Josh Kroenke asked Erling Haaland question as Edu tasked with nightmare Arsenal striker hunt

The perfect striker, do they exist? Yes, and their name is Erling Haaland.

Yet that does not help Arsenal in any way considering the Norwegian is already at their title rivals Manchester City with little sign of him leaving even for Real Madrid who decided instead to take on Kylian Mbappe. Haaland looks untouchable both on the field and off the market.

Yet, as Arsenal look to take on their juggernaut of a Premier League title challenger once again this season, Kai Havertz is the man seemingly tasked with being the primary striker for the Gunners. The German did not appear to be that player when he arrived last summer but has grown into the role throughout the previous campaign and his numbers have helped sway the argument in his favour.

Yet many still feel as though Arsenal could be in a better position had they opted to move for a different player. So I did what any self-respecting football writer would do… I asked the smartest minds available at short notice, Arsenal Twitter (Arsenal X doesn’t have the same ring to it).

In short, the question was: Of all the strikers Arsenal could have signed in the past three years, who would be starting for us right now? Now there is some nuance to this because naturally, some responses included names like the aforementioned Haaland who realistically is not an expectation that would have seen that happen – he was destined for City or Los Blancos and not Arsenal – especially with the Gunners at the time of his move being outside the Champions League.

The Swede finished the previous campaign with 39 goals and assists in 33 league games for Sporting CP, ridiculous. The issue for clubs appeared to be two-fold.

The first was his €100million (£84million) release clause which Sporting have zero need to negotiate on having signed only at the start of the previous season and the second is that at 26, this is the first season seeing Gyokeres in one of the better leagues and even then not one of Europe’s top five.

As someone with a soft spot for Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg, I watched Jonathan Soriano in his mid-to-late twenties rack up a goal tally of 155 in four seasons and were it not for European Golden Boot rules he would have been rivalling Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Yet no one decided to make a play for the Spaniard, concerned about his dominance in a league less competitive and at a club winning the title year after year.

The numbers for Gyokeres are crazy and frankly, if he repeats them again this season I think clubs like Arsenal would be mad not to consider a move for him. But as of this moment, there are legitimate arguments as to why they didn’t take the risk.

Another name is Victor Osimhen. Having just joined Galatasaray on loan until the end of the season there is already a narrative that this move in itself explains to some degree why no Champions League side made a switch for the player whose tally fell from the impressive 31 he recorded in Napoli’s title-winning season.

I’ve had many debates about why I feel Havertz is already a better fit than Osimhen with all the numbers to support it found in this article here. Yet for me, one of the more qualitative ways to discuss the fit is to look at what type of striker Mikel Arteta has enjoyed.

They have not tended to be archetypal number nines and instead play in a false nine role. We saw that with the desire to sign Gabriel Jesus who were it not for injury threatened to fulfil his potential seen at Manchester City.

Then comes in Havertz who when played through the middle has a league goal contribution record better than one-in-one – which, and I will die on this hill, is better than Haaland’s from last season… just saying. Arteta moved on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang because of a host of off-field reasons but there was certainly evidence that his style did not fit where the Spaniard was going and he moved Alexandre Lacazette on too soon after.

Another name that was indeed linked to Arsenal and there appeared to be a fair amount of interest in him at the time was Dusan Vlahovic. The Serbian joined Juventus instead in a move which never seemed realistic for Arsenal because of the then 21-year-old’s desire to join the Old Lady.

The numbers since then should perhaps make Arsenal fans smile. It is worth noting that Havertz had a non-penalty expected goal tally of 11.6 last season and outperformed this by scoring 12 non-penalty league goals.

This is a good benchmark when looking at any potential forward because it takes into account the striker’s capacity to score the chances they have been presented with regardless of who they play for. The argument of “Oh, well, if they played for Arsenal they would get better chances” does not work in the same way when looking at how they performed against their npxG.

When you’re up against Erling Haaland who in his first season scored 29 non-penalty goals in his first season with a npxG tally of 23 and this season already has six non-penalty goals from 3npxG… it gives you a sense of what Arsenal and Havertz are up against.

Back to Vlahovic, in his first full season for Juve, he scored eight non-penalty goals with a 7.3npxG. His second season 14 non-penalty goals against 13.3npxG and so far this season he has one non-penalty goal against 1.2npxg.

These are hardly Haaland-level numbers, neither are they Havertz-toppling numbers. It is also worth adding that the German claimed seven league assists in his first Arsenal season, the same number as Vlahovic has in all his two-and-a-half-plus league seasons at Juve.

Next up is Ivan Toney. A player said to be on Arsenal’s wish list for some time but one which faded prior to and certainly after his ban with betting breaches.