Raheem Sterling’s move was a classic case of reacting to an opportunity.
Arsenal didn’t go into the summer window thinking about signing him, Edu openly admitted that himself when he spoke to the club’s media team soon after the window shut. But having been unable to add to their attacking depth, the opportunity was there just before the deadline to try and do a deal with Chelsea because of Sterling’s situation and Arsenal took full advantage of that.
In the end you have to say that it looks like a great piece of business by Arsenal. Ultimately though, it will be judged on how well Sterling does while he is with the club.
But on the face of it Arsenal have landed themselves an excellent player, who can play anywhere across the frontline and who has the experience of winning four Premier League titles under his belt. And they have done it without having to pay a loan fee, without being tied into any sort of obligation to make the move permanent and by committing to only paying a fraction of his wages. It’s Chelsea who will still be covering the majority of them.
So there’s no doubt it’s a good deal for Arsenal. The key thing is though that they need Sterling to rediscover his best form during the year that he is with the squad. Hopefully Mikel Arteta can find a way of doing that and the signs are good, given we know that Sterling credits Arteta for getting the best out of him while he was with Manchester City.
You look at Arsenal’s squad right now with the departures of Emile Smith Rowe, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah and with the injury absence of Gabriel Jesus, and it looks light in the attacking department. So Sterling needs to get up to speed quickly and needs to start making a difference.
His game does look well suited to Arsenal. We know Arteta’s side like to get into the box and cut balls back and there are not many wingers better and getting themselves in at the back post to finish off those types of chances. He will also provide much needed cover for Bukayo Saka, which will be crucial over the course of such a demanding season.
So I think it’s a good move for Arsenal.
It had started to look like they weren’t going to get anything done in terms of signing an attacker. Obviously Nico Williams was the player they would have loved to have signed, but that just wasn’t possible, so they had to react to what was out there.
Kingsley Coman was also linked late on, but I don’t know if there was any truth in that. His representatives were certainly doing all they could late on in the window to try and get his name out there to see if they could engineer a move.
There was lots of talk about Arsenal signing a striker during the summer, but I never got the impression that was something they were really looking to do once their move for Benjamin Sesko proved unsuccessful.
Sesko was a player they had tracked for a while and – thanks to his release clause – they felt he was available at a price that was under his actual market value. It was an opportunity they felt was too good to pass up. That’s why they tried to get a deal done, but I never looked at it and thought that if they signed him, that he would be coming in as first choice starter ahead of Kai Havertz. He was always more of a development signing. Someone who would get plenty of game time, but would be more of a squad addition at first rather than a starter.
So it wasn’t a case of Arsenal going into the window determined to sign a new centre forward. They were always quite happy with what they had. He was just someone who was possibly available that they felt was worth moving for. When it didn’t happen, I was always of the opinion that a winger would be more likely to arrive than a forward in what time was left of the transfer window.
What Arsenal’s move fo…
