Summer 2025 Transfer Window: Page 156 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Summer 2025 Transfer Window

Speedster

That's the thing, with havertz his back to goal game is epic. But facing goal he really has to be feeling it. The amount of times where he looks through, and wants contact to go down is infuriating.

Sesko doesn't look like he has the back to goal game, he's your guy you set loose in behind in the CL games where teams come at you. And to offer Ariel threat if a team sits back.

You could play both, and they could make up for each other.

But if we've Rodrygo and saka on the wings playing havertz to platform those 2 makes more sense than sesko.

Panda

Gazza M If this is true we will surely bite at that price seems like a fair deal. Even if he flops you'd still get around £40m back surely.

Get Eze in as well and then the wait for Rodrygo isn't so damaging. Love Eze he is so silky, one of my fave players to watch. If he ends up at Spurs I'll be so sad that I won't be able to enjoy watching him anymore.

Qwiss

lorddulaarsenal Decent but I don't know if thats enough

flobaba

What do you think would be "enough"?

Qwiss

flobaba a title

Klaus

A world class goalscorer. Qwiss is right: Sesko isn't it and it's not gonna be enough.

Klaus

People can analyse things until the cows come home, but the explanation for why Arsenal never win anything is right here in a single shameful picture:

Adding 13-Bundesliga-goals-Sesko to that gang is the same as admitting you don't care about winning the league.

Speedster

Klaus

Those numbers look tasty when you think they were all out for 30-50% of the season. And recovering from ops.

JazzG

If we can get those players back over 10+ goals, add Sesko and a good player I'd argue we have a great chance of winning the league. We've scored 90+ PL goals with our current players, no reason if we keep them all fit we can't do the same.

Clearly the club to don't have Gyokeres as their No.1 choice and it looks like most top clubs who are after a striker don't either.

Klaus

Nah, you can't spread goals around like that. That's the same logic as thinking it's better to sign two average players than one great. How's that been working out for the last 5 years?

The reality is you need a reliable killer up front for all the games where the margins get narrow and the going gets tough. They swing games and turn draws into three-pointers. Cutting edge is more important than anything if you want those extra 10-15 points across a season that separate also-rans from champions. I'd take one 30-goal striker any day over two wingers scoring 12-15 each.

JazzG

Klaus We won't be signing two average players though, my point is the club clearly don't see Gyokeres as a world class striker who will elevate us. If we were turning down Isak and going for Sesko I'd get it but there is clearly doubt about whether Gyokeres can be a 20+ goal scorer here. I know you don't agree but if he was that guy I'd argue PL clubs would be climbing over each other to get him. He has just turned 27 so realistically has limited re-sale value and isn't going to improve much more either. He is the finished product but clearly there are doubts as to whether he'll be able to hit those heights here. Personally I think he could go to Italy or Spain and do really where, here I am not so sure.

Sesko may only be scoring ₁₃ goals in Germany now but that needs to be taken in context, he was 21 when he finished this season and a lot of the top strikers now weren't putting up those numbers when they were 20/21. The club clearly think he will step up and become a top scorer. If he is going to explode it will happen in the next 2 years. I get the argument that we don't have 2 years but I think we already have more than enough in the squad as it is, we just don't have numbers and if we can get a top quality LW we'll be banging in goals.

Klaus But in those seasons the reason for us not winning the league wasn't down to goals, in 22/23 our defence fell apart and 23/24 it was that Villa game we randomly lost and City matching our monster run in the 2nd half of the season.

CPM

Klaus There is no 30-goal striker available on the market. All well and good to want the big killer up front but there are fewer premium 9s in the much more physical and tactical modern game. We have to adapt accordingly and get goals from all over the pitch. And it’s ridiculous to suggest that won’t work. City won the PL in 20-21 with Gundogan as top scorer on 13 goals and Sterling the only other player in double digits with 10. In 21-22 De Bruyne was top scorer with 15. We can do the same.

USArsenal

Sorry, but that is a such a misrepresentation of data.

2022/2023 - 88 goals
2023/2024 - 91 goals
2024/2025 - 69 goals (which coincides with the ridiculous slew of injuries that we had across our front line)

Yes, we haven't had one single 'head and shoulders top scorer' in recent seasons, but its not like we have been incapable of scoring goals as a team.

If we stop throwing away leads and drawing games that we should win, last season (in particular) would have been a LOT closer than it was. We dropped the most points from winning positions than any other team, and I dont think it was even close.

Gyokeres, Sesko... Pick one, and im sure they will do well for us. But we almost as importantly need a LW to compete/take over for Martinelli. That will unlock this team as much as a striker will. And we need to control the tempo of games, which i think Zubi will help us do more than Partey did.

Klaus

USArsenal
2022/2023 - 88 goals
2023/2024 - 91 goals
2024/2025 - 69 goals

Number of trophies: 0.

The only thing these numbers prove is that accumulative team stats mean nothing; it's about having the ability to kill your opponents in any given game.

awooga83

USArsenal also this is a misrepresentation as well because we scored a lot of goals but we had loads against weak teams and quite a few where we struggled so that's a distortion as well. We don't have enough consistent goals in the team now and that's the problem.

