Are Arsenals strikers good enough to lead them to the Premier League title?

“Boring, Boring Chelsea” echoed across the Emirates Stadium after Chelsea celebrated their 0-0 draw like a win, but four months on, it’s Arsenal who are struggling to entertain their home crowd - without scoring a single home goal this campaign. In past years, Arsenal have had some of the best forwards in European football; with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Ian Wright and more recently, Robin Van Persie - who controversially left to rivals Manchester United in 2011. Every team in the league who is challenging for the title has a feared striker going forward, Man City with Aguero, Man United have Wayne Rooney and Champions, Chelsea have Diego Costa. But Arsenal seem to be missing that player of the required qualities.

 During the time of the Invincible's, Arsenal were among Europe’s finest, having world class players across the board. Players such as Patrick Viera, David Seaman and Robert Pires helped make up their league winning spine. But who could forget Thiery Henry? Arsenal’s all time goal scorer. From 2002 to 2006, Henry became the first striker to score over 20 goals in the league in 5 consecutive seasons but compared to the strikers today, there is not even a slight resemblance. Theo Walcott was claimed by Arsene Wenger that he could follow in Henry’s footsteps, and like the Highbury legend, converted him from a winger into a striker. But unfortunately, due to injury, Walcott missed a whole year of football. “I’ve always said he’s a goal scorer because he has the movement (for it)”. Since the departure of Van Persie, Arsenal have struggled scoring goals from that position, they hoped ex- Montpellier striker and Ligue 1 top goal scorer, Oliver Giroud, would fill his boots - but the Frenchman has suffered from bouts of inconsistency.  Giroud’s highest goal tally for Arsenal, in his debut season, scoring sixteen goals, which isn’t the worst record but compared to previous title winning strikers, it’s clearly not good enough to win you a Championship.

There was, at some point, the remote possibility of Arsenal singing Real Madrid hit man, Karim Benzema, but all rumours were dashed in one fell swoop after the Frenchman tweeted those who dared discussed his move away, referring to them as “clowns”. More bad news for Arsene. The Gunners are in major need for a main man up top, they need a Thierry Henry, an Ian Wright, and someone with that strong presence. Worryingly, Arsene Wenger isn’t close to signing a forward saying “I cannot say I am very confident [Of landing one of those specific targets] because we are not close to signing anybody”, giving Arsenal fans doubts of their title ambitions.

Despite Arsenal’s somewhat predicable start to the season, people shouldn’t be ruling them out this early. There is an incredible squad in there, but if they were to really challenge for the title this year, they would need to sign a box office striker in these final days of the transfer window.

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