Arsenal fans have been crying out for a new striker to lead the line in recent years, but all I hear is negativity around our supposed targets.
We have been linked with a number of targets in recent years, but despite Arsene Wenger working hard to land a new forward, none of the targets tick all the right boxes for many fans.
First we made an attempt to sign Jamie Vardy from Leicester City, who decided that his story with the Foxes is not completed as of yet. We triggered his release clause and made him an offer, only for him to sign a new contract with the Premier League champions. That is fine, but when I hear that Arsenal fans didn’t want him anyway, I ask myself, is anyone good enough?
Vardy scored 24 PL goals last term, in firing his side to the title, and showed real bottle as the season got gritty, whereas we folded when the going got tough. We haven’t had a player top 16 PL goals in a season since RVP left in 2012, yet this guy is not good enough?
Morata was also on the hit-list, but he now appears to be too expensive according to reports. Even while we were linked with him, fans were quick to downplay his goal tally, which per season is nothing too impressive. Despite that, he was the favoured option to join the club, but he is more of a big-game player than a consistent goalscorer. Some of that is justified, but the fact that he has had to share his role in the side with fellow impressive strikers Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala has been disruptive to his progress with Juventus.
Finally we are being linked with Romelu Lukaku, and now I hear a number of critiques on his style of play too?
The Belgian has 60 PL goals from the last four seasons alone, three more than Giroud, despite playing for lesser sides. He is still only 23 years-old, and has the strength and finishing worthy of reaching a level above where he is at. But instead of concentrating on the positives, all I’m hearing is that his first touch is not of the standard, and that he is not the right fit for our team…
I beg you Arsenal fans, please understand that what we NEED to do is strengthen, and these players WOULD ALL do that. Any of the three would bring something different to our options, and all could play a big part in our push to try and land our first title in what could be 13 years!
Nobody is perfect, but they all have some great attributes. Let’s face it, who wants to be stuck with Giroud and Walcott as our senior strike-options?
Pat J
Morata, please no! But the others, yes! In Wenger’s mind “Xhaka has played well at the Euros, obviously I don’t need a striker then”.
u’ve got tonnes of gut to say that Arsenal fans are hard to please……… Do u know how much we’ve been through?….all the hardship on the basis of the same issue…season after season
Try mentioning Top names like Lewandowski, Aubameyang or Higuain and see the reaction…..we are tired of being cheap
ARSENAL FANS ARE THE MOST TOLERANT!!
What is it with the stat PL goals vs non PL goals? OG scored as many as Vardy and had the same assists. So what if he did it against Bayern Munich instead of Stoke City?
OG sat out many minutes in the PL as Welbeck and Walcott played there fair share in the middle of the three attackers.
In my opinion we need someone to score regularly from the opposite side of Sanchez. He had 17 goals and 10 assists. Where is that from the other side?
OG plays with back to goal so both sides have plenty of room to explore the width and should score big time goals along with OG.
One player I think could help in that regard is Draxler. I have been a fan since he was mentioned 3 years ago.
Goals against Bayern don’t count towards winning the EPL, that’s why. One striker’s goals won the league the other’s 15 game drought helped us to 2nd place.
Thank you soo much,….I remember van persie scoring 30 premier league goals but I can’t remember arsenal winning the league that season; football is still a team effort the last time checked…some players are supposed to be doing better than they are….one of them is not giroud….
The reality is that Wenger is only looking for a striker to cover Welbeck and unless Wenger upgrades his initial thoughts, I doubt that we will see an expensive striker being signed during this transfer window. ?
@Fatboy………where could one find a free version of the “Thought upgrade” software
could come in handy!
I don’t know ? … eBay ?…. if not… try slapping him around the chops with a wet fish ? that normally works ?
Lukaku is a realistic target. He plays here, he scores goals and his current club is on the decline.
Put simply, he is there for the taking, if we want him and if he is not too expensive.
For me he’s worth about 30-40 million, maybe a bit more, but if the press are to be believed his price tag is much higher. This could be a small sticking point with AW.
Also, the longer things go on the higher the price for any forward, silly season has yet to commence!
So….I suspect we will sign a decent-ish forward for half that money..we’ll see.
I think Lukaku is out of Wengers range when it comes to pricing, and Everton being bought being bought by a billionaire doesnt really help our case for that, but then again we never know exactly how much Lukaku wants to climb up the career ladder and play top4 and CL…
If Lukaku doesn’t come, I could see Morata coming, but not for anything more than €40M…
Another option I can see happening is Milik from Ajax, who according to Wiki is a huge fan of Arsenal, so hopefully he’ll be motivated to be as good as possible, instead of being content with earning ridiculous money. The last would be this Janssen guy, but we don’t hear anything about it, so it could just as well be nothing to it.
I hope we get Lukaku, but getting Milik would also really excite me.
“getting Milik would really excite me”. You haven’t seen much of Poland at the Euros have you mate??? Nice open goal miss after djourou laid him off earlier. I understood earlier in the tournament as he missed many great chances with his left foot. Then, a Polish friend informed me that HE IS LEFT FOOTED. No thanks
Xhaka is bang average and in no way a d.m 30 plus mill what an absolute joke, considering spurs brought a proven beast in Wanyama for 11 mill.
Wenger will never learn
Fun fact. Giroud scored more goals (discounting penalties) per 90 than all 3 of these players.
Giroud = 0.55 goals per 90 mins
Vardy = 0.55 goals per 90 mins
Lukaku = 0.48 goals per 90 mins
Morata = 0.34 goals per 90 mins
Compare that with
Benzema = 1.09 goals per 90 mins
Aubameyang = 0.8 goals per 90 mins
Higuain = 1 goal per 90 mins
and you see that these are the top level with Giroud on the second level with those mentioned in this post.
Here is hoping for Madrid to sign Aubameyang / Lewandowski and then sell Benzema
Doctrina, I have quoted this statistic many times on here but in the form of minutes played per non penalty goal. With regard to last seasons premier league the stats are
Aguero 118 min
Giroud 162 min
Kane 168 min
Vardy 165 min
Lukaku 186 min
Welbeck 145 min
Walcott 276 min
The surprise is that giroud is much better than most of us would expect. What is not a surprise is that aguero is best. I think welbeck did not play for sufficient time for his stat to be very meaningful, he only scored 4 goals but two of those were game winners
Completely agree.
I can’t see the point in spending such huge amounts of money on a player who is on par with Giroud. I read that Everton and looking at £75 million for Lukaku.
We should only consider spending that amount of money on someone from the top bracket or if we can’t get them then looking to sign a young prospect who is available for a decent price e.g. Janssen