Assessing Arsenal’s Transfer Targets: Higuain, Capoue & More…

With the opening of the summer transfer window upon us, Arsenal have been linked with their fair share of players in recent weeks. Here, ‘Gooner333’ looks are three players who’ve been touted as potential targets for Arsene Wenger and assesses their suitability.

Many big names have been linked with Arsenal this Summer, mainly due to the rumoured £70 million budget Arsene supposedly has to splash this summer. Here is a look at three potential Arsenal targets and what they would bring to the Emirates if signed.

Martin Skrtel 

For years Gooners have called out for a top centre-half to be signed with poor defending costing us big-time in the past. This year was a different story though. We have three excellent central defenders who, particularly during the second half of the season, have performed superbly to keep our European hopes alive.

Despite this, Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel has been linked with a move to north London recently and while there’s no denying he would be a great signing, but we need to be efficient with our money. There are areas of the pitch which are much weaker than the centre of defence, such as up front. If we splash a large amount of the budget on Skrtel, we will have less money available to spend on big name men who will have more of an influence.

Verdict: Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker and Thomas Vermaelen are three excellent central defenders so unless one of them leaves, I see no need for Skrtel.

Gonzalo Higuain

Since the departure of RVP there has been a real need for another World-Class striker who can bag 30 a season and Real Madrid’s Argentinian star Gonzalo Higuain is rumoured to be the man for the job. Surely this is a slightly risky signing though as he has no Premier League experience? Obviously he’d make an impact but we saw what happened to Olivier Giroud last campaign, he was scoring goals nearly every week to earn Montpellier the league title but when he came over to England it took him months to start getting into a rhythm and that amount of time could have cost us fourth, if it wasn’t for our goal-scoring midfield men.

Verdict: Higuain would be a decent buy but I’d prefer us to target a striker who’s got Premier League experience under his belt.

Étienne Capoue

As we’ve undergone our transformation from title contender to a side happy with fourth, our midfield is one area which has stayed reasonably strong. However, that does not mean we don’t need reinforcements. Etienne Capoue has been long linked with a move to Arsenal and I think he’s a must-buy. A holding player is a vital addition for next season as we failed to replace Alex Song when he was sold to Barcelona last summer and Capoue would be a great signing. The Frenchman shows great composure for a 24-year-old and is one of the few young stars who would not be intimidated by the Premier League.

Verdict: Please sign him up Arsene!

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What do you think Gooners? Would you like to see any other these three signed this summer? Thank you for reading and feel free to comment below.