Wednesday, 5th October, 2011
Arsenal need to sign a traditional striker one of Arsene Wenger’s former charges has claimed.
The Gunners may have Robin van Persie spearheading their attack, but for Nagoya Grampus head coach Dragan Stojkovic, that is not enough and Wenger needs to seriously look at strengthening his strikeforce.
Stojkovic played under Wenger when the Frenchman managed in Japan in the mid-1990s and has taken many of the Arsenal boss’ ideas into coaching himself.
Indeed, the Serb’s work has met with such approval from Wenger that the Arsenal manager even suggested the 46-year-old could be his eventual successor at the Emirates.
"I would love Stojkovic to be my successor, there are a hundred reasons for that", Wenger was quoted as saying earlier this year.
But now, in the wake of the Gunners’ mixed start to the new English Premier League season, the Arsenal manager is being given advice by Stojkovic and, like so much of it of late, it is a call to take to the transfer market.
"He needs a real striker, who is expensive of course", said the Nagoya boss.
"Robin van Persie is not a real striker, Andrei Arshavin is not a real striker.
"Emmanuel Adebayor was a real striker, but they decided to sell him for a lot of money."
Whether Wenger will heed his coaching student’s plea is unclear, but the Arsenal manager has time to plot his next move ahead of the January transfer window.
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