Will we sign a striker?

I hate me too, however Lukaku makes a lot of sense. He’s not in the CL so EL wouldn’t be a step down. I think we could land him if we just stumped up the cash.

We should move on from tall physical strikers so no Lukaku. We play our best football with Alexis up front. Just sign someone who can play behind him, like a certain Algerian who just put in a transfer request. :slight_smile:

That is pretty much what I am expecting… AW will also say that Theo and Sanchez (assuming he stays) are options… plenty of top, top qualiteeee strikers.

I want next years Mbappe before he blows up. I’d be happy if we get Henry Onyekuru as he looks shit hot.

Don’t want, it sounds like he’s going PSG/Chelsea and he has the first touch of a rapist and the only dribbling he’s capable of involves saliva.

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I hope we sign a creative forward to ‘compete’ with the wings positions and make Walcott redundant in the process. If we can’t lose Wenger, I hope we can get rid of Walcott.

I made peace with Giroud being here. Proper enough striker for the Europa League. But god i hope Walcott is gone this summer.

He’s improved a lot this year, dribbling is nice and all but end result is goals he can score those in abundance not to mention he has very good link up play and lay on chances for others.

His poor first touch is overblown.

Taken from the Sun. Fuck off Gazzetta! :xhaka:

The thing is there’s a difference between scoring for a mid table team and playing well at a big club. Big goalscoring strikers who do well from crosses and open matches don’t tend to do as well when they step upto a big club. See Benteke, Bony and Andy Carroll. At those clubs everything revolves around whipping in crosses for the big man and he gets far more space because teams never park a bus against them. When they move to big clubs, the crosses dry up and there’s less space. Skill becomes more important.

Maybe I’m wrong and his pace, power, relative agility and heading will see him do well for a big club. I just can’t think of a great striker for a big club with Lukaku’s level of skill.

Lukaku doesn’t rely on crosses, far from it actually. I’m not too sure about being reliant on space.

He’s got more to his game than the strikers you’ve mentioned and seems to be on an upward trajectory.

All his goals were from open play this season and from all of his 85 goals in the league only 6 are penalties and 42 being from the left foot, 24 from the right foot and 18 headers.

I think overall he’s ready for the big move and will handle it well.

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Everton under Koeman and Martinez haven’t played like a typical mid-table club, just trying to score off crosses, set pieces, and the occasional counter. They have tried to play football on the carpet.

I think Lukaku would be a brilliant addition, offering a lot of what Giroud does in terms of hold up play and presence in the box but with a lot more pace and mobility to threaten on the counter and run into the channels. He is also only 24 and should have his best years ahead of him.

I just don’t see Wenger splashing the cash for him. Wenger won’t view him as “top, top quality” and so he’ll do something stupid like offering 35-40M when Everton is asking for 70-80M.

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I watched his goals this season slightly less than half of his goals come from crosses or set pieces with most of the rest being him put through on the last man. TBF his off the ball movement is very good and he is a cool finisher

He’s priced at 100m. That’s basically our whole summer budget. He isn’t an Arsenal signing and shouldn’t be.

We already have 4 top quality strikers so why would Wenger be in the market for one ?

I doubt Everton will get that much. But I don’t think Wenger would pay even 60-70M for him. He would only do that for a player he saw as truly top quality, including on a technical level.

If we sell a couple of our non performing strikers, we could easily afford a top quality striker.
I think we could get him for around 80m.
So if we sell two of Walcott, Giroud, Welbeck or Ramsey, I’m sure we would could get maybe 40-50m.

There is no excuse.
We simply have to get one, and that might go some way to keeping Sanchez and Ozil.

Since Henry left, and until 2012, we had van Persie and Adebayor.

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The striker market is better this summer than for many years. There truly will be no excuse if we don’t sign one. Even leaving aside developmental players like Schick, Andre Silva, and Dolberg, you’ve got Belotti, Lukaku, PEA, Morata, Lacazette, and Moussa Dembele. All of them would walk into our team.

I think the demand side of the market is pretty favorable too. It seems increasingly likely that Costa stays with Chelsea and Aguero stays with City, which would take both those clubs out of the running and now Atleti won’t be involved either with their transfer ban. Real will probably get Mbappe and Barca/Bayern/Juve are only likely to be in for cheaper players and prospects to backup their established star CFs.

So it seems plausible that the only really big clubs in the market with us will be PSG and United. Lets assume PSG signs Aubameyang and United signs Belotti or Lukaku. That still leaves four of the options listed above for us, with the main competition being Milan, BvB, and Liverpool, all of which we should be able to beat on wages. I think its pretty clear at this point that Wenger doesn’t really rate Lacazette. But we should be able to have our choice of players like Morata, Dembele, and whichever of Belotti/Lukaku is not snatched up by Mourinho. There will be no excuse for getting beaten out for them by the likes of Milan, BvB, and Liverpool.

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Update, assuming Mbappe goes to Real or stays at Monaco:

Other clubs in the market for a striker

United - Morata seems very likely
Chelsea - Lukaku seems very likely
Milan - Signed Andre Silva
PSG - PEA seems very likely
BvB (assuming PEA gets sold) - ???
Real (assuming Morata sold) - Mbappe or a one year backup to Benz until they buy him next summer.
Atletico - ???

Strikers still available (assuming above holds):

Lacazette, Belotti, Costa, Moussa Dembele.

I just can’t see Wenger buying Costa. My preference for the others would probably be Belotti > Dembele > Lacazette but I can see us dithering too long to get Dembele (who seems like a good fit for BvB if they sell Aubameyang) and balking at the price for Belotti.

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£48.7m + £10.6m in bonuses.


There’s little doubt Lacazette starts ahead of Giroud & Welbeck but I’m split on whether he moves the needle enough to justify the outlay.

No way do we sign Dembele before Lacazette unless he’s significantly cheaper, he’s played only in the Championship and maybe an even worse Scottish Premiership.

Belotti I still consider a major risk but he’s at a good age.

That’s about 20m more than last summer right?