Arsenal determined to land Dusan Vlahovic on £150m total deal

While we all knew that Arsenal wanted a striker, we didn’t know what lengths they were willing to go to in order to secure their man. We do now.

The trail of a new centre-forward has seen links emerge to Jonathan David, an exciting option, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a difficult option, Alexander Isak, an expensive option, and now Dusan Vlahovic.

An extortionate option.

Talk has been ongoing over Arsenal wanting to lodge an offer worth around €70m in total by including Lucas Torreira as a makeweight, and ever since that emerged it’s been spiraling development after spiraling development. In any case, it’s going to be expensive.

Arsenal determined to land Dusan Vlahovic on huge £150m total deal with Mikel Arteta pushing to secure Fiorentina striker in January transfer window

But this expensive? Wow.

As per Sami Mokbel, the entire package will cost Arsenal in the region of £150m (they always combine it up for visual effect). A transfer fee of £58m is added to by hefty wage demands of £300k-per-week, and to top it all off, any deal will also include £15m in fees to the player’s camp. That last point is causing unrest among all of Europe’s keenest admirers.

As is said repeatedly and has been the noises coming from all areas, Arsenal are not put off by any of it. They are ‘determined’ to push through with this deal and feel their incredible financial package will be enough to sway Fiorentina and the player, who could still be sold on the project. Hopefully he didn’t tune in on Sunday.

Having spent all summer working on bringing he wage bill down, it seems a removal of strategy to then go paying a new club high salary – if indeed Aubamayeng can be moved on – to a 21-year-old with less than three full seasons of senior football under his belt.

Furthermore, there must be a great deal of confidence that the former club captain and his huge salary can be moved on, with the boat well and truly being pushed out for the towering centre-forward who’s built like a house.

But perhaps most importantly of all, Mikel Arteta and co must feel he’s worth it: 23 goals in 28 senior appearances for Fiorentina and Serbia (penalties included) is quite the scoring feats for someone his age in an average side.

You just can’t help but see red flags. Big money signings and Arsenal haven’t tended to work all too well and the concerns over the sustainability of Vlahovic’s underlying metrics become more worrisome when such figures are banded about.

Yet, in the end, £58m for a striker who can go on to be one of the world’s best is a very fair trade. Arsenal need their centre-forward acquisition to work and if that’s the price it takes, then so be it. The other numbers involved in this deal are far from comforting, however.

Verdict: It’s nice to see some aggression from Arsenal on this front. They want to beat the rest and if it costs a premium to do so, then they’ll sanction it. This writer has some concerns over Vlahovic’s ability transferring into the Premier League and the sustainability of his scoring rates based on his metrics, but have we any reason not to trust the club’s eyes after the summer just been?