There have been many Arsenal transfer rumours linking the Gunners with a move for Porto’s Jackson Martinez after Arsene Wenger sang his praiseslast month, but the fact that there is a reported £29.5million transfer fee involved for a striker that will turn 29 this year makes it very unlikely that Wenger would be interested.
For me, a much better bet would be to take the Bazilian Luiz Adriano from Shakhtar Donetsk, who has been extremely impressive for his club in Europe this season. He is 7 months younger than Martinez and even better, he will be available for free in December, which may persuade the Ukranian club to sell him for a small fee in the summer rather than lose him for nothing.
Adriano is no slouch and was actually named by UEFA as MVP of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League group stage after he scored nine goals in the six matches, including a record-breaking five in one game against BATE Borisov. In the Ukranian Premier League last season he scored 20 goals in 25 games, and ended the season with a total of 25 in all competitions.
Adriano has made it clear that he will be leaving Shakhtar in December. He was quoted in TalkSport as saying: “My plan is to respect the contract, which has not been renewed and will expire in December 2015,” he said.
“I am in a good moment of my career and we’ll do what will be best for me and for the club.
“With my contract set to expire and many good performances, it’ll be difficult to stay in Ukraine.”
If Adriano wants to do the best for Shakhtar, then surely he should let the recoup some of their investment by selling him in the summer instead of seeing out his current contract?
Jackson Martinez has obviously ticked all the boxes for Wenger, but with his age and price definitely against him, surely Adriano would be a much shrewder investment for Arsenal and, you never know, perhaps he could become an instant hit in the Premier League?
D’nt think wenger wil be signing any striker this summer,he is quite happy wif g-rude
I think Wenger will go for a striker/forward in the summer but I am sure as hell it won’t be Martinez. The whole Jackson Martinez saga has to be right at the top of the list when it comes to the most protracted, boring transfer link story out there – and not just for Arsenal. He has been scouted to death for years now and there has not been one credible effort to sign him that we know about. In the past few years Chelsea, Pool, City, United, Bayern, Barca, Juve and many other top clubs have been looking for a top class striker and he missed out every time – is he not as good as many say he is, just unlucky or is there something we don’t know about?
Wenger said 95% of the squad
is staying. May be he is just
keeping the squad focused on
the here and now?
May be he wants to make buying clubs pay top dollar?
But if what he says is true then only 1.5 of the top 30 can leave.
If Diaby is one player leaving then only half of one
more player can leave. Half of who?
Monreal Mertesacker Flamini Arteta
Rosicky Podolski Cazorla Walcott
Campbell Ryo Sanogo.
With Giroud and Wellbeck we have 5 strikers plus Akpom on loan.
Sanchez Ramsey Walcott are good for goals too. 9 goal scorers.
So why are we even contemplating buying another striker?
Along with Diaby who will be the other half player to go?
I think i am actually a little dumber now… thank you.
I think Wenger considers his squad a lot smaller then what we do. Podolski, Campbell, Ryo and Sanogo, Jenkinson (i.e. loan players) are probably not included in that 95% in Wenger’s head because they are not currently in the squad. I would imagine Diaby plus 1 more person from the current squad will leave. That 1 more is most likely to be one of:
Rosicky
Theo
Flamini
Arteta
Martinez
Sczcesney
I’d imagine we won’t ship out a goalkeeper, Arteta will sign a new deal, Theo will sign and that will leave the old guard of Rosicky and Flamini…sadly 1 of them will probably go. BUT they might not.
Hopefully we also retain Jenkinson from the loan players – no reason to let him leave IMO. The others I make no statement on except that I wouldn’t be sad to see any of them leave at this time…though players leaving has a tendency to bite us!
if i understand the frenchman`s maths that suggests he thinks we are 5 per cent shy of competing on 3 fronts (can give him benefit of doubt and drop the league cup) … so still hoping that the promise of the ultimate high will keep the 4th place junkies happy …. such idiocy is best dealt with by sending the man back to school and bringing in someone who wants to win stuff for the club….
None of them is what we need, what happened to lacazette n dybala?
Neither one is too old for the price and the other doesn’t score enough against top teams
Give Lacazette a chance young, quick and a good eye for goal, won’t cost as much as Martinez and would be patient
Also please don’t sign smalling he’s average, if Utd want rid that tells you everything , we wouldn’t pay a similar fee for Cahill but we are thinking of buying smalling doesn’t make sense
Don’t think anyone can disagree with you there. Only Lionel Messi has a better goal to game ratio than Giroud. Not even the great Christiano Ronaldo or Harry Kane have a better ratio this season. I have criticized Giroud in the past but his current form has been exceptional and I really hope he can keep up the top performances.
He is not a main striker for a team supposed to challenge for the epl and cl titles.
What giroud can do againt cahil, tery, company, hummel, silva, luiz, ramos, pepe? Actually nothing
LOL. The only one on the list he has faced this season is Kompany and he has scored twice.