Santi Cazorla may have ruffled a few feathers when he recently claimed that Arsenal needs a ‘true, true striker’. That is, if the club wants to get back to winning trophies. Nacho Monreal too agreed on the same when he said that the club needs ‘another player who scores 25 goals per season’.
They may have told it in a slightly annoying way but there is truth in it. Gunners need a striker who can find the back of the net consistently. The club really needs a striker in the mould of Thierry Henry. Gunners will do well to have a player who can be consistent, a real poacher in front of the goal and is ready to take the club to the next level.
So, who can it be? Who can be the striker the club can target?
There are only few strikers that can fit the bill and available for Wenger to target in this transfer window. Let’s look at who this striker can be.
1) Jackson Martinez (Porto)
The Colombian hitman scores goals for fun and has been the target of Wenger for many seasons now. The 28 year old Porto striker has a release clause of £25 million and is being monitored by many clubs. Once he is back from his Copa America duties, he would be finalizing his next club.
Will it be Arsenal? AC Milan and Valencia are also interested but if Arsenal is willing to pay the release clause, Martinez could well be heading to London.
Chances: Difficult but possible
2) Karim Benzema (Real Madrid)
A long time target of Wenger, this French striker is on the cross roads after the arrival of Rafa Benitez. The new Real Madrid coach wants to have Ronaldo as his centre forward. This could mean that Benz could be looking for a new club soon to be the main striker.
Will it be Arsenal? Manchester United is also interested and Madrid also will be unwilling to prize away with their asset.
Chances: Difficult to pursue. Tough to execute!
3) Gonzalo Higuain (Napoli)
The Argentine striker is looking to be involved in Champions League which his current club Napoli can’t offer. Napoli president wouldn’t be lured into a deal unless the buy-out clause of £57m is met. But, Higuain may be tempted into looking elsewhere this transfer season.
Will it be Arsenal, then? Manchester United, again, is credited with a serious interest. Also, Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentis is a tough nut in discussions.
Chances: Difficult…difficult….difficult!
And then there are other targets like Alexandre Lacazette of Lyon and Carlos Bacca of Sevilla. Arsenal and Wenger will definitely appeal to most (if not all) of them. It’s just a matter of who!
Sridha B
I cant see Wenger buying a striker this season to be honest. I suspect he will buy another wide player coz i reckon he will give Walcott a crack in the striker role. remember there is also the curious case of Danny Welbeck. Unless Walcott or Welbeck is sold otherwise i cant see Wenger buying a striker this window.
I think you’re right – and frankly I’m not too sad about it. But if we miss out on Benzema because Wenger wants to play walcott in the middle, i get angry. I like Giroud I’m one of those who rate him as one of our best players, but Benzema IS and has always been better. Same thing to Lacazette – if he goes for a price we could easily have matched.
Additionally – Kondogbia for ~28 mill pounds, whereas the “secondary target” Carvalho is rumoured to cost us £35M? frickin hell…
Out of the three, Higuain. Like Nick the yank said my appreciation for him goes back to his Madrid days, i always felt he was better than Benzema. He was craftier and in more areas came out on top. Benzema had/has the power, although he never uses it as well as he should. Higuain for me, but not at over 35 mil and definitely not for fifty. Higuain for thirty mil i think is a fair and wed be getting a top striker.
I agree with you mostly, I do think Wenger will be looking for a wide player but the wide player will be a player who can handle CF as well, that player may not have played out wide yet but we all know Wenger likes his players to have experiences of other roles outside their own.
Some rumors which I am kinda looking towards as potentials are players like;
Draxler, Wenger converted RvP from out wide and I believe I read ages ago that Wenger see’s him as a potential forward player. Proven to know where the net is, came 2nd in goalscoring charts prior to injury.
Ayumiyang (or how-ever he is spelt), a player who can play anywhere along the front 3, scored 25 goals this season and created 10…
Lacazette has the attributes to play out wide for a while along with being a CF, again another player who has proven to know where the net is.
