I am still in shock that Arsene Wenger has allowed Joel Campbell to leave Arsenal for the Spanish La Liga club Villarreal. If the ESPN report is right, we paid the release clause for Paulista so we did not have to include Campbell in the deal. It is only on loan until the end of the season apparently, but what if we need another striker in between now and then?
The Gunners have already let two strikers go this month, with Lukas Podolski going to Serie A with Inter Milan and Yaya Sanogo staying in the Premier League with Crystal Palace. That leaves us with Olivier Giroud, Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Not a bad forward line-up I admit, but do we really expect to have no more injuries before the end of the season? Wenger likes to play a front three with Arsenal and a big club like ours is supposed to have two players for every position, so losing Campbell leaves us one player short.
I have to assume that the manager is expecting either Chuba Akpom to step up or for Serge Gnabry to return to fitness and match sharpness, but surely this would have been a great time to give our young Costa Rican striker the chances he has been crying out for since he returned to his parent club after impressing in the World Cup finals in Brazil last summer.
Is it just me or does this all seem a bit backwards?