Klaus

Speedster That's just how things are, isn't it? Like saying "if only Gabriel Jesus could be relied on" or "one of these seasons, van Persie is going to stay fit for an entire season". The latter happened once eventually, but by then we had depleted the rest of the greatness in the team due to not winning anything. I think that's what we're on the verge of doing right now too: one more year without trophies and this team is going to fall (or be picked) apart.

The single biggest reason the invincibles won anything was that Henry missed four league games in as many years. He was always available and always in the mood for murder.

Speedster

Klaus

We could sign peak Henry, Kaka, R9 and Pele and Madonna. But if they all get injured for the second half of the season we're not going to win anything.

The guys we have got great numbers considering they were out lots.

Havertz, saka, ode and martinelli are all super robust only jesus is injury prone. But we could sign 5 top alternatives but theirs no reason to think the new group would be more robust on the whole.

Obviously Jesus needs to go and if rumours are to be believed we wouldn't mind selling martinelli to fund Rodrygo. But we'll have 2 players for each position all being well.

Marti/Rodrygo and trossard, havertz +sesko/Gok, saka / Nwaneri

Nwaneri is unreal on the ball, really poor off the ball. He's 18 it's normal not to have a rounded experienced pros game. But I don't really want anyone signed ahead of him.

Klaus

JazzG But in those seasons the reason for us not winning the league wasn't down to goals

Of course it was: it was down to winning goals, which are the only goals that matter.

Burnwinter

I reckon we need 20 more goals next season and a bit of luck and we win the league.

We get 5 more off the top from Saka not getting injured.

We get 5–10 more from a fit, thirsty goalscorer at 9 who scores 15–20 league goals.

And we get 5–10 more from these two indirect factors together:

The multiplier effect of that new central threat on the space and time available to Saka, Ødegaard, Rice and our other new signing on the left.
Being able to sub on Havertz, Nwaneri, and either Trossard or Martinelli instead of Raheem Sterling and Merino (bless him).

There's always an element of luck in there. I'd still back Gyökeres over Šeško as a transfer simply because he has been racking them up and the goal is the same size in England.

We ran the numbers after that Telegraph article: Gyökeres' strike rate could drop off even more than other players moving from Portugal to England, even by 50%, even factoring in penalties, and he still scrapes 15 goals. But maybe it's 25.

Pepe LeFrits

Burnwinter But maybe it's 25.

It would need to be. iirc Havertz's goals/assists rate per 90 since he's moved to 9 for us works out at about 28 goals/assists if he stays fit for a full league campaign. If Gyokeres isn't an upgrade on his numbers I'm not sure what we'd be signing him for.

JazzG

Burnwinter I reckon we need 20 more goals next season and a bit of luck and we win the league.

If you look over the last 3 seasons, this season is probably an outlier in terms of goals scored. Last 3 seasons we have 88, 91 & 69. It isn't surprising when you consider the injuries we had this season that there has been such a massive drop. Keep the bulk of our attacking options and add 2/3 players we'll be right back to those numbers again. The extra bodies should also help with injuries, we won't need to run our players into the ground!

I think the influence Zubimendi could have is also being slept on, he'll ensure we move the ball a lot faster and more efficiently next season.

Klaus

CPM And it’s ridiculous to suggest that won’t work. City won the PL in 20-21 with Gundogan as top scorer on 13 goals and Sterling the only other player in double digits with 10. In 21-22

Milan won Serie A once scoring less than a goal a game. There will always be outliers, but if you bet on those to win you're not being serious. Pep got tired and signed the best goalscorer in Europe, and won the treble.

If we fart around with the blunt boys next season we will win nothing again, because we don't have the money to make up for a lack of cutting edge by signing world class players in every other position.

Burnwinter

Pepe LeFrits For more than 28 GA from both of them together.

Havertz missed half last season with a snapped hamstring people saw coming. It can happen again. Havertz didn't score due to confidence issues for half the season prior to that.

Two big strikers are better than one for the usual reasons. No reason 9 has to be the black hole on the depth chart. The football reasons Gyökeres at minimum competes strongly to displace Havertz from the XI are clear.

Sure run my lines past a Goldilocks Havertz 28 GA scenario that hasn't happened ... but you should see the output of Goldilocks Havertz and Goldilocks Gyökeres together.

CPM

Klaus There is no Erling Haaland on the market. Viktor Gyökeres might prove to be a very useful player but the second coming of Thierry Henry he is not. It is exceedingly unlikely we have a 20-goal scorer in the team next season.

But that is no reason to be so angry and downbeat. We have a lot of players who can contribute goals, and we are the best set-piece team in Europe. If we add two forwards, get peak Ødegaard back, and do a better job of rotation to keep our players fresh, we can absolutely win the PL or CL. I don’t get the pessimism. We had the absolute season from hell last year with injuries and referees and still finished 2nd and got to the CL SFs, beating Madrid home and away in the process!

Burnwinter

JazzG If you look over the last 3 seasons, this season is probably an outlier in terms of goals scored. Last 3 seasons we have 88, 91 & 69.

Yes. My reasoning is that we need those 20-ish extra goals back to compete for the title.

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