Borja Mayoral isn’t a long-term solution for Arsenal, but all they need is for the Getafe striker to maintain his goalscoring purple patch for a little bit longer.
Some will say Chelsea were hoodwinked; they will probably claim they knew they were taking a punt on a rough diamond. The fact is there’s no chance Chelsea would have signed Nicolas Jackson had it not been for eight games at the end of the La Liga season.
They spent £32m on a 22-year-old striker who had scored a total of 13 senior goals in 47 appearances because of a hot streak which saw him score nine of those goals in eight games. Had those goals been spread across the whole of last season, Chelsea wouldn’t have signed him. Had his purple patch been in February, rather than April and May, Chelsea also probably wouldn’t have signed him.
The jury is out on Jackson, whose return of seven goals in 19 Premier League games isn’t at all bad for a Chelsea striker, and pretty damn good for Jackson himself of course. It’s not yet clear whether Chelsea were duped by the hot streak or if they acted at the first sign of more consistent and prolonged goalscoring. Time will tell, because despite acting on the basis of form, Jackson is one for the future at Chelsea.
Arsenal have ulterior motives in their chase of a hot-streak striker.
There aren’t too many options out there to aid Mikel Arteta’s stuttering attack. And with neither the FFP leeway nor the desire to pay over the odds for Ivan Toney or Dominic Solanke in January, targeting someone like Borja Mayoral makes sense. Think Jermain Defoe to Sunderland from Toronto, rather than Luis Suarez to Liverpool.
They’ve reportedly offered Getafe £22m for the 26-year-old, who has scored 12 goals in 19 La Liga games this term – already his best ever league return, beating his previous high of 10 in 31 games for Roma in 2020/21.
Mayoral hasn’t historically been a prolific striker – last season he scored at a rate of roughly one every four games – but he’s bang in form right now, which is what has piqued Arsenal’s interest, with an immediate return on a January investment their requirement in an open title race.
Arteta will be hoping Mayoral will do what Jackson couldn’t, and carry his hot streak with him to his new club. That feels far more likely given there would be no break for Mayoral, whereas Jackson had a summer for ring rust to set in. And just as Jackson is finding at Chelsea, along with the misfiring Arsenal forwards, confidence is what matters in goalscoring.
Nicolas Jackson reacts after missing another chance for Chelsea.
Absent in them, presumably it’s coursing through Mayoral’s veins right now, and a big move to a Premier League giant should further increase it.
He’s a proper striker, in that he does most of his work between the posts, getting on the end of crosses and darting in behind the defence. Given the number of chances Arsenal create, Mayoral could score a hatful.
That said, he’s unlikely to be a long-term solution. There’s a reason he made just six league starts for Real Madrid having come through the academy, and was sent out on loan on six different occasions before joining Getafe permanently for £8m in 2022. He’s not a guy who’s going to score 20+ goals a season for the next five seasons. But he might get 10 in the remainder of this one, which would make him worth the outlay.
That’s if they can land him for £22m, which doesn’t look likely given the report claims Getafe will ‘hold out for closer to £39m’ – the sort of a middle-ground sum between a short-term and long-term solution that Arsenal should avoid as it could end up costing them the chance to sign the latter in the summer.
Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy is another option; an attractive one given his £15.2m release clause. But there will be stiff competition for his signature and also potentially a fear that his extraordinary hot streak has come to an end, with three goals in his last six Bundesliga games after his ludicrous start of 14 in eight.
Arsenal will hope they can get Getafe to lower their demands and that Mayoral barely notices the change in scenery if he does make the move. It’ll be paella for breakfast, lunch and dinner at London Colney and flamenco on the boombox at the Emirates. Anything to stoke the hot streak flames.
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