Mikel Arteta confirms Arsenal’s plans around signing new striker
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has put his faith in the club’s current crop of strikers but acknowledged that the Gunners have underperformed in front of goal this season.
Both Eddie Nketiah and Gabriel Jesus came under fire after underwhelming showings in the recent north London derby draw with Tottenham Hotspur, with top scorer Bukayo Saka ultimately coming up with the goods yet again.
Nketiah has netted twice so far this season, while usual starter Jesus has just one goal, and Arteta admitted his side have not shown their best so far this year.
„There’s various ways to score goals and we are scoring goals,“ he said. „But we should have scored many more with the chances we have created.“
90min understands that Arsenal are open to signing a new striker to add more firepower to their Premier League title push. The Gunners are among the suitors of Brentford’s Ivan Toney, who is also of serious interest to Chelsea.
Feyenoord’s Santiago Gimenez has also been watched by Arsenal officials this season after his red-hot start to the Eredivisie campaign.
Arteta, however, did his best to back Jesus and Nketiah and insisted a new signing is not currently under consideration.
„We’re not thinking at all about that,“ Arteta continued. „We have really good players up front. It’s true that right now we have some injuries. We will continue with the players we have.“
Asked whether the idea of a traditional striker was disappearing from football, Arteta did namecheck Toney as proof that out-and-out goalscorers still succeed in the modern game.
„It’s coming back,“ Arteta exclaimed. „There are a few players, when you look at Harry Kane, [Erling] Halaand, Ivan Toney, [Aleksandar] Mitrovic. You have examples of players who score a lot of goals.“