Both north London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are keen on improving their forward group this summer and the two are reportedly eyeing the same players.
A recent report suggests that The Gunners and Spurs are in on Manchester City forward Gabriel Jesus, who could be on the way out with the incoming Erling Haaland set to take over.
With the two clubs battling out for the Brazil international, English football pundit Paul Merson stated that Arsenal needs to be aggressive and beat out Tottenham to land Jesus.
For Merson, signing the 25-year-old would mean a marked change in manager Mikel Arteta’s plan and give the club a better chance of fighting Spurs.
“The next few players Arsenal buy need to be experienced professionals in my opinion, ideally 28 or 29 years old. They need experience in the team. They have a lorryload of promising youngsters but they froze when it came to the crunch. They’ve got to get some experience in the team,” Merson wrote for the Daily Star.
“Gabriel Jesus would be a good fit. He’s only 25 but he ticks the boxes because he scores goals, Arteta knows him, and he has experience of winning trophies with Manchester City. It’s alright having young players but the problem is one minute they are up high and the next minute they are down low.”
This past season, Jesus appeared in 41 games for Manchester City, scoring 13 goals and recording 12 assists. Transfermarkt puts the striker’s transfer value at £45-million, with only one year left on his contract when it comes to a possible asking price.
Brennan Johnson for half the price, no brainer.
That’s our problem, though. Unlike top sides who have genuine competition in most, if not all, positions, we have become accustomed to average buys. We should be looking at someone who will push Kulu and everyone else in the team when we buy. Liverpool bought Diaz to improve on what was an already impressive front line.
I’d swerve him too. He’s on the way down. His time at City will be the high point of his career. Averaged one goal every three games at City which is why they want to jog him on. Never scored more than 14 goals in six Premier League seasons. 8 in 28 last season and 9 in 29 the season before.
I’d be glad if he moved to the gooners. Ideal replacement for Lackathreat; another 1 in 3 man.
Buying a surplus player from an ‘elite’ club rarely makes sense – in Jesus’s case his stock has already fallen sharply from its 2017 level, and he’s got his trophies and medals, so what’s going to motivate him at Spurs or Arsenal? Whoever gets him will no doubt have to offer eye-watering personal terms, and then hope he’ll turn it on in the race for top four, when he’s been used to winning titles and routinely being expected to be serious CL contenders. It would be a vanity buy for Levy, not a serious team improvement for Spurs.
He helped Man.C win the title in those last few games.
That is Not Average.
But, for what we need, he may be too expensive.
He won’t regularly be getting ahead of Kulu for that price.
So its better we look elsewhere for a forward for next season.
Agreed
I maintain this lad is average – Lacazette v2.0! They’re welcome to him!