He'd be perfect up front.having 3 of Podolski Theo Robin and Gervinho to choose from every matchday would be a great problem to ve.Throw in Park too and that makes for great options.

qs! wrote:

Podolski seems a very good option in that he can play up top or wide. How good is he up top though? People outside Arsenal would probably say the same about Theo, Gervinho and Shava.

Thats my concern too, i've never actually seen him up front on his own - my understanding was that he played LWF for Koln and Novakovic was their main striker.

Have you seen him play as a 9 Captain? What is he like there?

I've seen him play there three times so much to go on. Most recently was against Moenchengladbach a week or so ago and he wasn't very good. It's hard to say really because he plays for Cologne and they don't exactly dominate against most teams. Podolski himself is quite an inconsistent player too and has a small air of being a flat track bully.

I would sign him for a decent fee because I like him from the left and he can do a job in a front two, but I'm not convinced that he is a better striker than, let's say, Park for instance in that sort of role.

With Gervinho leaving a vacant space on the left of our front 3, the more I think about it the harder it is to come up with a more perfect signing than this. Experienced at the top level, still got his peak years to come, seemingly would like to come here and seems to be affordable and attainable (as in the likes of City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, United don't seem likely to go for him). Don't see any reason not to be negotiating with Cologne already really. Just make him believe every game is the World Cup and it's happy days! 😆

Would be more than happy to have him as competition for Theo and Gerv.

However if he was brough in to act as cover for Robin I'd be less than impressed, he tends to play wide more often than not and he's never been prolific at club level. If we got Podolski + a striker in January that'd be great. But if it was jsut Podolski and no proper backup for Robin that'd be disappointing.

He has 11 goals and 4 assists in 13 games this season mate.

11 goals so far this year is impressive alright.

14 last year is ok.

But he only scored 3 the year before, and 9 the year before that.

As I said I'd be more than happy to see him come in an cover both RVP and the wide areas as long as we got some top class cover for RVP too. Podolski has only hit over 20 goals once in his career (according to wiki anyways) so I'd rather see some more clinical come in.

However if he can maintain his current run of form/goalscoring well then hells yeah he's be quality cover for RVP, I'm just not of the opinion he will.

when it comes to attacking mids, wenger has a good track record of improving a player's scoring record. podolski has the skillset wenger works well with. i can see him comfortably being a double figure scorer here.

Too much talk about his attributes and how he would complement our squad.

Reminds me of when we signed Chamakh and it was all about how he'd hold up the ball and his height and aerial ability would fit in well with our smaller forwards.

After a bright start he has turned out to be mentally fragile and limited.

This is one of the best posts I've seen on here for a while about Wenger's recruitment habits (from the "Man City in the Carling" thread):

Gazza M wrote:

it's rare for him to drop a bollock with strikers, especially those who he's spent good money on. only franny jeffers springs to mind (possibly wiltord, but i wouldn't agree).

jeffers and chamakh seem to represent the rare occasion of wenger trying to buy a concept striker ie. fox-in-the-box/aerial threat, and overlooking the complete technical package of the player

Likewise Podolski would be a credible signing but he might well flop or, as Klaus suggests, regress without adequate game time, without being our main man. The fact that he can "play wide or central" is really neither here nor there. We need a player who can and will get his foot in and finish inviting chances, full stop.

We've become a bit obsessed about the "LEGO set" of the Wenger 4-3-3, the main thing is getting affordable players in with at least some outstanding and/or disruptive qualities, eg extreme pace like Gerv and Walcott, or extreme composure and vision like Jack, not suitable-on-paper concept players.

It's different for the clubs that can afford galacticos in every position. They sign players that are both complementary and outstanding whenever they're available: we can't afford those, but I'd rather the merely outstanding players than the merely complementary ones.

Generally agreed Burns. Which is why the idea of taking someone like Gourcuff for a knock down-ish price appeals to me. He would walk in to the club and immediately be one of the 2 or 3 most gifted players in the squad. He requires good man management and we'd need to figure out how exactly he fits in to the team, but that sort of stuff can be sorted out when he actually arrives. We almost surely aint signing Hazard, Goetze, Neymar etc, so we need to take a certain amount of risk by bringing in a few wayward sheep imo.

@Tim At least Gourcuff fits the theory in that he has marvellous dead ball skills, passes beautifully and generally has excellent technique. I like the idea of him taking our free kicks that's for sure.

Feel like currently, our ideal signing is someone with a lot of upside who will be able to make a difference, rather than a well-rounded team player who fits in.

i dont even think it's mental with chamakh. he physically isn't good at kicking a football. you're always going to struggle as a striker when you can't shoot or finish. chamakh has always had this issue - in france, the majority of his goals came with his head.

Definitely not much of a striker of the ball. Has he ever scored one from outside the box?