by Simon Wright

Created on: September 08, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Arsenal have aspirations to regain their place as the premier team in English football. However, to be capable of being English league champions and also cope with the demands of the Champions League requires a strong squad, and this means have 4 or 5 world class forwards.

Arsenal lost their star striker, Thierry Henry, and brought in the Croatian international Eduardo Da Silva. This means they have a strike roster of Da Silva, plus Togo international Adebayor, Dutch international Robin Van Persie and young up and coming Danish international Niclas Bendtner. Da Silva, Adebayor, and Bendtner are all out and out centre forwards so that really just leaves Van Persie who can play in the hole between the midfield and attackers. This squad weakness has already meant that manager Arsene Wenger has had to play midfielder Hleb in this role this season.

Carlos Tevez would have given Arsenal that second option for playing just behind the main forward. He is also versatile enough to play out wide if need be. This, plus his undoubted pedigree and technical ability would have meant that he would have fitted in very easily with the Arsenal way of playing. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, he is also an out and out winner, a real plucky competitor, and this is an attribute that the current Arsenal squad is perhaps a bit short of.

There are 2 main reasons though why I think Arsenal didn't bid for Tevez. The first is the extremely shady dealings that went on last season when West Ham signed him. No-one seemed entirely sure who owned him and there was a very real prospect that the transfer could have dragged on for months and months. And secondly, he was perhaps judged too expensive. Wenger has a habit of picking up young talented players that most people haven't heard of. He gets them on the cheap and then they turn out to be world class, like Cesc Fabregas. Tevez is one of the most high profile players in world football so Man Utd had to pay a premium to get him and will have to fork out on quite inflated wages. I think he will do well for Man utd, but Wenger will probably continue to scour the world for a cheaper version!

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