On Tuesday evening, despite not being on the field themselves, Arsenal were crowned champions of England for the first time in 22 years.
As MilanNews write, the final whistle in Bournemouth’s 1-1 draw with Manchester City brought an end to a 22-year title drought for Arsenal, What does all this have to do with Milan? Well, one aspect helped make the difference: Viktor Gyokeres.
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Follow Arsenal’s lead
Arsenal have been flirting with the title for the past two or three years after years of obscurity, occasionally embellished by a few FA Cups or Community Shields. In the last three seasons, they have achieved three second-place finishes and it seemed that this curse would never be broken.
This year, one of the important upgrades carried out by sporting director Andrea Berta has been to invest heavily in Viktor Gyokeres. He is a modern centre-forward, at the peak of his career (27 years old), with a good amount of experience but above all a guarantee of plenty of goals each season.
Despite some difficulties at first, in the end the Swedish centre-forward has scored 21 goals in total this season: 14 in the league, five in the Champions League and two in other competitions. This year Arsenal won the Premier League and are in the Champions League final partly thanks to his goals.
Milan must take a leaf out of Arsenal’s book. The London club were missing that piece – a striker who could lead the way and provide a good number of goals – so they went out and invested to make sure that the issue was fixed.
Considering the level of Serie A, whose top scorer this year will likely finish with fewer than 20 goals, it really doesn’t take much. Obviously, everything must be relative to the Italian league and Milan, because a signing of over €60m feels like fantasy for Serie A clubs (though Gyokeres was linked).
Nevertheless, the Milan management must necessarily identify a striker who can score, a striker who isn’t a gamble and who isn’t a veteran looking for his last contract. They need a striker at the peak of his career who can put the ball in the back of the net. Then, they can think about winning.