Where have all the Arsenal striker targets gone?

Every year at this time, all the clubs clamour for one thing – getting a striker on board. Not just any striker but someone who can give you 15 goals a season or 20 goals a season. Is it an important criterion to land the title? Very much!

If you have any doubts look back at history; just the recent history. The much maligned move of Robin van Persie from Arsenal to Manchester United landed the title for Sir Alex Ferguson. Everyone knows that it was the single difference between the two Manchester clubs. The goals from van Persie made sure the title moved away from City to United.

Last season, Diego Costa scored 20 goals for Chelsea and that too in a year that was littered with injuries. Manchester City ran Chelsea close because of Sergio Aguero’s goals. He is probably the best striker, if not the best player, in England currently and that explains why City challenge for the title.

If you look at numbers alone, then Olivier Giroud can also be considered an impact striker. But, numbers do not tell the entire story. It may sound a little harsh but Giroud’s goals generally come in lost causes or those against smaller teams. Of course, there are no simple matches in Premier League but a goal against top four opponents is generally much more valued than a double against the lower half opponents.
That tells the reason why clubs go for goal poachers. Manchester United and Arsenal are reportedly in the market for a world-class striker. But, where are all the strikers gone? The only names that keep circling around are Benzema, Cavani and Lacazette.

Benzema is reportedly wooed by Arsenal and hopefully he could be interested in a switch to the Premier League. Cavani is for long the target for United but there is no confirmation from his camp of an interest to move. On the contrary, there are reports that he may choose to stay in France for some more time. It is the same situation with Lacazette who said that he will stay at Lyon.

That brings us to an interesting question – why are the clubs not interested in looking at their own academy graudates? Arsenal has youngsters Chuba Akpom and Yaya Sanogo who are highly valued. Sanogo has made the loan move to Ajax knowing well that he may not get match time at Arsenal. Wenger hinted that Akpom will get his chances but if he signs another striker, he may as well be loaned out.

No club can imagine giving youngsters a chance while competitors run away with signing illustrious names. It is suicidal to our title chances to not strengthen with world-class names. No wonder that all the managers are running after the few available ones.

Sridhar

VIDEO – Watch Chuba Akpom showing off his silky skills!

Tags Benzema lacazette

36 Comments

  1. Most of the striker targets are not a major upgrade to Giroud.I want a striker who can bang in 23+ league goals a season.Now there are few who can do this : Suarez,Aguero,Cavani and Lewandowski.All three are unrealistic except Cavani.Cavani will cost a fortune to come – 40m£ to 50m£.

    1. Paris SG does not care about money or profit, there’s no logic with them. They simply want to save face, to show they are like a biggest club and don’t want to sell any of their star players. Don’t think Cavani is realistic for us at all.
      Man Utd may have some chances with Cavani as Paris SG wants Di Maria

  2. We have to nurture Akpom into next Henry cos there is an acute shortage of Top class strikers.And those very few top class strikers are there have a very high inflated price tag.It wud not be a surprise if a striker of Giroud’s level start costing 50m£ in few years when claubs are spending 50m£ on Sterling and 80m€ on Pogba.

    1. Just stop with your Giroud Bs mate. You are emberrassing your self with this tllk about him. And i hope that the non Arsenal fans to visit this page bec i am tired of them loughing at us for being so deluded.

      Popga is Special. Sterling for a british born kid is special aswell bec the English suck a bit on football, thats the reason.

  3. Well you really don’t have proof that any name linked is a target you’ve only got a bunch of papers rumours and a few “ITK” on twitter. and so far only one of those has got everything right and another that just copys him.

    So really, we don’t know where our targets are gone as we don’t know who our targets are

  4. The need is basic and no one can argue that (also the dm to cover fr Coq need).

    But it’s tricky. I remember writing in blogs years ago yelling for us to sign a certain Agüero from Aleti. I even yelled that we signed the top ligue 1 scorer a few yards ago . But they were in lower leagues and lower teams (Aleti wasn’t managed by cholo then).

