Arsenal make contact to sign "world-class" 113m star who's like Haaland

Arsenal couldn’t quite get over the line in the Premier League or the Champions League this season, but there can be no doubt they took another step forward.

Mikel Arteta’s side produced the best defence and the second-best attack in the league, and while Bayern Munich knocked them out of Europe, they didn’t look out of place.

However, to take that final step and finally win something next year, they’ll need to do one better and produce the best attack in the league, and considering the latest player touted for a move to N5 has been compared to Erling Haaland, they stand a good chance of doing that.

Arsenal’s striker search

Arsenal have been linked to countless strikers this year, including Joshua Zirkzee, Santiago Gimenez, and Benjamin Sesko, who recently turned them down, but it would appear Edu Gaspar and Co have not been deterred.

According to a recent report from Italy, Napoli’s Victor Osimhen wants a move to the Premier League this summer, and Arsenal have made their first move to sign him, establishing contact with his agent.

Alongside the Gunners, the report claims that Paris Saint-Germain and teams from the Saudi Pro League are incredibly keen on the forward, while Chelsea have cooled their interest.

While the report does not mention a potential price, the Standard reported in March that Napoli would demand clubs pay the player’s full £113m release clause.

It would certainly be expensive to complete, and the interest from the Middle East could make it more so, but if Arsenal want to finally end their striker search, then there are a few better players to do that with than Osimhen, especially when he’s been compared to two-time Premier League golden boot winner Haaland.

How Osimhen would improve Arsenal and his comparisons to Haaland

Now, before comparing Osimhen to the Gunners’ current crop of forwards, let’s look at this comparison to Manchester City’s robotic goalscorer, Haaland.

The comparison comes from FBref, which looks at all the players in Europe’s top five leagues and creates a list of the ten most similar players for each one, and in the Nigerian’s case, the Norwegian is the ninth most similar striker across the five competitions.

Aside from the fact that they’re both brilliant goalscoreres, the pair’s similarities can be seen best in a number of their underlying numbers.

For example, their expected assists, actual assists, shots, shots on target, goals per shot and shot on target, goal-creating actions and ball recovery metrics per 90 are all incredibly similar.

With that said, how does Napoli’s “world-class” number nine, as dubbed by José Mourinho, stack up against the Gunners’ two primary strikers, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus?

Well, even though he scored fewer goals than he did last season, the former LOSC Lille superstar has a far more impressive output over the last two seasons.

For example, he’s scored 57 goals and assists in just 71 games since the start of last season, while Havertz has managed 31 in 98 and Jesus 34 in 69.

Ultimately, with a far more impressive track record in front of goal than the club’s current options and favourable comparisons to Haaland, Arsenal should be doing all they can to bring Osimhen to North London this summer, even if that means breaking the bank to do so.

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