Hello lads! Burnsy encouraged me to drop by the Tolly and say hi.
I haven’t watched Arsenal in a long while now and I don’t know much aside from what I’ve been reading in the papers or seen in studio discussions, so I honestly don’t know exactly what the requirements of the current team are, but there are a lot of transfer rumours in the Swedish press about Isak and Gyökeres at the moment, and I gave my reasons to Burnsy for preferring Gyökeres.
Isak is a Henry level talent and I wouldn’t swap him in the national team for anyone in the world, but what made Henry unique aside from his talent was that he never missed a game: he was absent for like 4 league matches between 02-06, and I’m pretty sure a couple of them were because Wenger forced him to take a vacation. I believe Gyökeres has actually improved on that stat (I think he has missed three in the last four years, and none before that: bloke never had as much as a stubbed toe between the ages of 16 and 25).
An injury-free record is not a future fitness guarantee (hello Partey), but an injury-ridden record is even less so. Isak has always had a lot of injuries and blown hot and cold: he has these boom cycles in most seasons where he scores a lot of goals to make up for not scoring much during the rest of the season. In the last 16 months he has shown what he’s capable of when he can stay fit and sharp, but I have low confidence in Isak being able to do so as he ages in Premier League. He has never played this many games before and he’s gonna be at the end of a lot of tackles from now on. For the sort of fees that might convince the saudi geordies to let go of him? It’s the kind of signing that could tank a club if it doesn’t pan out.
Gyökeres then. I think most of you are labouring under the illusion that he’s a poacher. He can score any type of goal against any type of block: if the assists don’t come he’ll simply grab the ball himself and smash it into the net. Dules has it right: He’s an extraordinary hard worker, an absolute nightmare to play against, and a mean dribbler. He creates a ton of chances for himself and he’s as fast with the ball as he is without it. Bloke’s a bloody steamroller who kicks like a horse with virtually no backlift. He’s a lot like Victor Osimhen. Osimhen has better technique but Gyökeres is a superior finisher, is better 1-on-1, and, crucially, is never injured while Osimhen can’t stay fit so save his life.
In short, he's better than Osimhen. Much, much better. But never mind that comparison: he’s at least a full tier above Gabriel Jesus (on one of Jesus’s good days) and any half-cooked midfielder that Arteta tries to squeeze up top. He plays in a weaker league, sure, but that goes both ways: he also plays for a bullshit team compared to the ones he’s been facing in Champions League and he led the top scorer’s table there for as long as Sporting were in the competition. He could actually have scored 5 against City in the game where he settled for a hattrick. I think he’s going to level up in a stronger team too.
Scrolling up in the thread I notice that people are being dismissive of penalties, but I struggle to see how it’s a disadvantage to have a guy who scores from the spot every time. Do you realise how rare that kind of stone cold mentality is? What would this season be like for you guys right now if the club had a boss penalty taker instead of the weak mush that is Kai Havertz to put out against Man United?
Football comes down to these things in the end: who will score your goals when they start to get hard to come by? Whoever buys Gyökeres also buys 150-200 goals over the next 5 years. For a team in Arsenal’s position that would probably translate to a couple of trophies. Look at how Salah elevates Liverpool with his output. Or look at what happened the last time Arsenal signed a proper goalscorer: he single-handedly delivered the club its only major trophy in the last 9 years.
As for Sesko, he reminds me of a slightly taller Rasmus Højlund, and I think that’s exactly what he’s gonna be like in Premier League.
