Former Arsenal player Martin Keown has expressed doubts about whether the club currently needs Ivan Toney, even as fans call for the signing of a new striker.
Toney is widely regarded as one of the Premier League’s top centre-forwards and has been the subject of speculation regarding a potential move from Brentford in the future.
Brentford is aware of Toney’s value and is hopeful that a suitor will be willing to pay a substantial fee to acquire him at the end of the season.
Some Arsenal supporters are urging the club to pursue Toney as their potential solution to their striker needs. Toney, they argue, could have a similar impact at Arsenal as Erling Haaland has had at Manchester City, where the Norwegian striker’s goals have kept the team at the top of English football.
If Toney were to join Arsenal, he could potentially become the prolific 20-30 goals-a-season striker that the club needs.
But Keown doubts if they are ready for such a player. He said to Talk Sport:
“If we compare Ivan to Haaland and what Haaland does in that team… Man City, because they’re so strong everywhere else, have been able to take that player out of the top of the team.”
Adding: “It’s whether Arsenal are ready for that.
“Gabriel Jesus, when he’s playing striker, we see him at left-back and all over the pitch because it’s more of a collective effort.
“Maybe he has to do that because in the past the team hasn’t been strong enough defensively, so it’s where the team is.
“But I get it because Toney is a prolific goalscorer.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Toney will impact this team, considering the number of wingers and midfield talents we have.
However, his arrival would mean we have given up on Eddie Nketiah and therefore the club probably should transfer-list the academy product now.
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Toney links the play well but in a different way to jesus and Nketiah. It’s not just about scoring goals, he’s got a presence. Keown might be right, but imo toney would give us another dimension and a bounce in the second half of the season that could help carry us to the title.
It should be about scoring goals. Link up play, this and that everything is done by Jesus so we don’t need another striker to do the same. But Toney is no better than Auba or Lacazette who both flopped in Arteta system. So we need someone different who can score lot of goals
You could very easily find that we would score fewer goals as a team with a better pure goalscorer up front in our lineup. Linkup play and pressing are crucial to our way of playing – obviously we’d want someone who can do it all, but there aren’t many of those players around. I do think toney would bring a good balance of holdup play and good finishing to improve us – he’s similar to laca (who did work in arteta’s teams for the most part), but more physically robust and a much better finisher. From what I’ve seen he’s a lot more consistent as well.
I believe there are better options – probably more expensive options but better than Toney.
I am uncomfortable with the thought that we are supposedly interested in someone banned for illegal betting – particularly betting against his own team apparently. Would you want a player like that turning out for Arsenal?
Would that crucial miss be a genuine miss? That yellow card on the 57th minute?
Not for me thanks…
I still think Toney link is a lie
Surely there are better options, I share the legend concerns.
But he just doesn’t fits the profile of Arsenal talisman to lead the line going into phase five.
If Eddie can work hard to fit into the lineup then surely Toney with more goals can adapt to the Arsenal way