If your right and Wenger gives Walcott a crack then we know he is the type of player who will drop out wide for moments, he was happy to do that in the final with Alexis and got a goal from it, he can do it on the right and score from their as well.
As Alexis can play CF, if we get a right sided AM who can play CF then our front 3 will be a nightmare to defend against, man marking would be impossible ^.^
My biggest wish : Reus
Off topic
This is how the agent of Petr Cech’s agent reacted when asked about the apparent interest by Inter on his client,
“I have heard many rumours in the last few weeks of a possible move to Inter Milan, but that doesn’t correspond with the reality with regards to Petr Cech,”
“There has never been any offers from the Nerazzurri, they were just rumours and we never talked about this. Regarding Arsenal, I can’t say too much on that.”
Talk of letting the cat out of the bag..Fingers crossed
I’ll be sad to see Ospina go and miss the OOOOOOOoooooooooospina before his kicks but Cech is a brilliant keeper who could really help Szcz, not forgetting we are pinching Cechs coach as well? I read we are and if so then that could be just as good for us.
The coach who helped Cech become one of the worlds best (must be if us Arsenal fans are excited about signing a CHAVSKI player! lol), that very same coach will be helping Szcz and Szcz can learn from Cechs vast experience…
I am truely keeping my fingers crossed 🙂
If we don’t buy a ST I say we go all out for muller I honestly feel if we placed a sufficient bid he might consider leaving. Muller and kondogbia and we are SET. This is how our attack would look w these 2….
…………………….Giroud/Walcott………………..:…
.Alexis/Welbeck……Ozil/Cazorla………Muller/Ox……….
….Ramsey/Wilshere……Coq/Kondogbia…………
Bayern might have something to say about that.
I swear if we go into next season with the same shortcomings like we always do each and every season then I will start getting on Wengers back.. I am one of a few Wenger apologetics on here but if we go into next season without having strengthened in at least 2 of the 3 main problem areas then I will get on his back for once..
This season is the season to show that we are here now, can’t go into it like he has gone into the past 10 where he has deliberately ignored the problem positions just because he is loyal and does not want to upset his underperforming players. We are so close now, just 2-3 signings and we don’t have can have a real go, if we add those 2-3 and we still struggle in the league then that’s when Wenger will have to be looked at as an individual..
Guys, I can feel that we are so so close and I am just worried that Wenger is not as hungry as we are, I have a feeling that we might sign one big random player and then one or 2 fringe ones then we will be left with the same feeling of “Dammit, if we had strengthened in the right areas we would have been closer” yet again.. Hope I am wrong.. Just nervous..
I rated you down and here is my reasoning;
Wenger did need a CB last season and he finally got one in Jan, some people are saying he should of got one during the summer window but look at the business we did do and try to keep in mind we had a LOT of missing pieces just a few years ago when we was a selling club.
We did read about rumors of us being interested in CBs, we do not know if we tried but failed… and if so then we do not know the reason why it failed, it could of been due to the other business we was doing and just didn’t have enough time.
Last season highlighted how we needed someone a bit more direct due to lack of depth in squad and Wenger got Alexis, any complaints there?
Wenger has said about Welbeck transfer that if it was down to him he would of loaned Welbeck… now people are calling out for a ‘world class’ CF but we have too many on our books to go out and buy one… maybe Wenger had thought of this already and his plans got screwed up?
People have claimed Verm wasn’t replaced but we bought Chambers who Wenger has said he see’s as a central player, he then played Chambers RB for a while over Bellerin which I was disapointed about… tactical choice though and not transfer choice.
That was last season…
Season before was the 1st season since move where we wasn’t selling but buying.
Rumors had it we aproached Barca and Cesc but Cesc didn’t want to leave, our ‘beloved son’ had yet again turned his back on the club that cared for him. What was Wenger to do? He got the assist king Ozil. No complaints from me on getting Ozil, since he came back from injury and we have had Alexis I think Ozil has been brilliant for us, I am proud to watch him play for us.
