Alan Shearer has identified Arsenal’s main problem and says he’s surprised that Mikel Arteta hasn’t solved it yet.
The Gunners were knocked out of the FA Cup on Sunday after losing to Manchester United on penalties, and are hanging on the EFL Cup following a 2-0 defeat in the first leg of their semi-final clash with Newcastle last week. This, coupled with the fact they’re trailing Premier League leaders Liverpool by seven points, means they’re staring down the barrel of another trophyless season under Arteta.
But, according to Shearer, their current predicament was all too avoidable. Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, the Newcastle legend insisted that Arsenal needed a new centre forward, and said he couldn’t believe that they didn’t sign one in the summer.
“I just wonder what was in Arteta’s thoughts,” Shearer pondered. “Whether they tried to get a centre forward in at the beginning of the season, and they couldn’t get whoever they wanted to come in, so just thought, ‘Ah, we’ll have to go in with what we’ve got rather than panic buy for the sake of it’.
“I don’t know what his thoughts are but he has to have seen what everyone else is seeing: that in that position they’re lacking.” Agreeing with his colleague, Micah Richards added: “Yeah, they didn’t want to panic buy.
“There was talk of [Viktor] Gyokeres… I think Arsenal tend to take a little more time in terms of making a decision. But I think they need to get a striker.”
Arsenal haven’t had a ruthless goalscorer in their midst since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left in 2022, and his last 20-plus Premier League goal haul came back in 2019/20. In the four-and-a-half seasons since, just one Gunners player, Bukayo Saka, has managed 20 goals in all competitions in a single campaign.
This season, Kai Havertz is the team’s top scorer with seven league goals, and 12 in all competitions. He needs just two more to beat last season’s total, but serious doubts continue to be raised about the German’s suitability for the centre forward role.
Links to Viktor Gyokeres, Benjamin Sesko and Alexander Isak have been persistent, and Arsenal are expected to push for a new striker in the summer, if not in the coming fortnight. But, as previous transfer windows have demonstrated, the north London club won’t spend money just for the sake of it – in spite of Shearer’s bemusement.
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