Journalist Charles Watts has claimed he wouldn’t be surprised if Arsenal don’t sign a striker in January to replace the injured Gabriel Jesus, just as they didn’t when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left.
Jesus picked up a knee injury whilst playing for Brazil at the World Cup and underwent successful knee surgery just days later.
The injury will keep him out for certainly the remainder of the World Cup and resumption of the Premier League season, with it reportedly being months until the 25-year-old is back in action.
This leaves Mikel Arteta with a severe headache on how to replace the irreplaceable with Jesus being the catalyst for their title push this season, leading to obvious murmurs that Arsenal will sort a replacement in the January transfer window.
However, Watts claimed on his YouTube channel that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Gunners remained patient and didn’t bring a new striker in, just as they reframed from doing last year when Aubameyang unceremoniously left.
(3:25) “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arsenal don’t do anything. That’s not [me] saying they’re not going to do anything
“But we’ve seen previous examples speak for themselves. Look at last January, Aubameyang was let go. Everyone, myself included, was like you’ve got to sign a replacement.
“You can’t let Auba go and not sign anyone, and they did exactly that. They let him go, they didn’t sign anyone. They stuck it out and they decided to wait because they didn’t want to bring anyone in for the sake of it,” Watts said.
TIF Thoughts on Watts’ comments…
It’s a huge loss for Arsenal but they do have to make sure they don’t upset the balance of their squad in the delicate position they’re in, making it understandable why Watts claimed this.
Jesus has been nothing short of a revelation in north London, he leads the way for assists and joint-second for goals amongst the squad, with seven and five respectively, his 7.59 average league rating from WhoScored is the highest at the club whilst his 1226 minutes are only topped by defenders William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes and goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.
It’s a similar position to what the Gunners found themselves in last year as Aubameyang forced his exit, the club held fire instead opting to trust Eddie Nketiah and bring in the Brazilian in the summer, a decision that has now paid off and saw the Englishman bag five in seven at the end of the league campaign.