There have been reports lately that Chelsea’s released Samuel Eto’o Fils may be on his way to Arsenal. The reports went further to claim the high rated ( well, used to be ) striker and his representatives are currently in talks with the gunners. How true the reports are I do not know but do Arsenal need him?
Samuel Eto in his hey days was a world beater, goalscorer of the first Barcelona goal against us in the champions league final in 2005 and scorer of many title winning goals. Talking of the best strikers in his days, he definitely rank among the top 10 however, Arsenal do not need today’s Eto.
At 32, he has lost a yard of pace and he is no longer as reliable as he was when he was with say Barcelona or even Inter Milan. Arsenal surely need a new striker but if we must buy a striker, we should not be buying a stop gap which is what signing Eto at 32 years will be.
Aside the fact that he is ageing, his one year spell at Chelsea has shown that he is not able to cope with the demands of the EPL – due largely to his advancing age. Another reason why I think Arsenal should not sign Samuel Eto is the fact that although he will come on a free transfer, is very likely to command a big sign on free and big wages. Although it will be a free transfer, it will not be surprising if we end up spending as much as 7m pounds on both wages, agent fees and sign on fees just to sign a player who will only offer us one year.
This amount of money in my opinion can be better spent. There is no point signing Eto this summer and then be back in the market next summer looking for a striker again.
Another reason why I will be disappointed to see Eto at Arsenal is the fact that we have so many strikers who are better than the current Eto and are available for the right price. For instance, PSG will likely sell Cavani if they can get a bid of 30m pounds and above for him as having bought David Luiz from Chelsea and eyeing other players, they will need to sell some “unwanted” players to balance their books or risk the hammer of FFP hitting them harder than it already did.
Aside Cavani, Swansea’s Bony is also available ( if we are willing to pay the right price ) so also is Jackson Martinez, Manduzkic, Morata and even Carlos Vela. All of these strikers are better than today’s Samuel Eto and bar Cavani will cost little in terms of wages.
Arsenal can not afford to miss the opportunity of signing any of the aforementioned strikers because if they move away from their clubs to other clubs in this summer’s transfer window, they will become harder to get.
Financial fair play and other factors have given us a massive opportunity of getting the players we hitherto could not get and we can not afford to miss out on such an opportunity all in the name of signing an ageing Samuel Eto.
No to Samuel Eto.
What do you think?
