Deal Completed: Arsenal hijacked Chelsea’s top transfer, agreed personal terms with a goalscoring winger as the superstar arrives in London to complete his medical today
Next season is undoubtedly going to be the most important one for Mikel Arteta since he took the Arsenal job over five years ago.
The Spanish coach has transformed the club from one spiralling down the Premier League table into genuine contenders, but he needs to lead them over the final hurdle next year.
Fortunately, Andrea Berta and his team have been hard at work this summer, bringing in some brilliant, potentially game-changing additions, such as Viktor Gyokeres and Martin Zubimendi.
However, the teams around the Gunners are also strengthening, and it looks like cross-London rivals Chelsea are about to get their hands on the exciting Xavi Simons, although if reports are to be believed, Arsenal are eyeing an international who’d be an even better signing.
Arsenal target massive Simons upgrade
If we go back in time just a few weeks, it was unclear where Simons would be ending up this summer, as among other teams, Arsenal were fairly heavily linked with him.
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However, it now looks like the RB Leipzig star will be heading to West London to join up with Chelsea for a fee of around £61m before the window comes to a close at the start of next month.
While losing out on such an exciting player is undoubtedly far from ideal, the Emirates faithful should not worry, as it now looks like the club is eyeing another dangerous attacker, an international who’d be a far better signing than the Dutchman.
At least that is according to a recent report from TEAMtalk, which claims Arsenal are very much interested in Ademola Lookman.
The report has revealed that, while Inter Milan are stepping up their efforts to sign the Nigerian ace, the North Londoners remain an interested party, and as Atalanta announced that he wouldn’t be allowed to join another Italian side, they may just be best placed to pounce in the coming days.
In terms of how much the former Everton ace might cost, the report claims that a fee of around £43m could be enough to get things moving, which could be something of a bargain and help make the case he’d be a better signing than Simons.
Why Lookman would be a better signing than Simons
So, the first advantage that Lookman has over Simons is actually his age, as Arsenal do not need another project player at this point; they need someone who’s playing their best football to come in and help them win something.
At 27 years old, the Atlanta ace fits that category perfectly, especially considering research carried out by The Athletic suggests he is in his peak years while the Leipzig star is still at least four years from his.
The second significant advantage the Nigerian international has over his younger competition is his raw output over the last couple of seasons.
For example, since the start of the 23/24 season, the Wandsworth-born star, whom journalist Oma Akatugba described as “one of the best forwards in Europe,” has scored 37 goals and provided 17 assists in 85 appearances, totalling 5680 minutes.
That means he has maintained a simply sensational average of a goal involvement every 1.57 games, or every 105.18 minutes.
In contrast, the former PSV Eindhoven ace has scored 21 goals and provided 23 assists in 76 appearances, totalling 6231 minutes, which comes out to a still good, but less impressive average of a goal involvement every 1.72 games, or every 141.61 minutes.
Finally, the Atalanta star has already proven that he can handle the biggest stages and most pressurized games thanks to the hat-trick he scored against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2024 Europa League final.
