I sort of did my musings on Lacazette yesterday (you can have a read here if you like) so I won’t labour on the official announcement from the club yesterday that he’s on his way out when his contract expires. instead we look to the future and that future could go in any direction based on what’s been written right now on our need for a new striker. We’ve all talked about Jesus, Calvert-Lewin has been mooted as an option, Tammy Abraham too, but there was a new name I read yesterday that made me wonder about what are are after. The chap is Gianluca Scamacca and he plays for Sassuolo. I will not pretend to know anything about him but his numbers seemed decent – 16 in 38 games this season – and he certainly seems the right age, at 23 years of age. He’s made four appearances for Italy since September last year and to all intents and purposes this feels like a decent sort of move for a player who appears to have had a good season. It’s pleasing too to read that he’s six foot four. You look at Calvert-Lewin, Abraham and now this lad Scamacca and it appears clear to me that we’re looking for that big, strong, physical presence. we’ve also been linked to Oshimen from Napoli too, who’s six foot two but apparently a big physical presence.

The weird thing is the Gabriel Jesus rumour then, because he’s not that physical target man. Every player we’ve been linked with has looked like a big, athletic, physical presence. Jesus presses high, he is quick and will no doubt be an upgrade on Lacazette for sure, but given we’re being linked to so many of these big, imposing, centre forwards, the Jesus stuff – which is also the strongest – also appears to be the one that sticks out. Gabriel Jesus is five foot seven.

Then I start to wonder if we are after Jesus and one more. Maybe we are. Maybe Arteta realises that we need different options to unlock defences and that’s why we need to think about having two players come in. I am starting to think we’ll go for two strikers.

But if we go for Jesus and get him, then we get another big centre forward, why have we supposedly gone big on a new deal for Nketiah? If we sign Jesus and then don’t bring somebody in that is big and physical, does it seem like we actually don’t have much of a plan in place?

The Gianluca Scamacca transfer rumour won’t go anywhere. The noises are that he wants to stay in Italy, Italians don’t tend to leave Serie A and even when they do, they are more often that not good travellers. But what the rumour does is at least point us in the direction of a plan and what Arsenal are looking for. It’s just that the Gabriel Jesus stuff makes a little less sense when in context with everyone else that we’re rumoured with.

I’m sure there is a clear plan. I seem to recall Arteta talking with a lot of clarity over knowing what we need to do. So it seems from the messaging is that we know exactly what we want. That’s good and maybe some of these rumours are just agent talk to drive a better deal for a player. Linking a player to The Arsenal can be quite lucrative for agents and we’ve seen it happen before down the years.

Elsewhere there are some international matches happening at the moment and apparently Saliba played last night for France against Denmark for the last 30 minutes, supposedly at fault for the goal that won Denmark the game. Hey, it’s a one-off situation, it happens and I’m sure Saliba will get over it, but maybe it just puts a few of us back down to earth when he arrives and is reintegrated back in to the Arsenal squad. He needs to come in, play games and slowly build his confidence and hopefully we can have a player who goes on to have a good future for us. But he won’t come in to The Arsenal and be the second coming of Tony Adams and perhaps little glimpses of him being a talented, young, player but still with an occasional error in him, will bring us all back down to earth a bit.

Elsewhere it appears as though Emile Smith Rowe got on the scoresheet for the under 21s. That’s good to hear. As long as he continues his good form and can bring that in to next season, that’d be a-ok with me. He does probably need some time to recharge as he picked up a few niggly injuries in the second half of the season, but it’s probably good to give him a few more minutes for the U-21s before sending him off on his holidays.

I don’t think i’ll bother going in to any more detail over any of the other internationals that have either happened or are going to happen. Mainly because I don’t really care. So with that in mind I’ll leave you be for another day and wish you well as you enjoy your Saturday.

Back tomorrow with more Arsenal musings.