We can all say more should of been done in that window but isn’t the hardest thing to do is restrain yourself from silly spending? Wenger hadn’t broken the Arsenal transfer record since Gazidis came to Arsenal and that was a few years ago now… Gazidis needed to be shown Wenger can spend big and well and be trusted. Yes he done it before but it wasn’t witnessed by his new boss and Gazidis, there is more to football than football manager game would indicate. In the real world you have politics within the business… Arsenal was transitioning between selling and buying, isn’t it obvious? We could of gone the route of liverpool and bought half a dozen prospects or get Ozil, personally I am glad we done what we did.
Could more of been done?
Yes. I wont argue that more could of been done.
I would also bet that Wenger and the rest of the staff will say more could of been done.
The reason why more could of been done is because they are profesionals and will always analyse themselves to improve, no1 is perfect and there can always be room for improvement, they want better themselves!
We can win the league and Wenger will most likely say that we could of done more so for me that argument is not valid, we can always do more because no matter how good we are, we can always become better.
Did Wenger not do enough?
He has done enough.
1st season of buying and he wins the FA Cup.
2nd season of buying and he retains the FA Cup and increases in EPL position.
Improvement + improvement doesn’t = complaint from me.
You might be right, everyone has an opinion…
I think base on difficulties and probabilities, our option should be short in two names, Jackson Martinez or Lacazette. Two different target man style, but both have similarity to Arsenal current strikers. Jackson compare to Giroud, and Lac compare to Walcott. Let alone the goals, just one look and you’ll know that Jackson is faster and can make goal from “dead wind” situation. Giroud aerial duel and his cohesion to the team (after 2 years, of course he has to) might be his only strong point. I say Jackson is an up grade of Giroud.
Lac is much similar to Theo but he has a bit body strength. Lac was score more goals even if we compare to Theo’s 2013/2014 stats, but don’t forget that in EPL is harder to score goals than other European leagues (Costa, Aguero, and Tevez for example). If Theo can push his ability into his all, I say he can even better than Lac. For me, Lac isn’t an up grade of Theo Walcott.
So, I’ll pick the 28 years Jackson over the 22 Lacazette. My worry is, Jackson doesn’t impressive enough at Copa America.
Big homework for AW!
Benzema??? Real madrid needs Aguero to sell benzema. And if so then it will be Benzema + cash for Aguero. Which is something City will never accept to. Aguero is the best Striker in the world after Suarez . So there is no way city will be willing to sell. City will break the bank to keep him.
Luciano Vietto is off to Atlethico de madrid next week for medicals
Dybale off to Juve.
j martinez. Ac Milan and Atletico have match the £25 m on his release K . But he has told porto to wait for Arsenal. It all depends on Wenger really. But i guess there will be a time scale for him to make a decision. He said in a few days.
hIGUAIN. There is no news on this one. All we know is that his release claus is £72 million. It will be a long negotiation but he will be my best choice.
Lacazette. Lyon has just given him a new contract. But he is yet to sign. Rumours from France are that United have made a bid. How true it is? I don’t know.
I think it’s time to stop pondering over a fifth no.9 at Arsenal if my thoughts on the Boss to convert the duo forwards of Walcott and Welbeck to strikers will materialize next season. I have said it many times and saying it again that Arsenal better spend in for the most needful 3 Areas of a LB, DM & RW in the team than to yield to the fanciful calls for a striker signing. A goalkeeper could come into play to make it 4 signings or nullifing the new DM signing that could internally be solved. Are Giroud, Walcott and Welbeck not international strikers? If they are, they Boss should then play them at Arsenal as 3 rotating strikers from next season. And I am sure he and we will not be disappointed as the trio could combinely produced 60 goals in all competitions for us if they stay fit on their feet. The only thing that could make Arsenal buy a fifth striker in this summer, is if Welbeck did not fully recovered from his nagging knee injury to start the new season campaingn. Can the Boss convert Alex Oxlade Chamberlain to an attacking DM as Coquelin is already a defensive DM that did his job remarkably well last season. If the Ox can totally overcome his constant injuries, I think the Boss can try him out there to contrast Coquelin holding role. As the Ox could become that DM that destroys the opponents attacking buildup from the source to stop them play to their game plans. I watched the Ox chased down that Monaco’s attacker that broke loose from a counter attack to score their 3rd goal at the Emirates. That chasing of the attacker showed the Ox has a good recovery rate as he got the pace but lacked the intercepting skill to intercept the break away attacker when he caught up with him but hesitated for a second or two. Thus given the attacker time to size up the Arsenal goalkeeper and he scored. The Ox should work on his interception skill to overcome such costly failings if he becomes a DM.
