Arsenal: Why would we be regretting not signing Jamie Vardy?

The top Arsenal headline casts shame at Arsenal for passing on Jamie Vardy years ago. Why? There is zero regret attached to this situation.

Normally, I am on board with just about anything the Guardian puts out. They’re a class publication. But the recent headliner about Arsenal being reminded what they “could have had” in regards to Jamie Vardy is grasping at straws.

The logic goes that the Gunners could have signed Vardy not all that long ago, fortifying their striking corps and presumably getting closer to the Champions League than they currently are, but this seems not only daft but completely miscued.

Instead of Vardy, Arsenal got Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, two strikers that have provided a player of the season and a golden boot in their individual performances, even if the club itself has struggled to gain traction through multiple new managers.

I have not once thought “I wish we had Vardy” since we passed up on him. Not once. And the reason why is that we have a better goal scorer on our own books.

Aubameyang now has 52 goals in 80 appearances while Vardy notched his 101 in 205. Both are impressive, but you don’t need to be a math wizard to see who is scoring more frequently.

And sure, you can say that Vardy has won more at Leicester, but Vardy has also had a consistent supporting cast and a fairly consistent managerial situation. Aubameyang has been through the ringer, working under four managers in less than three years.

Yet he continues to score. It is not for want of goals that Arsenal can’t reach the heights they will soon be at, and it is not because we don’t have Jamie Vardy. If we had Jamie Vardy, he’d be doing very similar things as Aubameyang—competing for individual accolades while the team around him struggles.

And I’d argue that he wouldn’t be doing nearly as good as Aubameyang is simply because the numbers prove that Aubameyang has done more with less than Vardy has done.

Although, if there is one thing this article has spurred in me, it’s a desire to keep Aubameyang just so that he can properly surpass any numbers that Vardy puts up. Just so that I can think back to that one headline that made me roll my eyes.

We don’t miss Vardy. Aubameyang is better. That’s the end of the story now and forever.