Arsenal has made Lille’s Jonathan David their priority signing ahead of the summer transfer window.
The Canadian has been one of Europe’s best strikers and he has continued to do well at the Ligue 1 side.
He helped them win the French league title last season and could potentially leave them at the end of this campaign.
The French club is a selling side and they are almost always willing to cash in on their best players.
Fichajes.net says they want 50m euros for his signature and will hold out for that fee from all his suitors.
It then adds that Arsenal will likely pay that much for him because the striker will solve an important problem for them.
By the summer, they might have lost Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the space of six months.
David may well be one of the strikers that move to the Emirates to replace them,
Just Arsenal Opinion
David has been in top form even though Lille has struggled in this campaign.
At 22, he is one of the finest young strikers in the world now, and he will be a long-term performer for Arsenal.
The Gunners need to sign a striker that will serve them for years just as their new defenders and midfielders will.
It would be interesting to see if they can win the race for his signature.
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Arsenal wanted to sign him before he went to Lille. I’ve not watched him play but there are so many good reads about him and I hope if we were lucky to sign him, he makes our team better
I have seen him play for Canada and he has gotten much stronger over the past year or so.
Canada has had its best run in world cup qualifying ever and David has stepped up (amongst a lot of players). They have been winning even with Alphonso Davis out injured.
He could be a great signing and he would fit the younger acquisition model that we seem to have adopted.
I have likewise been watching his run with the Canadian National squad and he’s been a real lightning rod player over the last couple of years, but I just don’t think he can be relied upon to lead the line…I see him as being an effective producer in a front 2 or even maybe as a Formino-like false 9, but I just don’t think we can rely on Saka and Marts to score enough, like a Salah/Mane forward tandem, so I would rather we pursued someone who can score in a variety of different ways, who has the requisite amount of pace to seriously stretch opposing defences…that said, I do get why he might be on a shortlist of potential recruits, as he’s a logical replacement/upgrade for Laca, but I just don’t think we will take things to the next level if we require our Strikers to play so far up the pitch with their back to goal
The EPL has become a nightmare for CFs, you hardly find a CF banging goals day in, day out in the EPL,
CR7, Lukaku, Daka all trying to adapt,
Arteta has to carefully sign a CF,
My view and increasingly so as the game evolves so quickly , is that the old type of central striker(CF) who scoreS the majorityof any teams goals, is becoming rarer and rarer and inded even outdated.
Peps system of a fast passing, fluid and very pacy interchange of passing , and using several players, plus a false nine, to score the total goals with not a single one among the Prem top scorers, is now the ideal. Aguerro is not even much missed anymore.
The game is evolving fast and savvy coaches and managers are ahead of old fashioned concepts .
Our main problem is that right now we have only ESR and Saka who have ANY real eye for goal and we need deeper scoring quality but not necessarily an out and out central striker( CF).
UNLESS, which is near impossible, we can attract a Haaland or Mbappe quality.
My real point is that real top quality central strikers are becoming as rare as hens teeth and we need to adapt to that fact.
nah!! Next. I don’t think he’s prolific enough. 11 goals in 17 games isn’t bad but it is the French league. Giroud, Lakazette and Pepe, were more clinical in that league, but they never found it easy in England.
Never mind he’s 22, we can see what players younger than him are already doing. It will be a tough nut to crack getting the ideal CF.
Dusan was by far the best choice, and we still couldn’t get him, let alone Haaland. Lewandski for me is too old, even though he is still banging them in. I feel the moment he gets to Arsenal the goals will dry out and we will be stuck with a high wage player contributing zilch.
There isn’t many top notch choices out there and i am feeling may be we should just get Gnabry back and put him with Smith Rowe and Saka in a 3 prong attack. Liverpool and City are thriving without a CF so it might not be an absolute anymore.
See Lacazette…He plays more like a false 9 than a CF!!
Get both David and martinez then, 100m shud do that, replace xhaka with ruiz, promote a RB, keep saliba n sell Niles, Mari, mavropanos, nelson n other loan players to fund any other deal and give pepe 1 more year to see what he can do.