Although many Arsenal fans are no longer calling for Arsene Wenger to sign another striker in the summer, largely due to the excellent form of Olivier Giroud since the France international returned from injury, there are many, including the former Gunner Thierry Henry, who want the manager to bring in more firepower.
And of course there are plenty of Arsenal transfer rumours linking the boss with all sorts of strikers in all shapes and sizes, so I am quite surprised that there have not been any linking us with Christian Benteke recently. There lots last summer and the previous one after he took the Premier League by storm with his power and finishing.
The Mirror are now reporting that Aston Villa have admitted that they may not be able to hold on to their star striker this summer as he does not look like he will be signing a new deal with our FA cup final opponents. But the paper only has Liverpool as the club likely to pay the price of around £30 million.
Tim Sherwood said, “If a player doesn’t want to play for the club any more and the club he wants to go to meets the valuation, it’s best to let them go.
“It will be just a market value – what’s out there.
“I don’t want to talk about selling Christian when I’ve got no intention of doing that. So it would have to be a lot of money for someone to get him off us.
“We are looking for players ourselves, so we know how much other clubs are looking at [as fees] for their players. He’ll be too expensive for a great deal of people in the Premier League. We want to keep our best players – and he’s certainly one of those.”
Should the Gunners not be looking at this proven Premier League player, especially as Benteke has previously spoken about his love for Arsenal and desire to play for us one day? If we were to challenge Liverpool for him, not only would we have another great option up front but just as with the Alexis Sanchez transfer, we would deny the scousers their target and prove the pulling power of Arsenal.
So Gooners, should Wenger go for Benteke?