, he did lose his international spot.
He has come off the back of a respectable season for stats. 33 games and 19 goals, if we was looking to buy a player with those stats then we would be bragging about them for a wide player.
Welbeck has never had Wengers faith, Wenger didn’t want him! Wenger answer on Welbeck when we bought him was that he only wanted Welbeck on loan. All that time he was injured and we have been paying his wages… should never have been here. That money should have been put to one side and used to get a WC CF. Instead we wasted money on Welbeck and now on Perez, neither of them has had the backing of Wenger so can easily conclude Wenger wasn’t the one who wanted them. We bid around £30mil for Lacazette before getting Perez, the money from Welbeck could have bumped that up to around £45mil, £50mil would have been ‘only’ £5mil extra and we all know we needed Lacazette this season…. Arsenal board failing the manager AGAIN.
I do not know if he will be given a chance next year if Wenger thinks he can get someone who he chooses in, if that player is better or worse is another question.
I do not think Giroud should be sold, we need a top CF to be the main man and Giroud is good enough to be sub/back up. He has been scoring when coming off the bench and done well this year in a more supportive role, I do not think we need to waste money on buying a backup CF when Giroud is already good enough for that.
I think the no 1 player we should offload is theo. The guy has regressed badly. He can not be a good option when we try to defend and he is not the best option when we want to break down teams that are defending. Atleast he used to know how to cross the ball but somehow he has forgotten this. His run in behind are no longer as effective. To me those wages are alot for a player like theo. How i miss rosicky he was ten times a player theo will wish to be.
Van p was simple world class that he could hit the ball no matter how the ball would come to his feed, and there we are, thinking like walcott somehow was worth 140k
Theo is the kind of player who is a talent his whole career but shown us every season he will never live up to that potential. This season was actually one of his best in numbers but that says it all. He a nice guy but not a winner. I mean who writes a biography when your 26?
I don’t buy the Wenger never wanted Welbeck argument. He did say he was looking into a loan. But since he arrived he has got games, Wenger has talked up his abilities, and most of all he has not been sold. If Wenger didn’t want him here he wouldn’t be here, that is easily fixed. We can’t still say Wenger only wanted a loan so this is on the board, when he’s been here for years.
I’ll just go right ahead and say that this is as crap an article as I’ve ever read. What’s wrong with signing him? Because championship sides want him? Your logic is unbelievable. Have u seen him play? I have. He is tricky and composed in front of goal and lightning quick. Maybe the pricetag isn’t enough for you. If it rose to 40 mil would it make u feel better?
asano is more promising and he’s pace than this kid,we have Campbell too why don’t we bring him back? in our academy we have same calibre of players to promote like manu did with Rashford..where is Akpom, Nketiah, Mavididi are all talented speed number nines not this player…we stick Giroud and keep on dropping. Monaco gave mbappe opportunity give our boys the same not stick with same players for long and are not performing. That what Chelsea do…they sold Remires,Oscar,ivanovic n cech bcause were not performing to their standard required..getaway with per, Gibbs ,Montreal, ospina,cech, giroud,ox, coquilin,welbeck, and Ramsey…of a player can’t make 15goals playing as striker must go, if a winger like ox can’t get 10 goals at this stage he’s bringing arsenal down, if a defender does silly mistakes like the way koncienly keeps repeating n people don’t see he should go. in big games he flops n does silly defending believe or watch again those games. Gabriel too should go, he injured himself so if we get beaten by Everton he can claim he was not in field same koncienly did it twice this season your people get the literature of footballers.
From what I’ve seen he’s pretty good, for Belgium football I’d say. He is nowhere near ready for EPL football. Maybe in three years for now but I doubt it. He has great technical skills and pretty good shot but his movement is way to slow for England. He’s the kind of footballer who will thrive in lower league’s but will never be consistent at a club like Arsenal. Is this the best we can get now?
The boy is good and there is nothing bad about bidding him. You know, Arsenal fans have realy gone sour; they can’t think straight even when a good thing comes on the nose. We have cursed the club and ourselves; we are good at respecting of admiring anything from other clubs be it average or two games wonder;
We dont seem to appreciate anything good that happens to our club unless the media or other club’s supporters say so and that’s total curse come from our own month.
We really know How to mourn without ceasing incidentally no answer that comes on our way. We have emitted delusional wenger more than himself, it’s a carbon copy, like father like son.
Eish !! People don’t get tired of repeating same words year after year decade gone-by same statement without answer damn !! Go support other team forks!
200% agree with this
Why spend any money on him when we could get Solanke from chelsea for free. Same age and quality
I’ll never be against buying young talented players. You never know when you’ll have another Mbappe. There’s nothing wrong with transfers such as this one, he’s a kid. He’s recruited to be delivered into a top player that can later play for a big club like Chelsea, scum (yes scum, they are a top club compared to us finally, don’t put your money of us finishing above them any time soon), manure, Man City, Barca, Real, Bayern, Atletico.
I’d be pissed off if they brought in a 27+ year old Squilacciesque, or Andre Santosesque signing.
I keep reading over and over how much ManU, ManC spent on players, how Chelsea, ManC has been changing the mánager at first sigh.
But no one says nothing about Spurs or Liverpool not buying WC players for huge amounts of money. And yet they did a very nice season.
I miss the days when arsenal was a combination of experienced players and youngsters. Those were our best years. But yeah, lets follow ManC path and ruin the club in 3 years hiring what u guys call WC players.