Wenger will not sign benzema whilst we have giroud on our books because it will mean having the same two players fighting for the same position for both club and country and it could disrupt the team.
I think it’s time to stop pondering over a fifth no.9 at Arsenal if my thoughts for the Boss to convert the duo forwards of Walcott and Welbeck to strikers will materialize next season. I have said it many times and saying it again that Arsenal better spend for the most needful 3 Areas of a LB, DM & RW in the team than to yield to the fanciful calls for a striker signing. A goalkeeper could come into play to make it 4 signings or nullifing the new DM signing that could internally be solved. Are Giroud, Walcott and Welbeck not international strikers? If they are, the Boss should then play them at Arsenal as 3 rotating strikers from next season. And I am sure we and him will not be disappointed as the trio could combinely produced 60 goals in all competitions for us if they stay fit on their feet. The only thing that could make Arsenal buy a fifth striker this summer, is if Welbeck has not fully recovered from his nagging knee injury to start the new season campaingn. Can the Boss convert Alex Oxlade Chamberlain to an attacking DM, as Coquelin was mostly an intercepting DM that did his job remarkably well last season? If the Ox can totally overcome his constant injuries, I think the Boss can try him out there to contrast Coquelin holding role. As the Ox could become that DM at Arsenal that destroys the opponents attacking buildup from the source to stop them play to their game plans. I watched the Ox chased down that Monaco’s attacker that broke loose from infield to counter attack to score their 3rd goal at the Emirates. That chasing of the attacker by the Ox shows he has a good recovery rate as he got the pace but lacked the intercepting skill to intercept the break away attacker when he caught up with him but hesitated for a second or two. Thus given the attacker time to create space to size up the Arsenal goalkeeper and he scored. The Ox should work very well on his interception skill to overcome such a costly failing in Arsenal games. Moreso if he is converted to a DM.
What about Lewandoski ? He doesn’t seem to get along with Guardiola that much.
Let’s say Lewandoski and Benzema are both available for the same amount of money/wages this summer.Who would you go for guyz ? I’m curious to know.
I’d go for Lewandoski since i rate him very highly. He is so strong physcally, quick, a killer in the 6 yards box,skillful, good in the air. He has it all. ( If we get Benzema i’d be more than happy ofc… lol)
Thumbs up for Lewandoski and thumbs down for Benzema. =D
It’s not even close lewandowski all day
I think it’s time to stop pondering over a fifth no.9 at Arsenal if my thoughts for the Boss to convert the duo forwards of Walcott and Welbeck to strikers will materialize next season. I have said it many times and saying it again that Arsenal better spend for the most needful 3 Areas of LB, DM & RW in the team than to yield to the fanciful calls for a World class striker signing. A goalkeeper could come into play to make it 4 signings to nullify a new DM signing that could internally be solved. Are Giroud, Walcott and Welbeck not international strikers? If they are, the Boss should then play them at Arsenal as 3 rotating strikers from next season. And I am sure we and him will not be disappointed as the trio could combinely produced 60 goals in all competitions for us if they stay fit on their feet. The only thing that could make Arsenal buy a fifth striker this summer is, if Welbeck fail not fully recovered from his nagging knee injury to start the new season campaingn. Can the Boss convert Alex Oxlade Chamberlain to an attacking DM, as Coquelin was mostly an intercepting DM that did his job remarkably well last season? If the Ox can totally overcome his constant injuries, I think the Boss can try him out there to contrast Coquelin holding role. As the Ox could become that DM at Arsenal that destroys the opponents attacking buildup from the source to stop them play to their game plans. I watched the Ox chased down a Monaco’s attacker that broke loose from infield to counter attack to score their 3rd goal at the Emirates in a Ucl game. That chasing of that attacker by the Ox, has shown he has a good rate of recovery as he got the pace but lacked the intercepting skill to intercept the break away attacker as he caught up with him but hesitated for a second or two. Thus given the attacker time to create space to size up the Arsenal goalkeeper and he scored. The Ox should work very well on his interception skill to overcome such a costly failing in Arsenal games, moreso if he is converted to a DM.
