Every time I see a post on social media linking us to a new player, the responses are flooded with “a striker is more urgent”.
When it was confirmed by the club that David Raya was joining, I begun counting how often fans replied “but what about a striker”. I soon stopped. Likewise, the links to Bolonga central defender Riccardo Calafiori has been met with “not another defender, we need focus on a striker”.
The reality is, Edu and Mikel Arteta are in no rush to sign a new striker. And they are completely correct.
Firstly, transfers are not linear. You do not focus on signing one single player.
At any one time, our scouts are watching 100s of players. These then get filtered down to our actual targets and enquiries are made in the background between ourselves and the players intermediaries to establish where they would be an interest from the player.
Once we have established interest from the play, the discussions with the club commence.
At any one time, we are talking to many different intermediaries and clubs to try and do deals. What does not happen is we only talk to one club about one player, and then when that deal is done we move onto the next.
Following this, different deals take different amounts of time.
The deal for David Raya was agreed 12 months ago. It was a move that was always going to be made permanent this summer, so I am not sure why some fans acted confused as to why we have announced his deal before signing a new striker. Raya was always going to be our first major signing of the summer.
And doing a deal for Joshua Kimmich or Calafiori is done before a new striker comes in does not mean we have failed to prioritise a forward. It just means those deals were easier, quicker to do.
You do not artificially delay the signing of a target just to appease fans who demand a striker. This is not a PR game where you sign a striker first to make it appear that you have prioritised the position. You announce your signings as and when they happen.
Last season it was clear that Declan Rice was our number one transfer target, but he ended up being the last player of we signed (permanently). It would have been incompetent to delay the announcement of Kai Havertz or Jurrien Timber – and risk losing out on them – just so that we could announce Rice first.
Just because a new striker has not yet been signed on 8 July, it does not mean that we are not prioritising the position.
There could be many reasons why we have not yet signed a new striker.
The first could be that the transfer window is barely a week old, and we are ensuring we buy the right players regardless of how quickly or slowly the deals are done. We also have the fact that the Euro’s are still on. Very few big deals happen during an international tournament.
It also remains a fact that there are not many top international strikers. This is higlighted by the top scorers at both Euro 2024 and Copa America.
Any forward that comes in must be a better option that Kai Havertz.
Playing as a striker in the 2nd half of the season, Havertz grabbed himself 8 goals and 7 assists in 13 games. Were we being linked with a striker who finished the season like that, and is currently the 3rd top scorer at the Euro’s, we would all be excited.
This is not to say that I do not think we will buy an attacker, but more that he has shown he can be a genuine option up front and therefore signing a similar style striker might no longer be as urgent.
What is more important than simply buying a striker is that we sign the right forward. Whether that is Viktor Gyokeres, Joshua Zirkzee, Lois Openda or some other name. It is important to not go too far down the target last just to simply sign a striker. That is how you end up with a Lucas Perez.
The club also might be looking outside a centre forward.
Attackers come in all shapes and sizes, and I would not be upset if we signed Nico Williams instead of a forward, and then went with Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Gabi Martinelli as our centre forward options next season. Williams also has the strength, power and technique to play down the middle.
A forward – whether central or wide – is clearly a key target for us this summer. Just because we have mot signed one yet does not mean it is not a priority. It just means we are not in a rush.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 