Why Dušan Vlahović is the PERFECT forward for Arsenal!

PTSD warning for all my Arsenal fans out there. I apologise, but cast your minds back to the winter of January 2022, in which Arsenal were fighting for top four and fighting to sign Vlahovic from Fiorentina. It seemed like Mikel Arteta had earmarked the perfect striker to be part of his system and take this football club to the next level. Rumours were circulating and getting very intense in relation to the Serbian international and it seemed at one point that Arteta would get his man. Unfortunately, that same month you saw Vlahovic opt to stay in the Italian division or Serie A and sign for Juventus. I can't blame him. Juventus are a prestigious club as are Arsenal Football Club and that's another target that hit the dust, people. In the summer, we then signed Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City, who has obviously been a great player and helped revitalise the football club in his own way. While I think Gabriel Jesus has revolutionised Arsenal in his own way and he brings energy, technical now, stronger Bonito and all of those things, you could argue simply put, Arsenal got what they paid for. It would have been a lovely dream if with consistent first team football playing through the middle, spearheading Arsenal's attack, if he just needed a platform to score goals. Unfortunately, I think we've got what we've paid for and we've got exactly the player that was at Manchester City and that is a fighter. He's a fantastic player to have as part of the squad. Goals are not a strong point of Gabriel Jesus and they will never be. I mean, he makes the difficult look easy and makes the difficult, again, apologies, he makes the difficult look easy and he makes the easy look difficult. He's a bit of an enigma in that sense. Whatever way we shape it, Arsenal need a striker and we've been linked with Vlachovic once again. Could it be second time lucky as the rumour mill goes on again? Now, I'm a big fan of Vlachovic. You know, in fact, people, Arsenal have been scouting him from his days at Partizan Belgrade and life has come very quick. You know, life can change for anyone in an instance. Obviously, it's 2024 at this moment. You know, he actually joined his first Italian club Fiorentina in January of 2018. Maybe he has a theme for leaving clubs in January. I don't know. He was signed as a hot prospect with immense potential. Initially, naturally, he faced challenges adapting to the Serie A way of football and a He struggled to break into the first team immediately due to probably lack of experience at that top level and in part due to his age. It's very easy to forget this man is only 24 and that's something I think would tie him well at Arsenal. In his breakthrough campaign at Fiorentina, which was 2019-2020, he started to feature on a more regular basis and began to showcase his goal-scoring prowess. Despite that season Fiorentina having struggles, he emerged as one of the players bright, one of the team's apologies, bright spots scoring crucial goals and earning a lot of plaudits as you would. The following season, 2020-21, he became a pivotal member of their XI. He cemented his team, his place in the team as the main striker and a standout man in their starting XI and better yet one of the standout performers in Serie A. Vlahovic's goal-scoring exploits naturally garnered attention from around Europe with several top clubs reportedly interested in him and beginning to monitor him. He's broke numerous records in Italy where you look at one being he's the youngest foreign player to score 20 goals in a top Serie A season. Despite his team continuing to struggle, his performances continue to impress. He consistently found the back of the net and showcased his all-round ability as a striker. His contributions earned him recommendations and recognition as one of the top young talents in European football. He still is to this day and was praised for his composure, his physicality and his natural goal-scoring exploits and instincts and I would say he has a habit of scoring vital goals at vital moments and I think he is a mentality monster. Again, as he began to establish himself as Serie A's most prolific goal scorer, one of them Cristiano Ronaldo was in that division at a time as stated before in the vid in January of 2022, didn't join Arsenal and come over to the Premier League. He remained in Serie A and signed for Juventus, which is his alleged boyhood club. We'll never know the truth as to how intense Arsenal went for his signature, if there was ever any, you know, ability to prize him because when you look at his agents' comments around that time, it's very conflicting people. And again, you can't blame him for joining Juventus. They're one of the biggest clubs in Italy, one of the biggest clubs in the world and it is his first significant step in his career. It's a bit harsh to say that, you know, because it isn't in many aspects, but it highlights his progression since moving to Italy. Again, overall his time at Fiorentina could be characterised by steady growth and development from initially struggling to break into the first team to then evolving into one of Serie A's most exciting talents, leaving a lasting impact on the club before moving on to the next stage of his career. Now, we're going to continue this talk about Vlahovic and things like that, but I do think many people kind of disregard what Mikel Arteta, in truth, wants from a striker. And again, across the course of this video, you lot will offer thoughts and see if, you know, Vlahovic ticks all of these boxes. But as we know, in a Mikel Arteta system at Arsenal, the role of a striker is multifaceted. I can never say that word, allow me people, I'm trying, incorporating both traditional and modern elements of the position. Again, if we had a quick overview, naturally goal scoring, goals always win games. Doesn't matter if you're a false nine, whatever sort of striker, goals win games. It's lovely to have a striker in that regards, people. Spurs have had it with Harry Kane. We've had it with many a striker, the latest probably being a Bamiyan. City have never really lacked the ability to score goals, but they still went and got Haaland and maybe there's a correlation with signing Haaland. And for all the criticism that that talented striker is facing, you know, if he wants to leave City, come and join us. He did help them win the treble. So there has to be a correlation. A striker in Arteta system, I would define it to a degree of selfless, but the primary role, like anyone in the way that a defender's primary role is to defend, a striker's role is to score goals. Now again, defenders have to contribute in attack. Strikers have to defend. We're a very multifunctional system. Again, he's naturally going to have to make intelligent runs, find space in the box, be clinical when the time calls with his finishing, which our current players can't really do. He needs to be opportunistic, look for chances to pounce, pounce on loose balls, exploit defensive errors and ultimately convert goal-scoring opportunities. Then you tie into the link-up play in which Mikel Arteta emphasises a possession-based style of play, which requires the striker to be involved in the build-up phase, where I do think Vlahovic's build-up play is to a suitable standard, but it's not necessarily the best when you look at some existing options we have and also some other strikers we have been linked with people, but he can do it. If Arteta was intent on signing him once upon a time, he must have ran the rule and scouted him and identified his strengths, his weaknesses and areas of development and taken him from being a good striker now to being one of the elite strikers in the modern day, if he isn't defined as that already, people. The striker, as we know, acts as a focal point for the team's passing game, drops deep to receive, holds the ball up and ultimately involves and gets involved with his teammates in attack. You obviously need passing ability, vision, effective link-up play with the wingers and midfielders, good ball control and being able to win and draw fouls in that regard. We can't get away from the pressing. Arguably the most important facet of an Arteta striker is how they press, defensive forwards. It's a bit crazy, but if purely goal-scoring was all Mikel Arteta demanded from a striker, Trossart probably wouldn't play as a number nine, even though he's quite clinical and I define him as the best striker.