Losing out to milan with kondogbia seems absurd if true … But maybe schneiderlin or Vidal or bender is the better option …. What is for sure if we don’t bring a top quality player to that position …. And whatever people are thinking coquellin is not it yet …. and in attack …. Where an aguerro type is essential if the whippet is being given a chance at CF which seems likely now … Then wenger will be continuing his ten years of 4th place dilusional management …. And these players need to come in July as well to begin integration process
I think it’s time to stop pondering over a fifth no.9 at Arsenal if my thoughts for the Boss to convert the duo forwards of Walcott and Welbeck to strikers will materialize next season. I have said it many times and saying it again that Arsenal better spend for the most needful 3 Areas of LB, DM & RW in the team than to yield to the fanciful calls for a World class striker signing. A goalkeeper could come into play to still make it 3 signings by nullifing a new DM signing that could internally be solved. Are Giroud, Walcott and Welbeck not international strikers? If they are, the Boss should then play them at Arsenal as 3 rotating strikers from next season. And I am sure we and him will not be disappointed as the trio could combinely produced 60 goals in all competitions for us if they stay fit on their feet. The only thing that could make Arsenal buy a fifth striker this summer is, if Welbeck fail not fully recovered from his nagging knee injury to start the new season campaingn. Can the Boss convert Alex Oxlade Chamberlain to an attacking DM, as Coquelin was mostly an intercepting DM that did his job remarkably well last season? If the Ox can totally overcome his constant injuries, I think the Boss can try him out there to contrast Coquelin holding role. As the Ox could become that DM at Arsenal that destroys the opponents attacking buildup from the source to stop them play to their game plans. I watched the Ox chased down a Monaco’s attacker that broke loose from infield to counter attack to score their 3rd goal at the Emirates in a Ucl game. That chasing of that attacker by the Ox, has shown he has a good rate of recovery as he got the pace but lacked the intercepting skill to intercept the break away attacker as he caught up with him but hesitated for a second or two. Thus given the attacker time to create space to size up the Arsenal goalkeeper and he scored. The Ox should work very well on his interception skill to overcome such a costly failing in Arsenal games, moreso if he is converted to a DM. Justarsenal.com, sorry for posting my comments 4 times. The 4th one stand. My first 3 have typographical and grammatical errors in them which I later saw as I re-read them after you have published them.
I think its time to stop pondering over the same bloody comment.
I’m a huge Higuain fan during his time at Madrid I always felt he was better thanBenzema but fell under the Maureen curse. He’d be my first choice above others listed.
That said if we bring in a striker he won’t be better than Giroud. Wenger is very loyal to his favorite players and he chose Giroud years ago when we were just beginning to have more money again for transfers. He always speaks very highly of him and his belief in him. He won’t bring in an automatic replacement #1 striker, especially with Walcott wanting his turn at CF too.
Most likely scenario if we can offload Podolski is we bring in a proper winger to play on the left…finally! Reus would always be my #1choice there.
Also, as to the Bender talk, they said 2 years ago Wenger had his scouts heavily watching Bender to see if we could get him and convert him but they scouts said they didn’t think it was possible.
Alexandre Lacazette and Petr Cech and I’d be happy. A mid would work too.
Cech and Vidal and we are good to go. Between Giroud, Walcott, Welbeck,Sanchez, Ozil, Ramsey, Wilshire, Cazorla, Rosicky, Ox I think we can get the goals.