At a Glance:
- Arsenal interested in signing new striker
- Galatasaray’s Victor Osimhen on the radar
- Could be the club’s first choice striker in 2026/27
Arsenal’s issues up front have plagued the club for the past few seasons, with the problem specifically involving having a number nine that can smash in goals for the North London club.
12 goals in 32 Premier League games for the Gunners might seem like a good level of output for last summer’s star signing, Viktor Gyokeres, but it seems as if the Swedish striker has lost some form and proved pundit Jamie Carragher’s prediction about Gyokeres correct.
Despite the fact that there are positives regarding Gyokeres in his time at Arsenal, mostly in relation to his shot power, it appears as if another striker has captured the interest of Arsenal higher-ups—Galatasaray’s Victor Osimhen.
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Andrea Berta attended the Istanbul derby to watch Osimhen and other Galatasaray players
Victor Osimhen has scored four goals in his past four games for Galatasaray, including two goals against his club’s biggest rivals—Besiktas a few weeks ago and Fenerbahce this past weekend.
This now takes the Nigerian striker up to 13 goals and four assists in 20 Turkish Super Lig games, and his total goal total at Galatasaray in all of his games for the club to 51 goals in 67 games, over the past two seasons.
At only 27, Osimhen still has a few years of his prime left, even when considering he left Italian giants Napoli at the end of the 2023/24 season—despite lifting the Scudetto with the team, the relationship between player and club had broken down.
According to as, Arsenal sporting director Andrea Berta travelled to Turkey to watch Osimhen as well as two other Galatasaray players, 25-year-old winger Baris Alper Yilmaz and first-choice goalkeeper Ugurcan Cakir.
It is also understood that Osimhen is high on the list of Arsenal targets heading into the summer.
Would Osimhen be Arsenal’s first-choice striker?
With the Nigerian valued at £65 million according to Transfermarkt, Osimhen’s addition to Arsenal would not be a cheap one. But if the Gunners can keep Gyokeres at the club, it would mean Arsenal have two elite attackers for two different types of game state.
Perhaps Osimhen is more suited to the Premier League than Gyokeres, with the Nigerian international having a better understanding of how to use his physicality and how to be an effective goal poacher, while Gyokeres drifts in and out of half spaces, hoping to drag defenders out of position with cunning runs.
If Gyokeres were to depart after one season, that could also make sense, given that the Swede has not had the easiest start to life in North London. A sale would mean that Osimhen and Havertz, who have very different styles of play, could rotate in and out for each other depending on the opponent.