    Nowadays all targets play in top teams earning top money. It won’t be a asy to land one of those.

    Actually I think it’s easier to convince a dm to cover for Coq or even sign an injured Carvalho which suits us for that matter in some weird sense.

  5. Every new signing at Arsenal is an improvment to what we have up front. Giroud is an okay Striker. Arsenal tends to make okay Strikers look good. We are a team who make even the kind of Betnder look good. Him scoing Hattricks and such in the Cl competition proves it. ( something even Giroud could not have done beside playing at Arsenal for 3 years).

    The truth is this. Right now, Arsenal had never such a weak main striker playing up front. You can cry and moan and thumb me down as much as you want you fan girls out there. But thats the truth. I respect him fron doing his best. But this best is not good enough.

    1. Everyone said we need a top striker, Wenger is not stupid, he know it more than everyone.
      The difference is that he rate Giroud better than many strikers out there like Martinez, Bacca, Mandzukic – And I think he has the point. We should not let our desperate need for a top striker making us settle for a plan B striker like Liverpool (Balotelli), Spuds (Lamela). Real has a new manager so they are playing waiting game to let Benitez taking a look at the squad first. It is unlike Real not to buy after such a bad season they had, Wenger had been patient enough to wait until Benzema is available. After the last two seasons, I have faith that the old man can pull his trick again

  6. Lukaku, Benteke, Costa, Martinez, Mandukic, Dzeko, Abumayang> Giroud. All somewhere priced between 30mil to 40mil

    1. Costa probably. The rest, meh. OK, maybe Dzeko in his first season at Citeh but right now I would not pay tons of money for him. Even Aubameyang, geez people, do you watch Bundesliga? Coz it’s free on Eurosport. This guy will need at least two seasons to recover from a tackle from Shawcross and it will be the shock of his career, make no mistake.

      1. Natürlich kenne ich die Bundesliga. Gee, Du bist so dumm. :PP

        Every player in every leauge is at risk to get himself an serious injurie at any time, regardless where they play. That such things happens more often in Epl is only a myth. All the players i mentioned are better footy talents then Giroud. That you see them as mehh is no wonder consider your fanboisem towards Giroud.

        1. Well man, you know, it’s your oppinion (c)

          PS: Nice to see Google Translate works although your answer is straight from the book (Dutch guy here grew in Wiesbaden) and not from the street, arschfotze.

      2. Most of those stirker mentioned are service strikers they can’t create their own chances. Aubameyang is probably the only one that can.

  7. I don’t believe this article does justice to Giroud. Granted, he’s not exactly a killer but people tend to forget (especially when the transfer window is open) crucial goals scored against Everton, City, West Ham (yes, at home to break the deadlock) and these are what I remember only now but if I look I am sure I can find some more.
    I am not going to enter the debate of who’s better between Benzema and Giroud or if we can win the title with Giroud only.
    I am just going to say that in order to make Giroud fire on all cylinders he needs to feel his position not so secure, just as he did when Sanchez was signed.

    1. I’m not going to enter any debate either other than to say the article over-estimates Costa’s “big-game” contributions. One winner against Liverpool and hat-trick in win over Swansea – no other decisive winning goals. No UCL goals. Aguero is better in terms of the decisive edge – but even with him it is easy to over-estimate the number of true winning goals he came up with in the PL. Tottenham and Man Utd were the only match-winners in PL.

  8. we should have taken back RVP..and dont even for a min think that what am saying is pure nooooonesense, he would have given us minimum 20goals in epl only. he is still lethal, we all knw it..only that we cant admit it 🙁

  9. Interesting. Van Gaal said he signed a top striker before deadline day and it’s not a striker associated with United in the Media

    So that rules out Benzema for United, which makes me hopeful that we can sign him.

