Arsenal plot transfer raid for Real Madrid striker

The striker situation at Arsenal is one that is going to be in the headlines constantly. The January transfer window might as well be tomorrow given the current links, and even speculation surrounding the coming summer has emerged.

Internally there will be plans in place for Mikel Arteta and Edu. There have to be. Just like the supporters they are well aware of the coming changes that need to be made with Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah into the final years of their contracts.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang doesn’t avoid the conversation either. His performance levels this season have remained engaged but the primary task of the leading centre-forward is to find the back of the net, something he’s so far only managed twice in the Premier League.

Whoever the incoming ‘replacement’ is for matters little, as the end result remains the same: Arsenal will need to buy a striker in one of the coming windows.

Arsenal plot transfer raid for Real Madrid striker Luka Jovic as Mikel Arteta eyes reinforcements and Ancelotti aims to build funds for Erling Haaland

As per the rumour mill, they’ve been linked with a fair few. And as is customary with the international break nonsense, many of seem like they’ve been plucked from thin air: striker A linked with club B, etc.

Fresh off the conveyor belt and plastered with red flags is the next in what will be a long and agonising list of strikers linked to Arsenal, this one courtesy of transfer gurus (that’s a joke) Fichajes.

Who is it? None other than one-time Europe’s hottest signature, Luka Jovic.

Apparently he is the ‘chosen one’ for Arteta, which is an interesting choice of words since they’re remarkably similar to what was also said about the manager’s interest in Sevilla striker Youssef En-Nesyri. Apparently he too is the man Arteta has specifically asked for. Funny that.

As for Jovic, any club making a punt on him will be doing so with an eye on what he produced in the 2018/19 season, where he finished on 17 goals in the Bundesliga for Eintracht Frankfurt with a further ten in the Europa League.

In the 56 matches since that season having joined Real Madrid for €60m (£50m), he’s scored six goals. Four of those came during a loan spell back at Eintracht Frankfurt. To use the more commonly attributed term to players who suffer such fates, he’s been a ‘flop’. Screams Arsenal.

To recapture his potent form of a few years back he’s got a heck of a long way to go. Not in Carlo Ancelotti’s plans as they look to raise the funds for Erling Haaland, Jovic shouldn’t be in Arsenal’s either.

Good thing he most likely isn’t, then.