The £55m January signing Mikel Arteta should go after to help Arsenal beat Manchester City to the league title

Arsenal have a nearly complete team as they look to wrestle the Premier League title from Manchester City. The club have come close in back-to-back seasons, finishing five points and and then two points adrift of the Citizens in 2022/23 and 2023/24, respectively.

The Gunners had the meanest defence last season, conceding only 29 goals compared to Manchester City’s 34, which shows they didn’t fall short because of their defence. In attack, Manchester City scored five more goals than Arsenal, partly because their leading marksman, Haaland, netted 27 goals. That was a dip in form compared to the 36 he scored in the previous season.

In the two seasons Arsenal finished second, their top scorer wasn’t a centre forward, and neither reached double figures. Martin Ødegaard netted 15 in the 2022/23 season, while Bukayo Saka scored 16 in the 2023/24 season. In a gruelling marathon like the Premier League, you need a player who can turn a 0-0 draw into a 1-0 win when the going gets tough. That’s a player Mikel Arteta currently lacks in his team; he can’t rely on his creators to score all the time. Gabriel Jesus has struggled to lead the line, battling injuries and missing sitters.

The Gunners need a prolific striker; they need their own Haaland and should target Viktor Gyökeres. According to FourFourTwo he would cost them only £55million. The Swede has been on fire for the past three seasons. His numbers are impressive. Gyökeres has proven to be a good finisher, a profile Arsenal needs. Some big European clubs were sceptical of his 29 goals in 33 games for Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese league last season, thinking it might be a fluke. However, Gyökeres has started this season strong with eight goals in 11 league games and one goal in two UEFA Champions League matches, including one against Lille, a team that even Real Madrid struggled to break down.

Gyökeres wouldn’t be new to English football, having scored 17 and 21 goals for Coventry City in the 2021/22 and 2022/23 Championship seasons before earning his €20 million move to Portugal, a record fee paid by Sporting Lisbon.

With 17 goals in the Championship in 2021/22, 21 in 2022/23, 29 in the Portuguese league in 2023/24, and eight in 11 this season, he is clearly peaking. Arsenal would be getting him at his best should they sign him in January.

The Championship is a very tough league, and players who excel there often do well when they make the jump to a better team in a higher league. Morgan Rogers is proving this at Aston Villa.

Of course, the Championship and the Portuguese League, where Gyökeres has excelled, aren’t on the same level as the Premier League, but both leagues are excellent talent pools for the Premiership. Quality is quality; it all depends on how Mikel Arteta intends to use him to harness his greatest strength: finishing.

Arsenal need a finisher and must make a move in January. Arteta should trust Gyökeres’s finishing prowess. To never try is the ultimate failure, and he needs to at least attempt to secure a potent finisher to go toe-to-toe with Manchester City.