Football writer Charles Watts has claimed that Mikel Arteta’s long-term future at Arsenal could depend on the striker the club sign in the summer.
Going into the winter window, the Gunners seemed likely to bring in a new forward due to the contractual situations of Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah – who are both free to leave in the summer as it stands.
By the end of the month, however, the club had failed to make any signings in that department and had also seen Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leave the club to join Barcelona.
Discussing the matter on his YouTube channel, Watts explained that whoever the club go out and sign in the summer, the player will be ‘absolutely crucial’ to Arteta’s time in charge – and could define his future.
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He said: “‘The striker [situation] is a mess, Aubameyang has gone, Lacazette and Nketiah are out of contract. Basically, Arsenal are going to have no strikers in the summer.
“So they’ve got to go out and spend big on those strikers, it’s going to be absolutely crucial to Arteta’s success – if he’s going to have success – which is crucial, basically, to him staying in a job.
“So you can understand them not panic-buying. If you can’t get the players you want in January, then you wait and you try and get them in the summer when it might be easier to get them out of their clubs.”
TIF Thoughts on Mikel Arteta and Arsenal…
Under the Spaniard, the club have finished eighth in consecutive seasons and will hope to improve upon that this term. If the Gunners miss out on Champions League football, though, some may point to the absence of a key goalscorer as a factor to that.
Regardless, with Lacazette and Nketiah likely to leave at the end of the season, Arsenal may need to sign two or even three forwards this summer.
Two of the names who could possibly meet the criteria are Alexander Isak and Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Both men have been linked as key targets. However, it is also noted that to sign even one of those players would come at a great financial cost to the Gunners.
With that in mind, whoever Arsenal go out and buy, they will have to hit the ground running. If they fail to do so, Arteta could soon find himself in trouble.
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