    1. Correction: Van Gaal said he could sign a top striker before deadline day who has not been connected with United in the Media

      But still means not Benzema or Cavani

      Probably anyone of Lacazette, Higuain, Reus, Hulk, Ibrahimovic, Sanogo, Bendtner, Aubmeyang, Morata

      1. Benzema is linked to Arsenal than United. Muller is the one that was linked with United. In the past days there were a lot of medias linking Muller with 100 mil move from Bayern. It makes to think that LVG is talking about Muller than Benzema when he said the striker is not someone the media talks about.I am sure the striker is not going to be Muller and Cavani. But you can not be sure it’s not going to Benzema, because he was more linked to Arsenal than United.

  10. I’ll take a striker that can score 20 assist 10 and win aerials all over the pitch.
    Also provide and outlet for throw ins and defend against the opposing teams strongest header of the ball.

  11. It’s not surprising really, generally when strikers are building their name, we’re not interested in him or they’re deemed not proven, then they either get snapped up by a big team willing to take a risk on them or blossom at said big team and move to even bigger teams.

    Last year much of the talk was of Costa going to flop in the league but was a resounding success at Chelsea. Aguero has notorious injury problems and was merely a talented striker before his move from Atletico, both missed more than a month through injury and both scored 20+ goals.

    Liverpool took a punt on Suarez and almost single handedly brought them a title. It isn’t surprising that teams who have a clear idea of who they want don’t dally around and get business done early.

    Martinez, Dybala, Tevez and Mandzukic were all on the market but they’re allgone currently. The only targets may not be available at all.

  12. I don’t give a damn about state, I just believed what I saw about Giroud, just buy a better striker, who? I dont know, that is Wenger problem, he is paid for what the fan want. If no upgrade of our main striker, I will wenger out all the way till end of season. Yeah that what fan do, keep on demanding for the boss to do his job cos he getting paid for the job and his pay per year is more than alot of people whole life working pay.

  13. I hope Wenger does make the necessary additions to the squad even if it means being ruthless to players like Flamini, Arteta, Giroud, Welbeck, Coquelin. This is the second season running we haven’t had to sell one of our big players. It will be Ozils third season with us. I see players of that calibre becoming unsettled if we don’t win the league or be realistically competing for it. We need to be competing with the best to keep players like Sanchez, Cazorla and Ozil. Otherwise it would be the Nasri, Fabregas, RvP saga all over again. Good thing is though we have won two FA cups and I genuinely feel us moving forward. But another false promise of a title run and I feel that it would be the end of the Wenger era

  14. Heard that Madrid accepted our bid of €45m(£31.5m) for Benzema.

    Arsenal accepted £2.8m from Galatasary for Flamini.

    Arsenal tabbled £14m for Joao Moutinho after Monaco agreed to let him leave.

    Arsenal tabbled £32m for Draxler (thou not really sure about this deal because of Juve).

    Finger crossed…

  15. Well, apparently Galatasaray is set to make a move for Flamini for £2.8m…I see things being done only that they are gradual…& Benitez apparently committed to help arsenal complete the Benzema move as he has said the frenchman does not fit into his vision of the new Real madrid he’s about to build & he wants to make a move for Reus which means he could cash-in on the french striker….coyg!!!!

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  17. Btw really want the big benz over in London playing for arsenal next year!! Expecting it to go down in the last couple days/hours of the transfer market! Just be patient. Good times ahead!

  18. You have to pay up for strikers who are able to create their own chances. There are not many of them around. So not only do you pay money because they are a good finishers but because they can create their own chances or chances out of nothing if you like.

  19. Why not use Akpom and Sanogo?? Jess again with the idiocy, cos Akpom ain’t close to being ready and Sanogo won’t ever ever be THAT’S WHY!!!!!!!!!

  20. There might just be a similar amount of top talent around today as there was when we were absolutely blest. The difference could be that manc che and psg popping up could be snapping up the top players we would have got. When it was ourselves and utd running amuck our strike forces were the best in England, and we were getting our players from France before they bloomed which psg have been doing lately. These new mega buck teams have destroyed our echo system.

  21. yeah yeah…,……I hope Wenger doesn’t shock us all again and say “ifv u luk @ our team there is quality all around we will only add top top top quality if available by January.BT for now welbeck is shaping up and there is Walcott and giroud……well u know d rest

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